A Most Precious Time: Finding Peace in the Midst of Tragedy

By Mitch Pouliot

The premature death of a loved one is devastating. Your perspective is lost in the fog, as is your trust in God’s healing promises. You need assurance that your beliefs are not just nice ideas. The grieving is profound, yet necessary. Even so, grieving makes you vulnerable to false narratives that work to hold you in despair. Negative thoughts about the pain, suffering, and death of your loved one can consume you.

It is my hope that by sharing with you the loss of my son and the lessons I learned through it, you will know your loved one’s importance to God and his love and care for them. While your thoughts focus on the loss, God views this time as precious and occurring exactly as he ordained it. A Most Precious Time provides you with the understanding to replace negative thoughts with the truth of God’s will for your loved one and their amazing destiny.

This is not a story with a tragic ending, and neither is your story. Our stories are love stories. God is not absent in your time of most need. God is there. When our care for our loved one has reached its fullness, God steps in and carries that love forward. So come, join me as we discover what God has in store for our loved ones in this wonderful, precious time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Sep 21, 2018
• ISBN: 9781973640004

Mitch Pouliot

Mitch Pouliot is a husband, father of two boys, and grandfather of two precious children. Having lost a beloved son who was in the prime of his life, Mitch knows of the struggle to find peace. He has devoted his life to pursuing God and fulfilling the awesome responsibilities God has blessed him with through his family.

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Unless otherwise noted, scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB), Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation Used by permission. www.Lockman.org

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-9736-3999-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-4001-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-4000-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018911052

WestBow Press rev. date:  9/21/2018

To My Beloved Son Daniel John Pouliot

I cherish every moment that God blessed me with you.

And even though our days were short, a love-filled life shone through.

Your eyes, your smile, and gentle ways were such a joy to me.

Your kindness and compassion were always humbling.

I cherish every laugh and tear that made our hearts as one.

Not recognized as special then, our time had just begun.

Your shy and quiet ways would mask the wonder of your mind,

A genuine and caring heart to those patient to find.

I cherish every spoken word expressed to help you grow

In love and knowledge of our God, the one you longed to know.

Your faith was growing through it all, a treasure to behold,

A gift from God to help you trust and help you to let go.

I cherish every pain-filled day that you had to endure.

You taught me how to love this life and how to let it go.

My time with you, ordained by God, though I desired more,

So He showed me His special love for you, His cherished one.

Your days established and set forth are beautiful to God.

His book of life contains your name, a name I long to know.

And now you’re with our Father God, a precious time to Him.

A son of God, you’re welcomed into God’s great family.

Cherished is this time to God, a view beyond my reach.

Please change my heart and make this be a precious time to me.

Contents

Chapter 1   Daniel’s Story

Chapter 2   Does God Give Us Trials?

Chapter 3   Doesn’t God Want to Heal His Children?

Chapter 4   God’s Comforting Promises

Chapter 5   A Journey of Faith

Chapter 6   God’s Love

Chapter 7   God Is Our Father

Chapter 8   And We Are His Children

Chapter 9   Precious in His Sight

chapter 1

Daniel’s Story

The summer of 2013 was a wonderful time for my wife, Gretchen, and me. Our older son, David, was prospering in his career and had just married the love of his life. Our younger son, Daniel, was in college but still uncommitted to his curriculum. As parents, the heavy lifting was behind us, so our focus was on helping Daniel find a career path that fit his interests and intellect.

Although his professional future was unclear, one thing was certain: Daniel loved to work out. He loved feeling the pump. It made him feel good about himself. I think he liked it when I talked about his pipes. One day as Daniel was working out with his good friend, the two of them noticed that his right arm was turning blue and swollen. They knew right away that something wasn’t right, so that evening Gretchen took him to the emergency room.

After several hours, the doctors said they found clotting in Daniel’s right shoulder. Since the vascular doctors wouldn’t be in till morning, they sent Daniel home and told him he could come in the next morning for additional tests.

