| Bernie Niguidula’s Story – God’s Hand At Work by Nadine Niguidula I had just arrived in the morning of October 30, 2003 from Dumaguete and attended the launching of the Centennial Celebration of the St. Paul of Chartres Congregation in the Philippines. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon, I received the news about my brother and I wasn't sure what was awaiting me. Truth to tell, I hadn't even heard of aneurysm! (I even spelled it incorrectly when I sent text messages to family and friends requesting for their prayers.) At ten thirty in the evening, with just one pair of shoes which I had on, I was on the plane to San Francisco. It must have been the longest flight I ever took. During the flight, all I could think about and prayed for was: "If it's God's will for my brother to go, please just make him wait for me as I'd like to pray for and pray with him. And I'd like Bernie to be able to forgive all those who have wronged him and forgive himself for the wrong choices he has made." I prepared myself to come to San Francisco and bring back my brother to Manila…for his funeral. I was picked up by my sister Kathleen and we headed directly to Stanford Hospital. For a couple of seconds, I stopped on my tracks. "There he is", Kathleen said as she led me to one of the beds in the ICU. I was stunned. "That's him?", I asked. My jaw dropped, I stared for a few more seconds…..I couldn't even recognize my own brother! His head was so swollen, there were all kinds of machines connected to him to keep him alive, tubes and wires attached to practically every part of his body, a body so cold and stiff that any part that I touched and held felt like a cold, lifeless being. I was filled with mixed emotions: anger, pity, frustration, sadness, hate, guilt, disappointment, compassion. It was then that I realized what it meant to "hate the sin, not the sinner", a worldview I knew intellectually but couldn't really get myself to put into practice. Now, I have. When visiting hours was over and my sister and I headed for home, all thoughts and questions filled my mind: I asked God, "What now?" I am a believer of things happening for a reason. That nothing happens by accident. There is a purpose in everything. It wasn't clear to me yet then but I knew there was definitely a reason why this happened. Bernie had Grade 5 aneurysm in the brain - Grade 1 being the mildest kind and Grade 5 the worst. According to the doctors, only 30% survive from this condition: of the 30% who survive, 30% eventually still don't make it, 30% survive but are on tubes for life, ie, a vegetable, and the remaining 30% live with disabilities. Bernie was admitted on October 22 when the seizure happened and it has been more than a week and he hasn't regained consciousness. They didn't want to give us false hopes and the doctors didn't mince words: They didn't think he was going to make it. Even if he did, he would be on tubes for life, a vegetable. Decision time for the family. A decision I definitely didn't want to participate in…but you have to do what you are called to do. The conference with the doctor was set at 5 o'clock in the afternoon of November 1. At 3 o'clock, I went to the chapel, burst into tears and had the loudest cry of my life. There was a prayer request notebook on which I wrote: "Dear God, today we are making a very difficult decision about Bernie. I ask you to please send your Holy Spirit to guide each and everyone of us in these trying times. We only want what's best for Bernie. Please, we ask the Holy Spirit to guide us in deciding what Bernie would have wanted. Please allow Bernie to speak to us and tell us what his wishes and desires are. Thy will be done O Heavenly Father. And as I have always prayed, if it's your will for Bernie to go, please, thank you for waiting for me and I ask you to touch his heart so he learns to forgive all the people who have hurt him and caused him pain, members of our family who have not provided the support when he was reaching out, and more importantly that Bernie learns to forgive himself for the choices that he has made which brought him to where and how he is now. There is a lot of healing that needs to happen and in your time Heavenly Father, we will all make peace and be at peace. Please grant us your grace to pull through and overcome this tragedy that befell our family. I know there is a purpose for everything. Nothing happens by accident. Everything happens for a reason. We ask this through the intercession of Mama Mary and in Jesus' name. AMEN." At 4 o'clock, an hour before our conference with the doctor, Kathleen and I carried on our hourly visits to Bernie at the ICU. We stood there staring at him, at this lifeless being. I communicated with him telepathically, through my thoughts. We held his hand and then suddenly, the unexpected yet much-awaited thing happened. While holding his left hand, we felt and saw his fingers moved!!! When asked to squeeze his hand, he did!!! Kathleen and I jumped for joy and planted a kiss on his hand and we said “Thank you Bernie. And thank you God.” If that's not the answer to our prayer, I don't know what that is. From then on, Bernie has shown signs of movements and responses. However, the doctors and nurses initially dismissed them as "reflex", a word I'd like to take out from the dictionary, if I can. As I told my sister Eileen, who herself is in the medical field, I understand what the doctors are saying and I respect that. I