Heaven Is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back (5 page)

Daddy? Colton looked at me earnestly.

What?

He gazed at me and didnt move his eyes from mine.

Daddy, you know I almost died.

Fear gripped me. Where did he hear that?

Had he overheard the medical staff talking? Had he heard something the surgical team said, despite the anesthesia? Because we certainly hadnt said anything about his being close to death in front of him. Sonja and I had feared he was at the brink, had known it after we learned his appendix had been leaking poison into his system for five days. But wed been very careful not to say anything in front of Colton that would scare him.

My throat closed, the first sign of tears. Some people freak out when their teenagers want to talk about sex. If you think thats tough, try talking to your preschooler about dying. Colton had been with me in nursing homes, places where people gave their loved ones permission to let go of life. I wasnt about to give my son permission to quit. We werent out of the woods yet, and I didnt want him to think that death was an option.

I willed my voice to remain steady and smiled at my son. You just think about getting better, okay, buddy?

Okay, Daddy.

Were here with you all the way. Were praying for you. I changed the subject. Now, what can we bring you? Do you want your action figures from home?

We hadnt been in the room long when three members of our church board arrived at the hospital. We were so grateful for that. Sometimes I wonder, what do people do when they have no extended family and no church? In times of crisis, where does their support come from? Cassie stayed with Norma and Bryan in Imperial until my mother, Kay, could drive up from Ulysses, Kansas. Bryans extended family lives in North Platte, and they came to help us too. Our church gathering around us in the eye of the storm would change the way Sonja and I approached pastoral visitation in times of trial and grief. We were faithful about it before; now were militant.

Soon, Sonja came back into the room and not long after that, Dr. OHolleran joined us. Colton lay quietly as the surgeon pulled back the sheet to show us the incision site, a horizontal line across the right side of his tiny belly. The wound was packed with blood-tinged gauze, and as he began to remove it, Colton whimpered a bit in fear. I dont think he could feel it yet, since he was still under the effects of the local anesthesia the surgical team had applied to the incision site.

Coltons insides were so contaminated with the poison of the ruptured appendix that Dr. OHolleran had decided it was best to leave his incision open so it could continue to drain.

Now the doctor spread the wound slightly.

See that gray tissue? he said. Thats what happens to internal organs when theres an infection. Coltons not going to be able to leave the hospital until everything thats gray in there turns pink.

A length of plastic tubing protruded from each side of Coltons abdomen. At the end of each tube was what the doctor called a grenade. Clear plastic in color, they did look a little like grenades, but they were actually manual squeeze pumps. The next morning, Dr. OHolleran showed us how to squeeze the grenades to drain pus from Coltons abdomen and then pack the opening with fresh gauze. For the next few days, Dr. OHolleran would arrive each morning to check the wound and pack the dressing. Colton screamed bloody murder during those visits and began to associate the doctor with everything bad that was happening to him.

In the evenings, when the doctor wasnt there, I had to drain the incision. Prior to the surgery, Sonja had been on puke patrol for nearly a week and since the surgery, at Coltons bedside every minute. But draining the pus was gory work and, for her, a bridge too far. Besides, it took at least three adults to hold Colton down. So while I squeezed the grenades, Sonja helped two nurses hold him, Sonja whispering soothing words while Colton screamed and screamed.

TEN PRAYERS OF A MOST UNUSUAL KIND

For another week after the emergency appendectomy, Colton continued to throw up, and we continued to pump poison out of his body twice a day using Dr. OHollerans rigging of plastic tubing and grenades. Slowly, gradually, Colton took a turn for the better. The upchucking stopped, his color returned, and he began to eat a little. We knew he was on the mend when he began to sit up and chat with us, play with the video game console the nurses had stationed at his bed, and even take an interest in the brand-new stuffed lion that Cassie had brought him several days before. Finally, seven days after we checked in to the hospital in North Platte, the medical team said we could take our son home.

The elevator doors had begun sliding shut when Dr. OHolleran appeared in the hallway and literally yelled for us to stop. You cant go! You cant go! His voice echoed in the tile corridor as he waved a sheaf of paper in our direction. Weve still got problems!

A last-minute blood test had revealed a radical spike in Coltons white cell count, Dr. OHolleran told us when he caught up to us at the elevator. Its probably another abscess, he said. We may have to operate again.

I thought Sonja was going to pass out right there. Both of us were walking zombies by then and had nearly reached our limit. Colton burst into tears.

Another CT scan revealed new pockets of infection in Coltons abdomen. That afternoon, Dr. OHolleran and his surgical team had to open up our little boy a second time and clean him out again. This time, Sonja and I werent terrified; the shadow of death had long since passed from Coltons face. But now we had a new worry: Colton hadnt eaten for something like ten days. He had weighed only about forty pounds to begin with, and now he had melted away so that his elbows and knees appeared abnormally large, his face thin like a hungry orphan.