That September Friday was supposed to be a good day. The family had been planning on coming to our house for dinner to celebrate my birthday. The day, however, started out anything but good. After several more hours of tests and waiting in the emergency room, the doctors confirmed that Daniel had a blood clot in his upper arm, and they found several small blood clots on his lungs. We later learned that his condition was known as Paget-Schroetter syndrome. In layman’s terms, it’s a fairly rare condition in which blood clots form in the veins of the arm, caused by compression in the passageway from the lower neck to the armpit.

As we were processing the severity of Daniel’s condition, he got a call on the emergency room phone. As he held the phone to his ear, I could see his expression change from casual listening to concern to distress. He passed the phone to me and said the doctor wanted to talk to me. The doctor explained that a blood test revealed that Daniel had all the markers for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). They would be sending the blood sample to the Mayo Clinic to verify their findings. It was routine for them to confirm this type of diagnosis, but it was especially necessary in Daniel’s case because CLL was common in the elderly but uncommon in middle-aged adults and rarely—if ever—found in someone of Daniel’s age.

My heart sank, but I knew I had to stay strong and positive for Daniel and Gretchen, who had their eyes glued to me as I hung up the phone. I recited what the doctor told me yet was struggling to process what I was saying. Needless to say, we were all in shock. It was surreal. Our first response was disbelief. How could this have happened? Was this a mistake? Did they mix Daniel’s blood test with someone else’s? Surely the blood test results from Mayo would clear up this gross mistake.

However, that never happened. The diagnosis was confirmed. Daniel had CLL.

Over the next few weeks, we were faced with several doctor visits, blood tests, and numerous other tests and evaluations to determine the next steps to address Daniel’s clotting condition, as well as to understand the progression of the cancer and treatment options. The vascular surgeon removed the clot in Daniel’s shoulder and put him on blood thinners. We were to wait until the clots in his lungs dissolved, and then he would be scheduled for surgery to remove the rib that was causing the restriction and trauma to his veins. We also met with two oncologists, one from the local hospital and one from a nearby hospital who had more expertise in the treatment of CLL. Both of them talked to us in clinical terms, telling us all the things that they knew about CLL and the treatments they could provide when the time came. With both of them, the conversation finally came to a point where they said there was nothing they could do to cure the disease. They said that, ultimately, Daniel would die from it.

Daniel eventually had the surgery to remove his rib and was then cleared to stop taking blood thinners. With that, the Paget-Schroetter syndrome was finally behind us. As for the CLL, the oncologist decided to meet with Daniel every three months because his white blood cell count wasn’t increasing very rapidly. Daniel probably wouldn’t need to start treatment, she said, for at least two years.

Over the next few years, things went back to normal (or settled into a new normal). Daniel was busy balancing school, part-time work, time with family and friends, and dating. The only times we thought about Daniel’s condition were during his quarterly visits with the oncologist.

Come 2016, it was time to start treatment. Daniel’s oncologist informed us of a novel clinical trial that was well suited for him. Key CLL markers indicated that this new trial would provide Daniel with an excellent prognosis. We were thrilled at the news! We waited as long as possible before having him start the trial—his life was so full that year with a wedding on the horizon!—and then in the fall, Daniel entered the trial.

As 2017 began, we were given the wonderful news we had been hoping and praying for. Daniel had no trace of the CLL in his bone marrow, his blood counts were back to normal levels, and his lymph nodes were no longer swollen. Daniel was done with the worst part of the trial. We were all looking forward to closing out the final months of treatment and putting this chapter of Daniel’s life behind us.

But then came May, when things took an abrupt turn in the wrong direction. One evening, shortly after he had returned home from a routine hospital visit, Daniel started running a fever and was short of breath. Daniel’s wife, Sarah, immediately took him to the emergency room. Once there, the doctors decided to keep him in the hospital overnight to evaluate his condition. Daniel’s initial communication with Gretchen and me was that everything indicated that he was going to be okay.

