Today’s story is inspired by a true story, as well as by my Dad. In 2015, a Houston man by the name of George Pickering had a son in a local hospital who was declared to be brain dead by the hospital staff. The doctors and administrators began the process of pulling George’s son off of life support and withdrew his feeding tubes against his father’s wishes. George was convinced his son was still alive and would eventually wake up. As the doctors commenced the process of terminating his son’s life support, George comes into the room with a gun and forces everybody out, declaring he wouldn’t let the hospital kill his son. George stayed with his son and the police and SWAT team were called and a standoff ensued which lasted for several hours. George’s oldest son was brought in and he managed to speak to his father and persuaded him to put the firearm down. As George was getting ready to surrender and saying his goodbyes to his comatose son, the boy squeezed his hand on command - he was alive. He ended up making a full recovery. Were the doctors wrong in their prognosis or did a miracle in fact occur? This story explores this emotional issue a bit. For the record, I’ve fictionalized some aspects of this story but the core elements are true. I’ve changed the names of the characters and setting to reflect this fictionalized version of the story.
My brother and two sisters and I have been fortunate enough to have been blessed by the best father anyone could ever have. As I researched and read about Mr. Pickering, I kept seeing my dad - I could see him doing the exact same thing in order to protect any of us. Our dad is the kind of guy that has always done whatever it takes to provide for his family and to look out for each of us. He would fight through the gates of hell itself if that’s what it took to bring us back home. Like the title in this story, a father’s love can be enough to show us a light in even the darkest of nights and that light remains with us, for eternity. I hope you enjoy the story.
A Father’s Love is Enough
By: Larry B. Litton Jr.
I have been a medical doctor for nearly thirty-five years and a Texan for three years. My neighbor, this amicable, yet slightly annoying fellow named Randy Richardson loves to tease me about coming from Canada.
“Doc Eggers,” Randy said to me one day. “Just because you live in Texas and happen to have a shotgun or two don’t make ya a Texan.”
“Why not?” I asked him. “My permanent residence is in Texas. I can vote in Texas. I even bought a horse and a truck.”
Randy chuckled.
“Say ‘about’,” he said.
“What?” I asked him, having no idea what he meant.
“Say about,” he said again. “Say the word.”
I say it. It comes out “Aboot.”
Randy starts laughing like a crazy man.
“See what I mean?” he said, still laughing. “Texans don’t talk like that. You ain’t ever gettin’ a Texan woman if ya talk like that doc.”
I shoot him the finger and he patted me on the back.
“It’s alright,” he said. “Just keep hanging out with me and I’ll turn ya into a shit-talking Texan in no time.”
Dallas is my home now. I’m head of the neuro-science department at Dallas Metro Hospital. I spent the first thirty years of my career in Calgary and my specialty was brain and neurological disorders. Randy once asked me if I’d ever seen any bona fide miracles and up to that point in time, the answer was a resounding no. I’d never witnessed a single one. I’d never even seriously considered the possibility if I’m being perfectly honest. You could say I had my feet firmly planted on the ground of the materialist world view. I believed in cause and effect, action and reaction. Nothing happened in this world that we couldn’t explain and if for some reason we couldn’t fully explain it, it was only because we lacked all the information we needed. My mother and father were both doctors and I was raised in a secular home and the only God we worshiped was the God of science. The very idea of some type of outside agency from beyond our material realm acting upon the world always seemed silly to me. I’ve seen lots of people die over the years and never once did I witness anything approaching the paranormal. I did run into numerous patients who experienced near death experiences, but I never took their stories seriously. The brain does funny things when under stress and I always chalked their experiences up to oxygen deprived neurons firing out of desperation, nothing more.
One day Randy and I were having a beer on his back patio, and he asked me about a news story he’d seen about Canada passing the most progressive euthanasia law in the world. I told him I knew a thing or two about that law and that I had served on a medical board that drafted the rules and regulations related to the Canadian Maid program. Maid stands for Medical Assistance in Dying. The program provided Euthanasia services to people who suffered from terminal illness.
“You mean if a guy is dying of cancer and can’t be cured the government kills him?” Randy asked.
“Of course not,” I said. “The patient has to request it.”
“What if the patient requests a million dollars? Do ya’ll give ‘em that?”
“That’s a ridiculous question,” I said.
“Why?” he said. “You grant one wish but not the other.”
“Use some common sense,” I said. “He’s in pain. There’s no cure. He knows he’ll be a financial burden on his family and rest of society, so he chooses to end his life with dignity.”
“Aha,” Randy said. “So, You kill ‘em to save money. I guess that’s one way to drive your medical costs down.”