know they probably think that we're just imagining things given the state that Bernie was in. But while I do not have any medical explanation or scientific study to back up my claim, I just know in my heart, that what I have been feeling from Bernie is his response and way of communicating with us. When all the five senses are not there, and you just trust your gut feel, your inner voice, and when you allow your soul to communicate with another, no words or deeds are necessary. You just know it and you just feel it. After a few days, the doctors' diagnosis went from "being a vegetable and on tubes for life" to "having tubes for several months, possibly be either on a wheelchair or walking with a cane, speech will definitely be affected - either he won't be able to talk, or even if he would, he wouldn't be able to comprehend what we're saying to him or if he'll be able to comprehend what we're saying, he'll give us a totally out-of-this-world answer." As has been my standard response "God's will be done." After having fully surrendered my brother's life to God, now after almost three months, Bernie is talking, comprehending well, eating, walking a few steps in the bars (with assistance of course) and has only a condom catheter as he still couldn't go to the bathroom by himself. Being left-handed turned out to be another blessing. Quite similar to a stroke, the aneurysm affected his right side which is still weak at the moment and is being addressed by therapy. The surgery was performed at the back of the left eye, hence, his vision has also been affected. He can only see shadows and movements and is still inconsistent with colors. And as with brain-injured patients, controlling his temper and anger remains a challenge. (Although prior to the injury, Bernie was already a difficult person to begin with. Unfortunately, the injury just made it worse. ) Otherwise, Bernie is recovering quite well and amazes all the hospital staff! God surely didn't bring Bernie to Stanford Hospital, the best hospital for neurosurgery for nothing. He was even operated on by no less than Dr. Gary Steinberg himself, the Chief of the Neurosurgery Department of Stanford!!! Yet it's funny that there came a point when the doctors at Stanford refused to give me any more diagnosis. Dr. John Sinclair, the fellow surgeon who assisted Dr. Steinberg during the surgery said: "I don't want to give you any more diagnosis. Because I know, in the end, you're going to prove us wrong again. And yet this is one good time to be wrong.” And when I asked Dr. Robert Dodd, another member of the medical team, if Bernie’s vision would come back, he said “It’s possible it will. It is also possible it won’t. But with you and your brother, anything is possible. Remember when we first met, we told you we didn’t even think he was going to be alive!” To which I replied, "Anything and everything is possible with God." Since the day I arrived and all throughout the duration of his stay at Stanford, I've been by Bernie's side and I promised him and I promised God I will do whatever I can to take care of him. I prayed for him, performed reiki (universal life force energy) healing, made him listen to gospel music, gave him a massage, bathe him, fed him…the works! However, caring for a sick (and in the beginning a dying) person every single day, from morning till evening can be very draining. There definitely were times when it became unbearable, I would lose my patience and want to give up. Then I’d turn to God for strength. And again I know this isn’t and couldn’t be just human strength. We are all just instruments of God's power and magnificence. The past 3 months haven't been easy. It's been tough, difficult and stressful for me, and for the rest of our family. Yet, I am doing this because in my heart, I know this is what God wants me to do. And in my own private conversation with God, I would just smile and say "God, now I know why you haven't given me a husband yet. I also know why you made me retire so early from the IT industry and after 3 years of retirement, you haven't given me my second career yet. Because looking after my brother was something awaiting me." God's time is indeed perfect! And perhaps too, and hopefully, some friends are right when they said that while caring for my brother, God will bring me my husband, who knows!!! God has been giving our family miracles much much more than we ever asked for or imagined. It’s still a very long road ahead and, as with anything in life, no one knows what’s at the end. I continue to just take one day at a time, live the moment, and remind myself to count my daily blessings. For a long time now, I have stopped asking and have just been thanking God for all the blessings he has been giving us. Indeed, this incident is teaching all of us a lot of lessons and insights, no matter how painful some of them are. What I pray for now and what I request for you to pray for is for God to continue to give us the strength (especially my Mom who has actually been the source of my strength) and to guide us to listen and heed his call, interpret and follow his message. I have also learned a very powerful prayer that says it all, a prayer shared by a dear friend just before I took my flight: "God, only your will. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else." May God continue to bless us all!!! And again, thank you for all your prayers and support! Back to Nadine's Thank You Message Back to News |