Little did anyone realize at the time that Daniel’s fever and shortness of breath were caused by congestive heart failure.

The diagnosis came quickly though. The cardiologist gave Daniel water pills and blood pressure medicine to make it easier for his heart to pump. After one more night of observation, he was sent home. The doctor said we would have to wait and see whether the medications worked. He told us that, at best, Daniel would be on these medications for the rest of his life, and at worst, he would need a heart transplant. At the time, we didn’t recognize how serious the situation was. It was beyond our comprehension that another trial was at our doorstep. Given that Daniel was sent home with just pills, we were hoping for the best.

Over the next few weeks, Daniel made two trips to the emergency room. When he stood, he had extreme pain in his groin. When he sat or lay down, he had continuous pain in his abdomen. Then Daniel started vomiting, so Sarah took him to the emergency room for a third time. At that point, they finally did a CAT scan and told us that the pain was because his abdomen was full of fluid and he was getting fluid in his lungs. The pain when he stood was caused by all that fluid from his abdomen rushing down into the groin. That same fluid was causing the pain in his abdomen when he sat or tried to lie down.

We came to the realization that Daniel was not getting the appropriate care at the local hospital, so we had him transported to a hospital that had more expertise in dealing with heart conditions. Even then—with Daniel having congestive heart failure, his medicines not working, his abdomen filling with fluids, and his organs swelling—we still didn’t fully realize how bad his condition was. By the time he arrived at the new hospital, the ER doctors told us Daniel was in grave condition.

Daniel was transferred late that night to the cardiac intensive care unit (CICU), and over the next few days, the doctors tried to find a balance of drugs to reduce his blood pressure and make it easier for his heart to pump blood. The goal was to make it easier for his heart to support his body and to give it a chance to rebound. They were hopeful that his heart would improve and that they could then switch him to over-the-counter drugs that would allow him to go home.

As the days went by, the doctors did see some improvement in his heart capacity, but there was not enough to get him switched over to the less powerful over-the-counter drugs. They let us know that a heart transplant was being considered. By this time, Daniel welcomed the thought of having a transplant because his quality of life was so poor. It’s hard to imagine welcoming such an invasive procedure with so many adverse side effects, so that told us how difficult it was for Daniel.

We continued to see very small improvements in Daniel’s heart function, so we held onto that, hoping that every little change was a sign from God that He was there and healing Daniel. That hope was shattered though when the cardiologists informed us that they would not be recommending Daniel for transplant due to his history with cancer and blood clotting. They also let us know that Daniel would not be able to have any mechanical device to assist his heart since both sides of his heart were damaged and there wasn’t a device that would support his condition. In essence, what they were telling us was that there was nothing more they could do for him.

The doctors reached out to other medical centers around the country that specialized in heart transplants to see if any would accept the risks associated with Daniel’s condition. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in California was willing to look at Daniel’s medical history, once more elevating our hopes. However, this news was quickly tempered when it became apparent to the cardiologist that Daniel’s condition had worsened to the point that he couldn’t make the trip to California without some kind of intervention. He offered up two options that were risky but given the urgency of the situation needed to be considered. The first was an internal heart pump that would assist the heart. This was the best option, but there was a concern that Daniel’s arteries wouldn’t be large enough to feed the pump up to the heart. The second riskier device was an external pump called ECMO.

We immediately were in favor of whatever it would take to get Daniel to Cedars-Sinai, so we moved forward with the procedure to insert the internal heart pump. Daniel’s cardiologist truly cared for Daniel’s well-being, so he counseled us on how to be an advocate for Daniel and pushed the surgeons to support our request. Daniel was taken into surgery, but, as we knew was possible, Daniel’s arteries were too small. The surgeons decided to place a less effective balloon pump in his heart, even though they knew that