What Do You Do When Your Daughter Is in the ICU and Almost Dies?

“You’d better get over here right now. Things are very bad, and she might not make it.” I was sitting at my desk at work when my mother-in-law called from the hospital with this terrifying message. This was the scariest moment in my entire life.

Here’s the backstory.

Our sixteen-year-old daughter Stephanie was in the ICU at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA) with a terrible condition called Stevens Johnson Syndrome (SJS). In a nutshell, SJS is a rare, extreme allergic reaction to medication where the body literally burns from the inside out. The mortality rate is about 30%, and many of those who don’t die often experience permanent damage to their soft tissue including their eyes, mouths and lungs. Many lose their sight entirely. And Stephanie had a severe case with second degree burns on 75% of her body

She had recently started a prescribed sulfa antibiotic, and after a few weeks developed flu-like symptoms, strange sores around her mouth, other serious skin eruptions, and a life-threatening fever that reached 105.7 degrees. Our local ER transferred her to CHOA where she spent 20 days in the pediatric ICU, most of the time intubated and in a drug-induced coma. During her hospitalization, she nearly died three times.

Thankfully, the medical experts were able to identify and correct the problem that prompted my mother-in-law’s horrifying call, and Stephanie survived. She eventually recovered, albeit with eye damage and other significant, lasting problems. By God’s grace, she is doing reasonably well physically, and she and her husband recently welcomed their first child into the world. (I assure you, that boy will NEVER take a sulfa medication.)

Throughout this crisis, God made his presence known in a supernatural way. One question that many asked was how we could appear to be so calm in the midst of a parent’s worst nightmare.  All we could say was that somehow God sustained us emotionally.

I distinctly remember him telling me, “It will be alright.” He did NOT say, “SHE will be alright.” The message was, “IT will be alright.” We had no assurance that Stephanie would survive or that she would not have brain damage or go blind – real possibilities. But we DID have an uncanny sense of God’s presence.

Some wondered how we could trust God in this situation. I clearly recall thinking, “Why would I turn my back on God?” I could either scream at and curse him or run to him and cling to him in unprecedented ways. By God’s grace, despite all the emotional turmoil, neither my wife Annette nor I were ever seriously tempted to turn our backs on God.

I had always heard that God provides grace at precisely the moment we need it but not necessarily in advance. Corie Ten Boom, a saintly Dutch woman from a previous generation, once wrote that when she was a child traveling by train with her family, her father would only hand over her ticket to her at the last minute, just as she was about to board the train. This helped her see God provides – not necessarily by fixing our circumstances, but by assuring us of his presence – when we need it, and seldom before.

There is no guarantee that we will always be spared from tragic circumstances, but God does promise to be with us through even the worst of times:  “I will never leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews 13:5).”

I pray you never experience a similarly traumatic episode, but if you do I urge you to tap into the grace God offers in such pivotal times of trial. Annette and I can testify that it is real.