Story of the Week, November 5 2010, Visiting Angels

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November 12, 2010

Diana T. was a happily married mother of two daughters, working at a grocery store, when she slowly slid into a depression. Like many in this situation, she did not know why she was depressed, so she eventually changed jobs, hoping her spirits would brighten.

But they didn’t. And one day on her new job, she was hit in the head with a heavy box. While in the hospital emergency room, Diana’s doctor told her that she had a buildup of fluid in her skull. This could lead to swelling in the brain, he explained, and she should consult a neurologist if she developed any symptoms.

“Though I didn’t notice any significant changes in my health or behavior, I was still depressed,” Diana remembers. Medication didn’t seem to help, and her crying and outbursts continued, along with guilt that she couldn’t “snap out of it.” One day she lost her balance and fell in the street, and was unable to get up. “I made an appointment with a neurologist,” she says, “but he couldn’t see me for several months.” She had to make the best of things.

Dizziness, nausea, loss of muscle control, vagueness—-all followed quickly. Although she was now bedridden, Diana’s husband, Rick, refused to let her give up. Eventually he found a clinic to run some tests, and after four days, a surprising diagnosis occurred. There was a blockage in her brain that was causing the hydrocephalus. If that blockage were removed, the problem would probably be fixed!
Diana’s family was overjoyed. Her surgery would be at the UCLA Medical clinic in Los Angeles, in just two days.

Diana was understandably nervous. She had already suffered greatly, and now worried that she would not be the same person after the surgery. But she had no choice. “I told my daughters to stay home with the therapy puppy we had purchased recently,” Diana says. It would be easier for her not to have visitors either, except her husband. In case anything went wrong….

But nothing did. Her surgeon unblocked the ventricle, and drained all the water. This pressure had caused all of the extreme emotions, nausea, and lack of balance, and Diana was completely coherent. A few hours later she was on the phone reassuring her daughters. “My oldest said it made her cry to have a real conversation with me,” Diana said. “It had been such a miserable year.”

In fact, the only one who seemed confused was Diana herself. She felt angry, even bewildered, and refused to have visitors except Rick. Why? Had she traded her depression for yet another uncontrollable problem?

On the third day after surgery, Diana was looking out to the hallway, and she thought she saw her daughters walk by her room. “Rick, the girls are here!” she told her husband.
“Impossible. They’re at home with the puppy, remember?” Rick said.
“But…” She had been so sure. But perhaps she wasn’t okay at all. Perhaps she was starting to have hallucinations…

A few hours later, after Rick left for the evening, Diana saw the girls again, coming down the hallway. This time they turned and came into her room. “They sat down in the chairs next to me,” she recalls. “I could see them clearly but their faces were blurred, like they hide a person’s identity on TV.” She understood somehow that these figures were not her daughters, not any human being she had ever met. Nor did they speak, or attempt to DO anything. They were simply a still, calm presence, waiting as she was waiting, encouraging her to rest.

“I know I was on medication from the surgery,” Diana says, “but I wasn’t seeing imaginary people. Yet I wasn’t afraid of these beings at all; in fact, the comfort they gave me changed my disposition. I was completely filled with gratitude and joy.” She does not know how long the visitors stayed, but her sense of relief remained..

In a week, Diana walked out of the medical center and has been in good health ever since. The visitors? “I believe they were angels, and God sent me this vision to help me get through a difficult time,” Diana says. “Miracles do happen.”