A surgery is a two-edged sword!
It is a medical intervention meant to cure, but it can also kill.
I am for medical intervention when needed. If surgery is the procedure required to make you feel better, by all means, go for it. But, prepare!
Don’t leave your fate solely in the hands of the medical personnel. They’re skilled, no doubt, and I respect that, but they’re still human, subject to physical and spiritual circumstances that can derail the process.
Introduction
My experience with surgery has shown me that most surgeries are successful, but a significant number do go wrong. Your loved ones need you, and I have seen families mourn a loved one they shouldn’t have lost.
My experience with surgeries spans childhood to adulthood. I have had seven surgeries: 4 major (3 caesarean + 1 fibroid surgery), 2 medium (appendicectomy + hernia surgery), and a minor surgery on my leg.
I went through various procedures and observed how things were done. From my experience, the survival of a patient is affected by spiritual and physical factors. I will discuss some of these here and what you can do to ensure success.
I owe my survival entirely to the grace of God, but as a human being, He expects you to partner with Him to ensure your well-being. God has His duties, and you have yours. Your actions towards your well-being are discussed below. I will discuss the physical factors first, then the spiritual.
The purpose of this blog is to grow your faith and fulfil God’s purpose for your life. You can only fulfil your purpose if you are alive. So, faith and works are applied to practical situations that can truncate your destiny.
Let’s look at the Physical Factors that affect a surgery.
Physical Factors
1. Doctor’s Expertise:
The doctor must be an expert surgeon in the area of medicine where you need surgery. Years ago, I had a colleague who went in for a cesarean section in a foreign country and had her intestine punctured in error. She was in a coma for weeks and almost died. Thank God she made it. Unfortunately, a friend of mine was not so lucky. The same error was made, but she passed on. She’s missed forever.
You never know what happens in a theatre except what you are told. Before submitting yourself or a loved one for any surgery, make your findings and do your due diligence. Find out the best doctors in the field and don’t compromise on quality.
During my third cesarean delivery, I was watching the nurses count and arrange the instruments for my surgery. While they worked, I asked what they were doing, and they replied that they were counting the different components to be used for the surgery so there would be no errors. They explained that small instruments like scalpels, gauze, suture kits, etc, are counted before and after the surgery to confirm nothing is left inside the patient.
This shows that human errors lead to loss of life in certain instances where care is not exercised in following procedures. Not all surgery deaths are due to the illness.
2. Hospital Facilities:
The quality of the facilities in any hospital is important. First, check their human talents; if they don’t have the expert you need, negotiate to bring in a surgeon for that surgery. Many sought-after surgeons outsource their services to other hospitals outside where they work.
During my cesarean sections, my medical team was assembled. Many hospitals don’t have all the talents in residence. You might worry about paying for such services. This can also be negotiated.
When my husband went through surgery, we identified a good, clean hospital with a quality facility and cutting-edge equipment. The hospital was not one of the hospitals under the insurance plan of either of our workplaces, but they were good, and we wanted the surgery carried out there. We negotiated with the health insurance, which paid the hospital the amount he was entitled to, and we paid the balance out of pocket.
We didn’t have the full balance in cash, so we arranged a payment plan with the hospital to stagger the payment within a mutually agreed-upon timeframe, and it worked.
In life, don’t assume you cannot do what you want. Just sit down and think through how you can do it, and you will find there is flexibility once you are dealing with human beings. Many people are more compassionate than you think and will help you if you approach them nicely.
Another critical component is the instruments and medical equipment for patient care. For instance, oxygen cylinders should be on standby during surgery in case of complications that might require assisted breathing. The ambulance should be in good working order and on standby to either bring in needed personnel in an emergency or to transport patients to another facility in case of a referral.
I know that some hospitals leave their generators on during surgery to avoid any delay during power outages. Even when there is light, they put on the generator with everything running on the generator to ensure no break in the transmission of power to the theatre.
3. Response Time
The agility of the medical personnel is very critical. If there are glitches or complications, the response time for bringing in additional material could be the difference between life and death.
I suffer from anemia and low blood pressure, so I am always transfused during delivery. My husband thankfully is my blood donor. I have a negative rhesus factor of the A-blood group, which is not easy to find, while my husband is a donor for the negative rhesus factor blood group with an O-negative blood group. He usually donates blood for my surgery before I go into the theatre.
After the delivery of my third child, the medical personnel forgot to transfuse me immediately after the surgery, and I went into distress. I almost passed on as I could no longer talk, my family was trying to figure out what was going on, when my husband noticed they had not started the blood transfusion.
He roared, and the whole hospital sprang into action. He was shouting in fury for them to bring the blood because I was losing consciousness. They knew my medical history as I had my older children there. They knew what needed to be done.
Yet, it was an oversight by the nurses on duty, and he was angry because he had already donated the blood before they started the surgery. I lost consciousness. Thankfully, I didn’t pass on. By the time I opened my eyes, the transfusion had started, and 70% of the blood had entered my body.
Always have someone who knows your medical history and what needs to be done around you in any surgery for effective follow-up with medical personnel.
4. Patient’s Underlying Medical Condition
Alert the hospital of underlying medical conditions you might have before agreeing to go for surgery. This allows them to make special provision where needed for your sake.
Surgeries, in many instances, are standardized procedures that any doctor in that field would have been taught in school. So, if they don’t ask, let them know what could impact the surgery, so they are aware. Otherwise, a less experienced doctor might see something he or she was not expecting during surgery, and if not prepared, could make mistakes under pressure.