“You’re being a wise-ass,” I said.
Randy flashed a mischievous smile. But he did have a good point. I didn’t admit this to Randy, but we figured out that when a patient chose the MAID program, it saved the government of Canada an estimated $75,000 per person in future medical expenses.
“How many people does the government euthanize in a year?” Randy asked.
“Fifty-thousand last year,” I said.
“Wow,” Randy said. “Who decides if they’re terminal?”
“A doctor of course,” I said.
“What if they’re wrong?”
“Medical science has evolved to the point that we know to a virtual certainty if a patient is terminal or not,” I said.
“Virtual certainty ain’t the same as absolute certainty,” Randy said. “They could end up killing a guy over a wrong diagnosis.”
“That’s why we have rigid controls in place,” I said. “To eliminate the chances of being wrong.”
“You have a lot more faith in the government than I do,” he said.
“Why do so many of you Texan’s have such a dim view of government?” I asked him.
“Read some Texas history Doc,” he said. “You’ll see Texans have a fair amount of experience with governments who have gone off the rails.”
I liked Randy, but he had a fierce independent streak that I sometimes found unsettling. What was even more unsettling, is there were millions of people around the state just like him. I found his passion endearing in a way. It was raw and real and that was as refreshing as it was scary. It was scary because coming from Canada, I was used to people doing what the government told them to do. Texas had a bunch of people that would do exactly the opposite of what the government told them to do. And they were proud of it.
“You know what the worse thing is though Doc?” Randy asked. “You’re killing the opportunity for a miracle to happen for that guy. You’re killing his ability to fight the good fight and you’re killing his hope.”
I looked at Randy and he wasn’t kidding – he was deadly serious. It was charming actually, in a juvenile, backwards kind of way.
“There’s no such thing as miracles Randy,” I said. “And hope sometimes just increases the misery – especially when death is inevitable.”
Randy just looks at me, but his smile is gone, and his eyes have grown dark. He has the look of a man who is disappointed.
“No true Texan would ever say something like that Doc,” Randy said. “The way we handle going out of this world is just as important as the way we live in it. Don’t you know that?”
***
It was the following week when I met Roger Pendleton and his son Rowdy. I was up in my office on the twelfth floor working on a speech I was slated to give to the Texas Medical Association about some groundbreaking research our team had recently completed concerning a new drug that would delay the onset of Alzheimer’s. My phone rings.
“Doctor Eggers,” a young lady says. Her voice is stressed, almost at a shriek. “We have a situation here in the Neuro-ICU. A Mr. Pendleton is down here and he’s screaming at the staff and making all kinds of threats.”
I had become familiar with Roger Pendleton and his son Rowdy and had reviewed his case file several times over the past several weeks. That was part of my job. A month earlier, Rowdy had been brought to the hospital with severe head trauma. His vital signs were dangerously weak – he was breathing on his own, but the breaths were shallow and labored. His pupils weren’t reacting to light and his blood pressure was desperately low. It turned out that Rowdy was a bronc rider, and had gotten thrown from a horse and landed at an odd angle and the horse’s hind leg had come down on his head. Twelve hundred pounds of fiercely bucking muscle packs quite a punch and poor Rowdy’s skull had been crushed. It was a borderline miracle that he survived the ambulance ride to the hospital. The team placed him on a respirator to aid in his breathing and a feeding tube was inserted, but all the initial signs pointed to the fact that Rowdy was already likely brain dead.
Roger Pendleton was informed of the prognosis of his son. He didn’t take the news well and was convinced that his son was alive and would eventually come back. On the seventh day, staff performed another series of tests to confirm Rowdy’s condition. His pupils still didn’t respond at all to direct light. He had no gag reflex. To see if he was still able to breathe on his own the ventilator was turned off momentarily and his breath rate fell dramatically almost immediately, and his oxygen levels plummeted. His brain stem shows zero activity or ability to sustain life. The attending physician certified that Rowdy was in fact brain dead and as per hospital policy, I needed to review the file and signoff. I concurred with the prognosis and signed off.
When Roger was informed that the hospital had officially declared his son brain dead and requested his approval to turn off all life support, he went nuts. He refused to give his permission. He said that we only wanted to kill his so his organs could be harvested. He said our diagnosis was in error and that his son had responded him several times by flinching his eyes at the sound of his voice and had even squeezed his hand once. Of course, our staff never witnessed this – because it wasn’t possible that Rowdy could have responded. He was dead. Ninety nine percent of surviving relatives accept the bad news and the inevitable reality, but a few do not, and we must go get a court order in order to proceed with shutting down the life support equipment. In Rowdy’s case, the order had just come in and had been communicated to Roger. That’s why the young lady was calling me.
