A firm conviction that led to restoration

Jun 02, 2013 News

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– The life-altering tale of Marion Persaud

By Sharmain Grainger

Although the notion that “believing is receiving” is one that has been associated with people and their religious convictions, the truth is, it simply suggests that an individual, irrespective of religion, can believe something so faithfully that there is a higher probability that it will happen.
Well not only did Marion Persaud’s belief propel her to that level of faith that it saw her overcoming years of sickness, but she has since embraced the notion that there is one doctor that can fix just about any problem if you truly believe.
This is her story, not mine! So read on, but only if you think you can handle the details.

It was just last week I paid the cheerful 65-year-old a visit at her Lot 92 Goed Fortuin, West Bank Demerara home, and she shared a captivating tale that literally left me, for a few moments, with “goose bumps”.
But before we reach to that part of her story, let me tell you a little about her upbringing. Aunty Marion, as I would prefer to call her, was born and raised at Plantain Walk, West Bank Demerara. She was the only child for her parents and they had a relatively modest existence.
She undertook her schooling at St Swithin’s Anglican School at Vreed-en-Hoop and then the Catholic School at Pouderoyen, before finishing up her education at the Goed Fortuin School, after her family moved to a house they had acquired in that community.
She got married shortly after completing school and was a mother of two quite quickly.  By the time she was on to the third child she was convinced that a constant back pain she was having had nothing to do with any of her pregnancies. She was more convinced when she painfully passed a stone one night while urinating.
“The back pain and eventually belly pains were getting really severe and when I passed this stone I knew this wasn’t normal, but I didn’t go to no doctor because I didn’t know what it was,” informed Aunty Marion.
She however kept the stone which would eventually have the company of a few more, as you will learn.
Aunty Marion eventually conceived again and gave birth to her fourth and last child, but would continue to be plagued by pains that she continued to believe was unrelated to her pregnancy.  She didn’t like “too much dealings” with hospitals, so it was merely for her pre- and post-natal care that she visited any health facility.  But even after giving birth the pains just would not ‘let up’ and eventually she was forced to seek medical attention.
An attending doctor was able to diagnose that she had a ruptured appendix and proceeded to undertake a surgery to rectify her condition.
Life after surgery would normalise for Aunty Marion, but would only last for about one year. Her pains returned with a vengeance, a state of affairs that saw her heading to a village health centre to enquire whether her appendix, which had been removed, could still have an adverse affect. But the attending medical personnel were not only unsympathetic in their remarks, but they offered no help to the ailing woman.
“I tried to find out if the appendix could grow back and they just made a laugh story out of it. They didn’t say whether it was possible or not, and all I thought was that they just don’t care about me.”
Unwilling to face more humiliation, Aunty Marion, who was in her twenties at the time, decided to stay home, and somehow cope with her excruciating pains. Eventually her mother, who had years earlier had issues with gallstones, decided that her daughter needed medical care and took her to the West Demerara Regional Hospital. As soon as the doctor saw her entering his office he was able to diagnose that her condition was kidney stones. Further checks confirmed his instant analysis and a decision was made to treat her rather than perform any operation.
About a year and a half into treatment, Aunty Marion passed about 10 more stones, similar to the one she had kept. Treatment was not alleviating her condition, so yet another decision was made to have her undergo an operation at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
Perhaps it was a lack of communication on the part of the hospital’s personnel or just fate, that on the day slated for her operation, even after being assessed by the surgeon, she was informed that “they sent you to the wrong doctor.”
The incident would see her continuing a few more years on treatment, even until she was 36 years of age when her mother passed away.  Her condition wasn’t any better than the day she was diagnosed, but rather was worsening.  Not only was she visibly swollen but according to her, “I couldn’t even eat much; I actually used to eat only cherry and salt and drink ice water a lot, because my skin use to feel like it blazing…I didn’t wear clothes once I didn’t have to,” she recounted.
Eventually an abdominal x-ray was prescribed for her to ascertain the extent of her condition, but nothing would prepare doctors for what they would uncover.
The x-ray would reveal that Aunty Marion’s condition was two-fold, as she not only had more detectable stones, but what appeared to be a surgical swab was lodged in a section of her abdomen. Doctors concluded that the item might have been left there accidentally during the surgery to remove her appendix several years earlier.
An informed decision was made to put the kidney stone operation on the backburner and proceed with a surgical procedure to remove the swab. Ahead of that operation, Aunty Marion was told she needed to provide the hospital with two pints of blood.
But by this time her husband, who was the sole breadwinner and busy caring for their young children, was not in the best of health, so acquiring the blood was no easy task.  In fact three months would pass before she was able to undergo the crucial operation.
Although she had no religious commitments, she remembers the Sunday before her operation, a group of individuals were visiting patients to enquire if they needed prayers. Certain at the time that she had no hope, Aunty Marion, overwhelmed with pain, beckoned the group to her bed. The prayer, though simple, was the only thing that she clung to as she was taken into theatre two days after to undergo surgery.
She was informed one day later, when she regained consciousness, that doctors were not confident she was going to survive the operation. She was told that her body rejected one of the two pints of blood required for her survival, but two bags of saline later she was showing signs of recovery.
“When the group returned the next Sunday I was only too glad to let them know I had my surgery and was feeling so much better. They told me to give God praise and thanks and I did, because I believe it was He who saw me through,” a confident Aunty Marion reflected.
By the time she was out of hospital and assumed her full-time role as wife and mother, her husband became gravely ill. And though still inflicted with pains from her kidney stone condition, Aunty Marion decided she was through with the doctors. She simply couldn’t afford to be running to the doctors while caring for her now bedridden husband and children at the same time.
“I use to take care of my husband like a baby, and then I learn on my own how to be dependent on God and He helped me…” she confided. The only family income was her husband’s NIS, but somehow she was able to make ends meet.
Her health still remained a challenge, so much so that she remembers asking God one night to “please wipe away my tears.” But the tears did not subside as her husband passed away shortly after and her pains were at times too much to bear. By then her youngest son was an ardent Sunday School-goer and was sure that going to church could somehow help his mother. He encouraged her one day to go with him.  It was nothing simple to do, but like her son, she too was sure that there is a God with the ability to heal, after-all He had helped her pull through a major surgery.
And it was one day while earnestly praying on her knees at church, “I feel like somebody push me forward and after a minute or two they pull me back and I felt like my entire back was on fire after.” Not sure whether she had a dream, Aunty Marion was startled enough to spring to her feet and started examining herself; and as she did, “I feel like a cloud of coolness just cover me.”
It was soon after that it dawned on her that she was moving herself in angles that she had not dare try over the years because of her pains. Her pains had gone! Eagerly she informed those gathered at the church, and though skeptical at first, on her return home she found that she could easily climb the stairway.
“I went up and down and up and down a few times, because although I believed I was healed, it was unbelievable,” Aunty Marion intimated, as she disclosed how she moved from being “unable to fetch a glass of water to fetching a bucket of water up the stairs.”
It has been close to a decade and she has since never had another painful complaint.
Moreover, she is only too excited to inform that “I only give God the glory and the praise for allowing me to still be alive” as according to her “Jesus is my only doctor now; if it wasn’t for Him I would’ve already be dead and gone.”

 

 

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