Surviving Sigmoid Volvulus: Emergency Surgery, Hospital Delirium, and Faith

A month ago, we left for vacation and enjoyed a week away. However, during that time, my disability played a major role in a series of complications that abruptly ended our trip.

As a quadriplegic, I must do scheduled bowel programs (BP) two or three times each week to regulate my bowels. During our vacation, I attempted BP three times without success. Concerned, we decided to cut our trip short and return home to try once more.

After a fourth unsuccessful attempt at home, I called my doctor. The nurse I spoke with advised us to go to urgent care, and from there we were sent directly to the ER.

I was admitted to the hospital and diagnosed with a sigmoid volvulus. My large intestine had twisted, causing a bowel obstruction.

The following morning, I underwent surgery to relieve the pressure, with a second surgery scheduled two days later to remove the twisted portion of my intestine and reroute my colon to an ostomy. Both surgeries went well, but what followed during my hospital stay was another story entirely.

Over the next week, my mental state fluctuated dramatically, and I experienced what felt like an alternate reality that tested me physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

For the first three or four days in the hospital, I struggled to sleep. The only real rest I got came while under anesthesia during surgery, and I became severely sleep-deprived.

Although I never left my hometown hospital, in my mind I was traveling along the coast while my family struggled to survive. The doctors and nursing staff believed I was experiencing hospital psychosis, but the exact cause remained unclear. I was being treated with antibiotics for an infection they could not identify, and the stress of surgery, combined with severe sleep deprivation, may also have contributed. My wife, however, suspected that something more was happening spiritually.

Early in my stay, I believed I had become involved in a book promotion with Joni Eareckson Tada that brought incredible success to my book while also exposing many of my failures. From there, my mind carried me into a life-or-death scenario involving high-stakes games, car acquisitions, sacrifice, and danger for my family.

Eventually, these experiences shifted into what felt like an end-times event involving the gathering of believers and questions of salvation and entrance into heaven. In my mind, I was carried upward and welcomed to the banquet supper, yet I repeatedly passed up opportunities to move ahead alone because I wanted to stay behind with family members who were uncertain about their salvation or resistant to faith in Christ.

Throughout that journey, I chose again and again to remain with them, talking, encouraging, and waiting until they, too, accepted the call to rise. Together, as a family, we finally proceeded to the banquet supper.

While some of what I experienced during that time was loosely based on Scripture, much of it did not align with what I understood and believed from God’s Word, the Bible. Because of that, I began to question the source of my visions. Some of the visions and hallucinations felt more demonic than heaven-sent, yet the reality of what I believed I was experiencing at the time was difficult to deny.

Then things became even stranger. After leaving the banquet, we somehow ended up on a ride that ultimately took us to Walt Disney World.

Throughout all of these experiences, I constantly felt pressure to let go and give up. I saw writing on the walls and ceiling, experienced visions and hallucinations, and heard voices—including what sounded like the voice of my father—telling me that everyone would be better off if I did not live.

In that reality, I believed I had seen news reports showing that both my home and my parents’ home had been destroyed. I feared my parents would be imprisoned because of events connected to the high-stakes situations we were involved in, and I believed our cat had been removed from the house before its destruction and dropped from the air. At the time, it all felt completely real and devastating. The voices urging me to surrender left me feeling hopeless.

But eventually I made up my mind to fight. I believed God was still in control and that no matter what happened, He would work all things together for my good and for His glory.

My wife feared for my life and called our church. Concerned about the voices I was hearing and what she believed could be demonic influence, she asked a pastor to come pray over me.

One of our pastors came to pray over me in the hospital while the rest of the pastoral staff and elder board joined in prayer over the following days.

It was after that time that my mind finally began to clear and I slowly regained the ability to recognize reality.

It is hard to believe now that everything I experienced happened over only a few days, because at the time it felt completely real.

Once my thoughts became clearer, I was finally able to sleep, and from there I slowly began to improve. About a week later, I was discharged and allowed to return home.

For the first four or five days after discharge, I remained very weak and exhausted. But by the fifth day, I finally started to feel more like myself again, despite the lingering pain in my abdomen.

Life will never be the same for me now, but my mind is clear and I am moving forward in the right direction.

I also no longer need to schedule bowel programs, as my ostomy now empties into a bag at my side. While that change brings both positives and negatives, it is still a major adjustment.

I will see my doctor again for my two-week follow-up appointment and hope to return to work afterward.

Until then, I am simply thankful to be alive. I thank God daily for the life He has given me and for the support that carries me through each day. I truly believe I would not be here today apart from my Heavenly Father and my Savior, Jesus Christ.