“I’ll be right down,” I said to the young lady.
This is the part of the job I hated the most. In this job, my interaction with patient families was minimal. But in instances in which the family was upset, threatening legal action and things like that fell on me to have to communicate with them. When I was in the trenches working as a surgeon, I wasn’t known to have the best bedside manners, but over time I’ve learned how to communicate with more empathy, but it doesn’t come naturally to me.
I headed down to the ICU and went into Rowdy’s room. His father is standing over him, brushing his hair with his fingers. I asked the attending doctor and nurse to leave the room.
“Mr. Pendleton,” I said. “My name is Doctor Eggers. I’m head of the Department of Neuro-Science here at Dallas-Metro.”
Roger looks up at me. His eyes are red and puffy.
“I ain’t letting ya’ll kill him,” he said. “He’s going to come out of this.”
“Would you mind if I step over there to show you a couple of things?” I asked. “I promise you I’m not going to do anything but examine your son right in front of you. Is that, ok?”
Roger stared at me and then nodded his head. I slowly stepped over and took out a little penlight from my breast pocket. Rowdy’s head was wrapped in bandages and the ventilator tube was down his mouth and throat. His skin had the dull, gray look that an inanimate dead body has. The death smell was on him. I’ve smelled it a thousand times and it’s always there on patients who are in the last hours of their life. It reminds me of slightly soured milk. I bent down and opened one of Rowdy’s eyes and shined the light in.
“See the pupil?” I asked Roger. “When I shine the light in, you see how the pupil doesn’t dilate at all? That’s a sign that brain activity has ceased.”
I took a little syringe from my pocket and filled it with some ice water that was sitting on a table near the bed. I showed it to Roger.
“Now I’m going to put a few drops of water in his ears,” I said. “When neurological activity is present, the eyes will move within a minute of putting the drops in.”
I put ten milliliters of ice water into Rowdy’s ears and we both watched carefully for any sign of eye movement. There was nothing. I waited a minute and did it to the other ear with the same result.
I then picked up Rowdy’s left hand and I applied pressure with my fingernails on his nail bed and the first knuckle.
“When brain function is present,” I said. “We’ll see a grimace or facial movement from the patient.”
Roger looked at me with eyes that begged for a miracle as the tears slid slowly down his cheek. This was a man who would have paid anything to have his son cured but there was nothing I could do for him.
“When we tested his breathing without the ventilator his oxygen levels fell to critical levels within a minute,” I said. “And his blood pressure and heart rate drop as well.”
Randy wipes his eyes.
“Mr. Pendleton,” I said as softly as I could. “Rowdy is gone. There is no brain function. He won’t recover.”
He just looked at me, his bottom lip quivering. He must have seen the devil in me. He saw this emotionless doctor who has come to kill his son. He saw a man not sharing his passion or love for him. I did feel bad for him, but my job was to communicate the news to him and then move on.
“Would you pray with me Doctor?” Roger asked.
I definitely did not want to pray with him, but I did sense that Roger was nearing the point of accepting that his son was gone. If this prayer helped him get to the finish line, then so be it. I nodded then bowed my head.
He reached for my hand, and I let him take it and then he prayed. He said the lord’s prayer first. It was touching actually, the grief and love in his voice sent chills down my spine. And then he added his own words.
“Lord,” he said. “I ask you to open this man’s heart who stands here with me. He doesn’t know you or your power. He doesn’t know of the covenant we have and the signs you gave me just this morning that Rowdy is coming home to me. I ask your forgiveness for what I’m about to do.”
Chills went down my spine again – this time for a much different reason. I opened my eyes and I looked at Roger and he released my hand, and he reaches into his jacket and he pulls out a pistol.
“You can go now Doc,” Roger said to me. “Go on and call the cops. I’ll be staying here with Rowdy. You tell the cops to stay out of here.”
“Mr. Pendleton,” I said. “This is a foolish move you’re making. Why don’t you put the gun away and let’s you and I go get some coffee.”
He doesn’t point the gun directly at me, but in my general direction. I felt sweat beginning to bead on my brow. I didn’t doubt at that moment that he would shoot anybody who tried to interfere with him.
“Go on Doctor,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you or anybody else. But I will if anybody tries to kill my son.”
The look in his eyes convinced me he was dead serious. I turned and left the room, closing the door behind me. The staff met me outside the door, and we quickly moved down the hall. I told them what had happened. We immediately called the police to report what was happening and we began to relocate the patients in that wing to another ICU down the hall. Fifteen minutes later the police show up in force together with a SWAT team.
