Fred H. Pierce

This is the story of my good friend Fred Pierce as he wrote himself. Truly a man touched by God through miracles in a day we see so few. Though he suffered much through life he found great strength and blessing in Jesus Christ and always could be found smiling through it all. May his words bless you!

my good friend Fred Pierce as he wrote himself. Truly a man touched by God through mirMy Life By Fred H. Pierce

I was born on August 31^st, 1942 at Middletown Hospital to Mary E. and Euclid J. Pierce Jr.  I had two older brothers Richard A. and Franklin plus one younger brother, Robert P. My two younger sisters were Rebecka R. and Corabelle. Franklin was born in 1941 and only lived a few days. My baby brother Bob was born August 17^th, 1951 and he passed on to the Lord in 2007.

            We all grew up in Mayfield. In 1962 I met Janice E. Arnold of Trenton. In December 1962 I asked her to marry me. She agreed but her father John R. Arnold asked us to wait until she was eighteen years of age.  She turned 18 on September 6^th, 1963 and we wed on September 7^th, 1963. Our love lasted till the Lord took her home on May 26^th, 2001. We had been married 37 years. I know she is waiting for me to come home to her. My love for her is the same as in 1962. I love and miss her still.  In about 1994 James and Reva Lewis moved in next door to us. Reva was like a daughter to me. In 1982 I became sick and was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. I lost my left side though in time my upper torso and arm came back. I still had no feeling in my left leg. Reva worked as a C.N.A. for years helping both Janice and I. She led me back to God and church.

            On January 19^th, 2004 Reva came home from work and stopped by to check on me as usual.  She took one look at me and said, “Your are going to the hospital.” 

            She and her husband James took me to my van. My close friend Billy Schnelle drove us to the hospital. Reva placed me into a wheelchair at the emergency Room and took me in. The E.R. was packed with patience awaiting help. Reva took me to a triage nurse and asked her to look at me.  The nurse quickly called another nurse to take me back to an exam room. Billy parked the van and came in looking for me. The triage nurse told him which exam room I was in. About an hour later they had me in a room on the fourth floor. Reva (who I like to call my guardian angel) called Pastor Joe French. The pastor drove to the hospital entering just as the doctor came in. They ran another EKG test and Dr. Choudary told me that I had four heart attacks. I was now in congestive heart failure. My legs were so swollen that I had trouble bending them. Dr. Choudary had me moved down to the second floor IMC unit. Overnight, with a lot of Lasix they took 37 pound of fluid off me. I was in and out of the hospital a lot from January to May 2004.

            I had been a smoker from the time I was eleven year old. When Dr. Choudary told me about my heart they didn’t want to do surgery with my weak heart. I made up my mind to quit smoking.  After smoking for 50 years God gave me the victory to quit through his strength.

            I went back in the hospital on May 4^th, 2004. After some tests Dr. Choudary said that he wanted for me to go to Mercy Hospital for open-heart surgery. I asked Dr. Dunkle about it because he had been my primary doctor for 28 years and he agreed to the need for the test. I asked Dr. Dunkle if he could meet with my brother Bob and sister Corky at about 7pm. On Friday evening in my hospital room so they would know what was going on and he agreed. On May 7^th, 2004 we all met in my room. We talked about the chance that I would come through the surgery. Dr. Dunkle gave me a five percent chance. I replied that was better than a no percent chance.  We continued to talk into the evening with plenty of humor and hope. After Dr. Dunkle left around 8:30 pm Bob, Corky and I continued to talk about the surgery both feeling it was for the best. I told them that with God all things are possible. Dr. Dunkle and Dr. Choudary were informed of my decision to have the surgery on May 8^th.  Dr. Choudary made the arrangements.

            On Monday, May 10^th, 2004 an ambulance took me from Ft. Hamilton Hospital to Mercy Hospital in Fairfield. Mercy Hospital Staff helped me settled in and Dr. Stanfield came in to go over the procedure now scheduled for May11^th. Bob stayed with me for support. Dr. Stanfield explained that I had a lot of things wrong with my heart. He continued to express concerns of the ability to repair my heart due to the test results showing a poor situation. Bob and I told him to do his best and God would help him.

