An angel brings hope

Congress has a whole lot of religious folks but do they have angels?

Last night I got a scary phone call from my mom, on her way to the hospital, because somehow my cousin had fallen on a clothing pole at work and it had gone into his eye.

By luck, a miracle, or an angel, the pole missed anything major. There was no damage to his eye, brain, skull, nerves, or blood vessels. He ripped up his eye lid and required stitches but, overall, an incredibly lucky guy.

It seems this girl in the Charlotte area may have had some angelic intervention:

Photo captures image of an 'angel' in Charlotte hospital
In dark time, mom of Mint Hill teen sees light of
hope

By Jane Duckwall - Special Correspondent to the Charlotte Observer
. . .
What originally seemed like a bad cold nearly killed her. “She was on life-support from the moment she got there,” her mother said.

That was Sept. 21. Over the next six weeks in the hospital, Chelsea faced one threat after another: pneumonia in her left lung, then her right lung, then sepsis, blood clots, staph infections, E. coli, a collapsed lung and feeding problems.

In late October, doctors met with the family to discuss “a plan of action,” Colleen said. One of the decisions she had to make was whether she would take Chelsea off the ventilator. Earlier, doctors had removed Chelsea from the ventilator several times, but had replaced it when the struggle to breathe became too difficult for the teen.

But a family meeting Oct. 31 was a turning point. “At that point, the family… agreed that when she did come off the ventilator again, (they) weren't putting it back in,” Colleen said. “Whatever happened, would happen.”

On Saturday, Nov. 1, “they took her off the ventilator and she did good,” her mother said. “She was breathing on her own.”

The next day, “her stats went down,” and doctors put her in an oxygen mask.

But over the next few days, Colleen noticed her daughter “wasn't getting better. Things were kind of lingering.”

And Chelsea, who had been having anxiety attacks and crying throughout her hospital stay, was having more of them. “I said, ‘She's been through enough,'” Colleen remembers. “I said, ‘Can we just take her mask off? She's been through enough.'

“I wanted to do what the Lord wanted me to do. And I really felt like I've had her for 14 years, and if it's time for her to go to heaven, then I know she'll be healed.”

The mask didn't come off immediately, though. They waited until family members had a chance to come to see Chelsea – perhaps for the last time.

On the afternoon of Nov. 5, as family and friends prayed about the decision, a nurse practitioner called Colleen's attention to a monitor showing the door to the pediatric intensive care unit.

“On the monitor, there was this bright light,” Colleen recalls. “And I looked at it and I said, ‘Oh my goodness! It looks like an angel!” Colleen pointed her digital camera at the monitor to take a photo of the image, but the “first picture wouldn't take.” She tried again and succeeded. The image gave her a peace that stayed with her when hospital staff removed Chelsea's oxygen mask.

And then, “when they took the mask off of her, her stats went as high as they've ever been. “Her color was good, and the doctors and nurses were amazed,” Colleen said. “The nurse practitioner who saw the image in the monitor said, ‘I've worked here 15 years, and I've never seen anything like it.'”

Chelsea was removed from intensive care on Nov. 14 and went home three days later.Her mother believes it was a miracle – attended by a very real angel bathed in light at the door to the pediatric intensive care unit.
. . .
On Christmas Day, Chelsea will turn 15 – another miracle considering all of the medical trials she's faced, according to her mother.

“I'm learning,” Colleen Banton said, “that every day she's alive is a miracle.”

Read the full article and see the pictures here.