During my second cesarean delivery, I was put on epidural anaesthesia, so I was awake throughout the surgery. I heard everything the team was discussing and made up my mind never to stay awake again during surgery.
My blood pressure dropped below acceptable levels, and I heard the tense panic in their voices as they worked on me. I had a near-death experience while having my first baby, which was why the doctor opted for an epidural.
He said he needed me awake during surgery and occasionally called my name or spoke to me to make sure I didn’t fall asleep. I guess that informed the panic in their voices because they knew my medical history.
Now, let’s look at the Spiritual Factors
Spiritual Factors
1. Powers For or Against the Patient:
Life is more spiritual than physical. The existence of forces of good and evil is well known. You know there are the Powers for good: God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and angels. You also know there are the powers of evil: a devil and his demons.
Our human existence is impacted either directly or indirectly by these forces. For more information on this, please read my posts on Spiritual Warfare and Spiritual Intelligence. If the Powers of good are for the patient, they will do everything to keep you alive. This ensures the surgery goes well, despite any complications that might occur.
While the powers of evil after such a patient want to ensure that you don’t make it out alive. Such deaths are, at times, attributed to avoidable human error or a sudden change in the patient's condition.
When I had my first child, I had a lot of complications. My doctor did not share my religious convictions, but he confessed to me that indeed God was with the medical team to ensure my baby and I made it out alive. He said they were literally in a battle. To buttress his point, my husband relayed a spiritual drama that played out in the theatre during my surgery, as he prayed outside the door.
As my husband prayed directly in front of the closed theatre doors, an old woman suddenly emerged from the theatre through the closed doors, tying a wrapper, looking disheveled, and tired. As he watched her in shock, she walked right through the wall by him and disappeared. Imagine his shock! How can a human walk through a wall? I was wheeled out alive after that incident.
Before this incident, my husband had earlier alerted my church that I was having complications and was in the hospital. They had just ended mid-week service, and the pastor informed other ministers and workers of the situation. Everyone drove down to the hospital to offer prayer support. While I was battling for my life in the theatre, they were all over the hospital praying for me.
Normally, a cesarean section with delivery of the baby should not take more than 60-90 minutes for everything, but after my baby was brought out at 9.47 p.m., I was still in the theatre for more than two hours after. I later learned the doctors were battling to save my life.
Afterwards, my husband asked the hospital staff who that old woman was, and they told him there was no such old woman anywhere in their hospital.
2. Powers For or Against the Doctor:
The same way that Powers could be for or against a patient is the same way such powers could fight or support a doctor. If a doctor has the support of the Forces of good, the surgery will go well despite any problems the patient might have because the doctor will seek God’s help before and during the surgery. Even if there is a problem, God will give him an idea on how to tackle it.
This was the story of celebrated neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson. He testified to how God used the concept of a dripping faucet to show him how to stop the blood flow during a neurosurgery.
In the same way, the forces of darkness can manipulate an otherwise skilled doctor into making avoidable errors that can cost him or her their medical license to practice.
Many humans have what is fighting them, which at times plays out in the normal activities of life. Without discernment, some spiritual manipulations are labelled as circumstances.
3. Territorial Forces:
At times, the patient could be a target of territorial forces. When they recognize you by the spiritual mantle you carry, they make moves to stop your spiritual activity in their domain. Carriers of God’s glory are targets anywhere, even when they are not actively ministering.
Unlike forces of darkness assigned against a person through witchcraft or familiar spirits working with family altars to enforce demonic family patterns, these demons are in charge of areas and territories.
Once they sense a destiny carrier, whose prayers and spiritual activities are fighting the kingdom of darkness, is in that vicinity, they spring into action uninvited to terminate the fellow. They consider your presence a threat likely to disrupt their activities.
For instance, a prayer warrior who is praying for the liberation of a particular territory is already known in the kingdom of darkness. If he or she dares to go for a surgery, these spirits come around to “assassinate” such a person.
4. Physical Factors as Prayer Points:
The physical factors mentioned above: doctor’s expertise, quality hospital facilities, response time, and the patient’s underlying conditions, are all prayer points, which, if presented to God, will cause you to have direction on each of them.
For instance, when you pray about these issues, God can direct you to the best doctor to handle your case and lead you to the hospital with the cutting-edge facility required for such an operation. God can give you favor in the sight of the medical personnel in that hospital, and they will attend to you speedily with quality patient care. The underlying conditions can be healed or successfully managed without affecting the surgery.
Steps to Prepare for Surgery
- Always start with prayer. Ask God to please shine His light into your situation. He can heal you if you believe. And if surgery is the option, then He will be with you through it all.
- Get an expert surgeon in that field and arrange the ideal hospital for the surgery. Negotiate the price and ensure everything else you need is in place.
- Address every physical and spiritual factor identified above. Call everything by name as you pray, and ask God to step in and dismantle every force of darkness in operation.
- Finally, to protect yourself and ensure that your prayers are effective, be on the Lord’s side. Invite God into your life and ask Him to please step in to guide and protect you.
Conclusion
Before going for any surgery, ask the doctor about all your options. Conduct your research about your condition and available treatment, especially with any underlying issues you might have. Surgery is usually the last resort and never the first option. Make prayer your first action, and you will be guided on how to navigate the physical factors and the specific prayers to neutralize the powers of evil. Invite God into your situation and your life, if you have not done so already. He will guide and protect you.
Please share this message widely with others you know will benefit.
Do you have questions, need counseling, or would you like prayers? Please let me know in the comments section below.
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