The Vultures Eye

I told this story to a friend two years ago. It went like this. It was Friday, October 9th, 2009 and Melanie had come home, the end of her two week notice at Cancer Care of North Florida. She was not feeling well. She had a doctors appointment with Dr Randolph, of which I went with her, feeling bad for her and guilty of my own neglect of her. She thought she had a kidney stone, so she was sent for a CAT Scan at Lake Shore. By happen stance, the technician scanned up to her lungs, which showed her lower lungs filled with fluid. We went back to Dr Randolph, then back for blood work. We went home and Melanie spent the evening and all day Saturday in bed. On Sunday morning, Dr Randolph called and said we need to go to the hospital, to admit her for a culture in her blood. From Lake Shore, looking out Melanies window, I got my first glimpse of the vulture. He was flying low and circling. By that evening, Melanie had gone from the floor to ICU and continued to have trouble breathing. She was put on a full ventilator and calls were made to area hospitals.  All hospitals in the area were full except one bed in Orlando, if we left now, or wait tomorrow for the possibility of a bed opening in Shands, Gainesville. We opted to go at 3am to Orlando, via ambulance since a heavy fog kept the helicopter grounded.
I went home, packed and met Melanies parents in Williston the next morning, arriving in Orlando in the early afternoon. We learned from the doctors that Melanie had Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome and Swine Flu or H1N1. She was placed in isolation. Another doctor came and said Melanie qualified for a clinical trial for treating H1N1 with an oscillating ventilator. We gave permission and waited to see if she was selected. Several anxious hours passed and they said she was a candidate and was moved to the ICU floor, Bed 9. It was from this room I again saw the vulture soaring outside.
And thus, for the next two months until Thanksgiving eve, I sat with Melanie and prayed and looked so often out that little window to see the vulture soaring.
Once, while trying to get back to Orlando via the Ocala National Forest where I was staying over with a friend, I became lost. Nearly out of gas, and near despair, praying, suddenly, a vulture soared overhead. And right after that, over the hill, a tiny one pump gas station and directions to my destination!
Melanie, on Thanksgiving eve, was transported to Gainesville, Select Speciality Hospital to wean off the ventilator and rehab. It was a miracle healing of her body which went through so much trauma and near failure in all her vital organs over the course of the time in Orlando. From Select she spent time in Woodlands Rehab, returning home finally in January, where she continues to have lingering affects two years later. She now works full-time at North Florida Regional Cancer Center in Radiation Oncology.
This finally, is the short version of the above: When we were at Lake Shore, I prayer, a cry went out! We need an angel! We need an eagle to go for us! Will someone step forward to minister? No mighty eagle or angel came forward. Finally, from the back, the lowly, despised vulture stepped forward and said, Here I am, I will go! And thus, the harbinger of death was sent upon a mission of life!
What had been a symbol of death and despair for me was a sign of hope and life. I welcomed daily the vulture that became a symbol of Gods ever presence with us!