By: Rodney Williams
Changing Our Narrative
My name is Rodney Williams. I am the Residential Hall Director for Davage Smith Hall at Rust College. I want to tell the world my testimony of what happened last year, February 2019.
On Feb. 6, I began to get aches and chills due to the fact that a lot of male residents were coming down with the flu. As hall director, I figured I was coming down with it because I helped many residents with hot tea, lemon honey and peppermint. I told my supervisor Ms. Tanya Kelly Kirk that I had aches and chills. Her response was “go to the doctor.” My response was “Ah, I’ll be all right.”
On Feb. 7, my supervisor contacted me to see how I was doing; my response to her was “I still have aches and chills, and I’m about 85% functioning.” Her response again was “Boy, take your butt to the doctor.” I replied, “If I don’t feel better tomorrow I’ll go to the doctor.”
I went to Walmart and purchased water and orange juice. At the start of the fall 2018 school year, my doctor told me that I was borderline diabetic. Looking back now, I should have done research on diabetes but I didn’t. Being borderline diabetic, I also had high blood pressure and I was overweight: 345 pounds.
After drinking orange juice and water came frequent bathroom visits for urination. That night I did not sleep well at all, constantly running back and forth to the bathroom. On Friday morning Feb. 8, a good friend of mine, Phyllis Keith Young, called me. She was the last person I talked to.
Upon hanging up, I walked to the front of the apartment. The last thing I remember was that I was in front of the couch, and then I went blank. On Monday morning Feb. 11, my supervisor was looking for me but no one had seen me. She later said that residents had seen my car but not me all weekend.
My supervisor immediately contacted Mr. Curry, physical plant supervisor, to come open my apartment. They arrived to Davage Smith Hall and when they opened the door they found me on the floor, in front of the couch. People, please keep in mind that I was on the floor for three days, unresponsive. The paramedics were called, and I was transported to the Methodist of Olive Branch Mississippi. I was later told by my supervisor that they beat the paramedics to the hospital and they couldn’t understand why.
My supervisor later told me the paramedics had to stop because I had coded. My supervisor contacted my brother of the situation. My family immediately rushed to Olive Branch. When they arrived, the doctor told my family and supervisor that the next 48 hours would be critical. Keep in mind, I was unresponsive for three days, I had a blood pressure reading of 90 over 50, and my body temperature was 30 degrees. I stayed in this diabetic coma for a week and a half. I was in a bad situation. My blood sugar reading was 1619; 500-700 is critical, 1619 was almost triple that.
During this week and a half the hospital had placed a trachea tube down my throat. Evidentially it wasn’t being cleaned properly daily. I was told by family that the hospital was packed with fraternity and sorority members and students. On one particular day my family heard a code blue being called, not knowing until told by the doctors that it was for me. They told my family that my heart and breathing stopped due to a mucus clot in my throat. Family members and friends began praying. People, prayers do help and Jesus does answer.
The doctors frantically worked on me for 30 minutes. People, I don’t know if you understand how severe this was; I had no oxygen to my brain for 30 minutes. Five to six minutes without oxygen to your brain is critical and yet, it is here that Jesus blessed me to be here. The day that I finally opened my eyes out of the coma, I did not know that I was in this world. I never saw any halos or white lights.
With all the issues I was facing, I was also placed on dialysis. After staying in Methodist Olive Branch for 23 days I was transferred to Methodist Select of Jackson, Mississippi. My brother said the day I was transferred to Jackson, my physician, Doctor Patel, told my family that “your brother is going to be fine; when he gets well, we want to see him walk in here to visit us.”
There I stayed for one month and two days. The day the trachea tube was removed from me I felt relief somewhat. Now it was time for the therapist to start doing daily assisted living and to build my strength. The first day they came to get me out of the bed for therapy – walking – my mind was telling me that I could get up and walk but after being off my feet for a month, my body quickly said, “Oh no, you’ve got to build yourself up for this.”
People, I tell you, the first day attempting to get out of bed I was weak as a baby. I literally had to learn to push myself out the bed, brush my teeth, etc. I was just that weak. In time, as the therapist worked with me, I slowly regained some strength. Before I left, the nurses and direct care workers told me that I was a walking miracle. They told me that when arrived I could not walk; now they said I had built enough strength that I could transfer myself out of the bed and walk to the restroom, brush my teeth, etc.
The time had come for me to be transferred to a rehab facility; I was placed in DiverseCare Rehab Nursing and Facility. My first two weeks were a living hell in the sense of regaining my mobility, strength, etc. During this time the hardest part was adjusting to the dialysis because I had a stage 4 bed sore on my buttocks. During dialysis I would have to sit straight up and the pressure from the sore would be unbearable.
In a few weeks time, the nurses at the dialysis center learned to recline my chair all the way back, which immediately began to relieve pressure off my buttocks and the wound began to heal. For the first two weeks at the facility, my therapy was walking down the hall with assistance from a therapist. The next two weeks my strength had increased to where I was walking with gate assistance with a therapist. Within the last three weeks, the therapist could watch me walk unassisted throughout the facility and outside. The nurses at the dialysis facility told me that I was a walking miracle. The time had come for me to be discharged home.
Once I was home I received weekly therapy and dialysis. On May 30, my brother had a day off from his job and he took me to the Methodist of Olive Branch Mississippi. I had contacted them days in advance to make sure that the whole team would be there, doctors, nurses, etc. When my brother, my good friend Monica Perdue, and I walked into the ICU everyone was shocked. Everyone said, “A lot of times people recover and never come back to visit, but you did.”
There were tears of joy, hugs, and pictures taken. I told them, with tears in my eyes, that God worked through them and that they saved me. While continuing dialysis, nurses told me my creatinine levels were lowering. I did not understand what this meant but they explained to me that the creatinine levels lowering determined that I could come off dialysis. I completed dialysis in one month while I was at home. They were constantly doing blood and urine samples to test my kidney function.
On June 20, I received a call that really changed my life. I was told by the nurses at the dialysis facility, “Mr. Williams, I have good news and bad news.” And my response was “Give me the bad news.” She replied, “The bad news is we will not be seeing you anymore.” I was lost and then asked, “What’s the good news?” She responded, “Mr. Williams, your kidneys have recovered enough that you no longer need dialysis.”
I shouted for joy and called my mother. This was a big relief. People, just imagine sitting in a chair for four hours, three days a week, watching your blood being filtered in and out your body. Now they say “hindsight is 20/20” but while I was in the hospital in Olive Branch recovering, I noticed every morning that a little bird would land outside my window daily. He would sing his little song and jump and fly away. Till this day I wonder, was that someone watching over me?
People, this is my testimony for the whole world to read. Please never take life for granted. I thank Jesus daily for saving me. I still wonder what my purpose is, and I know in time He will reveal it. I want to personally thank all of my family, Mom, Derek, Tawana, my fraternity brothers of Kappa Alpha Psi, the men of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, my supervisor, Ms. Tanya Kelly Kirk and her sorority sisters of Alpha Kappa Alpha, and the ladies of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, faculty, staff, and students at Rust College, and a special shout out to Monica Perdue who was there for me from sun up to sun down and recorded everyone’s name who came to visit me. Lord Jesus, I thank you for saving my life.