The SWAT team was led by a guy by the name of Dorado.
“Did he say anything that indicated he was going to kill his son himself?” Dorada asked me.
“No,” I said. “He’s totally convinced his son is going to come out of this coma. I think he’s just doing what he can to make sure we don’t pull the plug on him.”
Dorado had that gun-ho look about him. He was young and he wore his sunglasses even inside the building.
“I’ve seen this kind of thing before,” he said. “Guys like him think they’re God almighty. They’ll kill their own kid just make a statement, then kill themselves.”
I really didn’t think that was the case at all. How could this guy even have that opinion having not ever met Roger?
Dorado called his men over to him. There were six of them decked out in helmets, bullet proof vests and rifles. I heard him tell the men there was a man in the room with a handgun with his son. He was discussing the best way to breech the door and how to neutralize Roger before he could shoot Rowdy. They called me over and asked for the layout of the room.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said to them. “He’s not violent. He’s upset and if you go barging in there then he’s liable to become violent.”
“Why don’t you worry about being a doctor,” Dorado said. “Let us worry about handling Mr. Pendleton.” He said with the smugness of a young wannabe tough guy. I was about to say something brash when we heard a scream from Rowdy’s room.
“Come in here Doctor,” he screams. “No cops. You tell the cops to stay out there. Just you.”
Dorado looks at me and shakes his head.
“You can’t go in there,” he said. “I can’t allow that.”
“This is my hospital,” I said. “He’s not going to hurt me. But he’ll do something crazy if you go barging in there.”
I took a step towards the room and Dorado grabbed my arm. I shook it off. I walked down the hall and into the room.
Roger was standing over his son, brushing his hair with his fingers and holding his son’s hand. The first thing I noticed that was odd, is that Rowdy’s color was different. Instead of the gray, inanimate death tone, it looked almost normal. My heart skipped a beat. I thought maybe the lighting was different.
“He squeezed my hand doc,” Roger said. “Do your tests again. He’s back.”
Roger cried tears of happiness. For some reason I was absolutely terrified. Seeing Roger with the gun before didn’t scare me as much as seeing Rowdy with healthy looking skin. As I stepped closer to him, it was as if there was almost a glow to him. I felt faint.
“Do your test again doctor,” Roger said.
I leaned over Rowdy and got out my pen light again and did the pupil test and the pupil dialated just as it should for anyone with a functioning brain stem. I did the water test and the eyes moved and the test on his hand and he reacted exactly the way a living person should. It was impossible.
“Grab my son’s other hand doc,” Roger said. I looked at him and he had tears of joy in his eyes and his face was now calm and serene. “Please – this is important.”
I took his son’s left hand in my own. It felt different now. It was no longer a dead piece of meat but was a part of a being that was somehow now fully alive. Rowdy squeezed my hand gently. His eyes remained closed. Roger took my right hand and when that little circle was completed, I felt a jolt of energy that lasted for an instant. It was a feeling that I’ll never forget. Roger said a prayer.
“Heavenly father,” he said. “All glory and praise to you lord. We give thanks for this miracle of you bringing Rowdy back to us. We give praise and thanks for you revealing yourself to this man so that he can see what can be done through you.”
Rowdy squeezed my hand harder, and I looked at him and he had a little smile on his face.
I didn’t know what to say. It was a true, bona fide miracle. Something happened in that room that I cannot explain with science, or medicine, or anything else from this world. What happened in there came from somewhere else and that scares the living hell out of me. It scares me because it completely shatters everything I had thought about the world.
Randy came over to my house that night and we had a beer at my kitchen table. I explained to him what happened.
“Did they arrest the boy’s father?” he asked.
I nodded that they did.
“That’s why I hate the government Doc,” he said. “He saved his boy’s life, and then they go and arrest him.”
I don’t respond. I’m still lost in thought at how Rowdy could have recovered. I was one hundred percent certain that he was indeed braindead. There was zero brain activity. What I witnessed was impossible unless some outside agency intervened.
“Yeah,” I said. “Rowdy would have died unless his father was there to hold us off.” I wanted to throw up.
“Look at me doc,” Randy said, leaning forward to look me right in the eye. “You witnessed something extraordinary. You’re one of the most fortunate men in the world. You saw God work a miracle right before your eyes.”
“I did,” I said. “Now I understand your point about Canada and all the people we helped die. We took away their will to fight, their chance at a miracle.”
I lowered my head. Randy reached out and lifted my chin.
“Now, you know better,” Randy said. “And being man enough to admit you were wrong makes you a true Texan Doc. Even though you still talk funny.”
We both had a good chuckle at that.