After the surgery, I brought our concerns to Dr. OHolleran. He hasnt eaten more than a little Jell-O or broth in almost two weeks, I said. How long can a kid go without eating?

Dr. OHolleran placed Colton in the intensive care unit and ordered extra nutrition for him, administered through a feeding tube. But the ICU bed was as much for us as for Colton, I suspect. We hadnt slept for nearly as long as Colton hadnt eaten, and we were absolutely ragged. Putting Colton in ICU was the only way the doctor could get us to go get some rest.

Colton will be fine tonight, he told us. Hell have his own nurse at all times, and if anything happens, someone will be right there to take care of him.

I have to admit, those words sounded like an oasis in a desert of exhaustion.

We were afraid to leave Colton alone, but we knew Dr. OHolleran was right. That night was the first night since leaving the Harrises home in Greeley that Sonja and I spent together. We talked. We cried. We encouraged each other. But mostly, we slept like shipwreck survivors on their first warm, dry night.

After a night in the ICU, Colton was moved to yet another hospital room, and the wait-and-see cycle began all over again. When can Colton get out of here? When can we go home and be normal again? Now, though, Coltons bowels seemed to have stopped working. He couldnt use the bathroom, and hour by hour, he grew more miserable.

Daddy, my tummy hurts, he moaned, lying in bed. The doctor said that even if Colton could pass gas, that would be a good sign. We tried walking him up and down the halls to shake things loose, but Colton could only shuffle along slowly, hunched over in pain. Nothing seemed to help. By the fourth day after the second surgery, he could only lie on the bed, writhing as constipation set in. That afternoon, Dr. OHolleran came with more bad news.

Im sorry, he said. I know youve been through a lot, but I think weve done everything for Colton we can do here. Were thinking maybe it would be best to transfer him to a childrens hospital. Either the one in Omaha or the one in Denver.

Between us, wed managed something like five nights sleep in fifteen days. After more than two grueling weeks at Coltons bedside, we had nearly hit the road back to normalwith the elevator doors literally closing, our family inside with balloonswhen the whole thing crashed around us again. And now, our son was back in excruciating pain with no end in sight. We couldnt even see a horizon.

Just when we thought it couldnt get any worse, it did: a freak spring snowstorm was moving into the Midwest. Within a couple of hours, thick drifts of snow lay piled against the hospital doors and wheel-well high in the parking lots. Whether we chose the childrens hospital in Omaha, eight hours away, or Denver, three hours away, there would be no way short of an airlift that we could reach either one.

Thats when Sonja lost it. I cant do this anymore! she said and broke down in tears.

And right about then was when a group of people in our church decided it was time for some serious prayer. Church friends began making phone calls, and before long, around eighty people had driven over to Crossroads Wesleyan for a prayer service. Some were in our congregation and some from other churches, but they had all come together to pray for our son.

Brad Dillan called me on my cell to tell me what was going on. What, specifically, can we pray for? he asked.

Feeling a little odd about it, I told him what Dr. OHolleran had said would be a good sign for Colton. So that night might be the only time in recorded history that eighty people gathered and prayed for someone to pass gas!

Of course, they also prayed for a break in the weather so that we could get to Denver, and they prayed for healing too. But within an hour, the first prayer was answered!

Around 9 a.m., Dr. OHolleran came in to check on his patient. When he saw Colton up, smiling and chipper, and playing with his action figures, the doctor was speechless. For a long moment, he actually just stood and stared. Astonished, he examined Colton and then scheduled another round of tests to be triple-sure that Coltons insides were on the mend. This time, Colton literally skipped all the way to the CT scan lab.

We stayed in the hospital another day and a half just to be certain Coltons turnaround stuck. During those thirty-six hours, it seemed we had more nurses in and out than usual. Slowly, one at a time and in pairs, they would slip into the roomand each time, their reaction was the same: they just stood and stared at our little boy.

ELEVEN COLTON BURPO, COLLECTION AGENT

After we got home from the hospital, we slept for a week. Okay, Im exaggeratingbut not much. Sonja and I were completely drained. It was like we had just been through a seventeen-day almost-car-crash. Our wounds werent visible on the outside, but the soul-tearing worry and tension had taken its toll.

One evening about a week after we got home, Sonja and I were standing in the kitchen talking about money. She stood over a portable table next to our microwave, sorting through the enormous stack of mail that had accumulated during Coltons hospital stay. Each time she opened an envelope, she jotted down a number on a sheet of paper lying on the counter. Even from where I stood leaning against the cabinets on the opposite side of the kitchen, I could see that the column of figures was getting awfully long.

Finally, she clicked the pen closed and laid it on the counter. Do you know how much money I need to pay the bills this week?

