Here's the testimony of what happened to my Dad, Henry Vanderbush, this week.

Dad was taken by ambulance to St Davids on Wed morning around 11am. When he arrived, he was immediately admitted to a room in the ER. As near as we could tell, the ER was pretty full at the time and Traci and the kids were in the waiting room where there were around 30 people waiting to get in to be seen. We were told by the nurse that they would have admitted dad to a regular room except that the hospital was at capacity and there were no beds available. Dad was unable to speak in conversation but was able to pray and while he didn't know what year it was, and didn't know who the president was, he could perfectly say, "Thank You Jesus, Praise the Lord, Amen, Hallelujah, yes Lord", so for most of the day, that's what he said over and over again. By 3pm a nurse came in and said that beds were opening up and it would be 20 minutes or so and he would be moved to a regular room. Dad had looked concerned every time one of us left so we hadn't ventured out of the room much after 12. After more than an hour passed, we began to wonder what happened to the room they were going to take him to. I went out to ask a nurse about it and there was no nurse at the desk. The entire ER was strangely empty where at noon it had been a buzz of activity. I walked out to the waiting room (Traci had left with the kids around an hour after we arrived so I hadn't been out there for awhile) and on my way to the waiting room I saw that every room I passed was now empty. I opened the door to the waiting room and the waiting room was empty except for the lady behind the computer. I wandered back into emergency looking for a nurse or doctor or somebody and found one nurse walking down the hall towards me. I asked her about dad's room and she said something about everything at the hospital taking longer than you expect. I said, "It sure is empty around here." She said, "Shhhh, don't jinx us sir. This never happens."

I then realized the contrast from the time we arrived to a busy ER and full waiting room to four hours later when the place was literally empty except for my dad and wondered if perhaps just the presence of a man of faith was enough to have that kind of effect. Of course, the offense to the mind is that the man of faith is the only one left and is suffering with a stroke here and for all of the praying we're doing, the results seem to be poured out on everything around him while he, the focus of our prayers, remains unaffected.

There was one patient who came in around 5:30 and was put in the room across the hall so dad could see him. It was a man, probably close to dad's age, (they called him Mr McMahon) who had also had a stroke. Dad looked across the hall and attempted to ask us about him but all he could do was motion with his hands. I said, "It looks like he's had a stroke." Dad began to pray saying his usual praise the Lord, thank you Jesus, etc... Later that night after dad was admitted to a room, the neurologist came to see him again and I asked about mr McMahon and was told that he was released. Interestingly enough, when we got dad in a room, we noticed that the rooms on either side of him were also empty. I was somewhat irritated by this because I had been told the hospital was full and thought we had been lied to. I mentioned to the nurse that we were told they were full and she said, "We were, until this afternoon when a bunch of people got discharged all at once." Through all of this Dad prayed his way through the whole experience, praising God with his "Thank You Jesus, Praise the Lord, Amen, Hallelujah, yes Lord." (It's interesting to note that as of this writing, he's back to normal and remembers nothing of his hospital experience whatsoever).

On dad's condition, they did a CT scan when he arrived and could see that he did have a stroke and knew where in the brain it was. Thursday morning they would do an MRI to see more detail and get a look at any damage that had been caused by it and then we would have some idea as to what options we would have. Perhaps a stint and then some speech therapy. We prayed that there would be no damage at all. Thursday afternoon they returned with the results of the MRI which showed that he had no damage at all and he was released to go home. I want to thank you in advance for your continued prayers for my Dad.