As both the family and business bookkeeper, Sonja asked me that question regularly. She worked part-time as a teacher so we had that steady income, but it was a relatively small stream. My pastors salary was also small, cobbled together from the tithes of a small but faithful congregation. So the bulk of the earning came from our garage-door business, and that income waxed and waned with the seasons. Every couple of weeks, she presented me with the figuresnot only on household bills but on business payables. Now there were also several massive hospital bills.

I performed a rough tally in my head and offered her a guess. Probably close to $23,000, right?

Yep, she said, and sighed.

It might as well have been a million bucks. With me unable to work the garage-door jobs because of my broken leg and then the hyperplasia, we had already burned through our savings. Then, just when I was getting back into full swing, Coltons illness hit, knocking me out of work for nearly another month. We had about as much chance of coming up with $23,000 as we did of winning the lottery. And since we dont play the lottery, those chances were zero.

Do you have any receivables? Anything due you can collect? Sonja said.

She asked because she had to, but she knew the answer. I shook my head.

I can put off some of these, she said, nodding toward the envelope stack. But the tenth bills are definitely due.

Heres a great picture of how small a town Imperial actually is: folks have tabs or accounts they run at places like the gas station, the grocery store, and the hardware store. So if we need a fill-up or a loaf of bread, we just swing by and sign for it. Then on the tenth of the month, Sonja makes a fifteen-minute trip around town to settle up. Our tenth bills are one of the cool things about living in a small town. On the other hand, when you cant pay, its a lot more humbling.

I sighed. I can go explain the situation, ask for more time.

Sonja held up a sheaf of papers a little thicker than the others. The medical bills are starting to come in. One of them is $34,000.

How much will the insurance cover?

Theres a $3,200 deductible.

We cant even pay that right now, I said.

Absolutely, I said. God had just given us our son back; there was no way we were not going to give back to God.

At just that moment, Colton came around the corner from the living room and surprised us with a strange proclamation that I can still hear to this day.

He stood at the end of the counter with his hands on his hips. Dad, Jesus used Dr. OHolleran to help fix me, he said, standing at the end of the counter with his hands on his hips. You need to pay him.

Then he turned around and marched out. Around the corner and gone.

Sonja and I looked at each other. What?

We were both a little taken aback, since Colton had seen the surgeon as the source of all the poking, cutting, prodding, draining, and pain. Now here we were, just a week out of the hospital, and he seemed to have changed his mind.

Well, I guess he likes Dr. OHolleran now, Sonja said.

Even if Colton had found it in his heart to forgive the good doctor, though, his little proclamation in the kitchen was weird. How many not-quite-four-year-olds analyze the family financial woes and demand payment for a creditor? Especially one he never particularly liked?

And the way he put it too: Dad, Jesus used Dr. OHolleran to help fix me. Weird.

Even weirder, though, was what happened next. With $23,000 in bills due and payable immediately, we didnt know what we were going to do. Sonja and I discussed asking our bank for a loan, but it turned out we didnt need to. First, my Grandma Ellen, who lives in Ulysses, Kansas, sent us a check to help with the hospital bills. Then, in a single week, more checks started arriving in the mail. Checks for $50, $100, $200, and all with cards and notes that said things like, We heard about your troubles and were praying for you, or God put it on my heart to send you this. I hope it helps.

By the end of the week, our mailbox was full againbut with gifts, not bills. Church members, close friends, and even people who only knew us from a distance responded to our need without our even asking. The checks added up to thousands of dollars, and we were astonished when we found that, combined with what my grandmother sent, the total was what we needed to meet that first wave of bills, almost to the dollar.

Not long after Colton became a pint-size collection agent, he got in a little bit of trouble. Nothing huge, just an incident at a friends house where he got into a tug-of-war over some toys. That evening, I called him to the kitchen table. I was sitting in a straight-back chair, and he climbed up in the chair beside me and knelt in it. Colton leaned on his elbows and regarded me with sky blue eyes that seemed a little bit sheepish.

If you have a preschooler, you know it can sometimes be hard to look past their cuteness and be serious about discipline. But I managed to put a serious look on my face. Colton, I began, do you know why youre in trouble?

Yeah. Because I didnt share, he said, casting his eyes down at the table.

Thats right. You cant do that, Colton. Youve got to treat people better than that.

Colton raised his eyes and looked at me. Yeah, I know, Dad. Jesus told me I had to be nice.

His words caught me a little by surprise. It was the way he said it: Jesus told me . . .

But I brushed it aside. His Sunday school teachers must be doing a good job, I thought.

Well then, Jesus was right, wasnt he? I said, and that was the end of it. I dont even think I gave Colton any consequences for not sharing. After all, with Jesus in the picture, Id pretty much been outranked.