            On the morning of May 11^th, 2004 Bob, Corky, Reva and my nephew James (oldest son of my brother Richard) were there to support me. They took me to the prep room and started getting me ready for surgery. I got to see my family one more time just before surgery. That is the last I remember until Thursday, May 13^th, 2007 when I awoke in intensive care. When Dr. Stanfield came in he telling us how lucky I was to be alive. After working on my heart during the surgery they tried to restart it. After nine or ten tries he told his staff to go on a ten minute code, after which he would stop the heart-lung machine. As he put his finger on the off button on the machine he looked up and said, “God, I just saw you work a miracle on this man!”

After one week the Physicians sent me to a rehabilitation center. They said it would be four to six weeks. The rehab center sent me home in ten days.

            I got along quite well until Sunday, August 15^th, 2004 when Reva came home from church and checked on me. She took me back to the hospital. When we got to Ft. Hamilton hospital they took me very quickly to an exam room. After tests results came back, Dr. Zayyat came in and told Reva and I that my kidneys were shut down and that my abdominal aneurysm had gotten a lot larger. He wanted to get me into surgery in about an hour. Reva went to call Corky, Bob and Pastor Joe. They all came before my surgery and Dr. Zayyat let them in to see me. Pastor Joe said a prayer for me. Dr. Zayyat then asked him to come with him and they went to a room where the surgical team was waiting. Dr. Zayyat asked Pastor Joe to say a special prayer to God to help guide him and his team through the surgery. Pastor gladly prayed over my surgery and the staff.. Dr. Zayyat thanked Pastor Joe and then went in to start the surgery.

            About every hour Dr. Zayyat sent word to my family about how I was doing. After several hours the nurse came in with bad news. She told them that both of my kidneys were dead and that I would have to be on dialysis for the rest of my life. Several hours after that, Dr. Zayyat was almost finished with the surgery when he checked on my kidneys one last time. The nurse told us he just kept staring at my Kidneys. One kidney had looked like a piece of coal and was shriveled to about the size of a walnut  just started to grow back and change to a healthy pink color. When it stopped growing, Dr. Zayyat looked up and said, “God I just saw you work a miracle on this Man!”

He had blood taken as fast as he could and sent it off to the lab. The tests came back showing that my kidney was working almost perfectly.

            I was in the ICU when I started to wake up. My brother Bob was holding my hand and said, “This is the best birthday present!” for it was August 17^th, 2004 my baby sister came to the hospital to take me home. She agreed to stay with me for a few days and ended up staying a week. I loved having someone there to help me and I was so glad that it was my baby sister. She took such good care of me. After two weeks my baby sister Corky took me back to Dr. Zayyat to have my staples taken out. When my sister asked the nurse how many staples there were, she replied, “69.”

            With the help of Reva (who was like a daughter to me) I found a new relationship with God and what good it was to be faithful to him. Reva had a big part in opening my eyes to the Lord. In December of 2004, Pastor Joe asked the church to gather around the alter to pray for me. I had some trouble getting up with my walker, but I made it. I went back to my seat with Reva. About ten minutes past and Pastor Joe asked for us to bow our heads in prayer. After a few minutes I felt a sharp pain in my leg. A couple of minutes after that I felt another sharp pain and it took a minute for me to realize that these pains were in my left leg. Something told me to try to move my left foot. I gave it a try and moved my leg about three inches. I could not believe it! I started hitting Reva in the ribs with my elbow to get her attention.

She looked at me and asked, “Are you having another heart attack?” 

I tried to tell her what had happened, but I was so shocked I couldn’t talk. I kept pointing down at my foot and when she looked I moved it about four inches to my side and then moved it back. Reva was so shocked that she almost fell out of her seat. After that, I got the attention of Pastor Joe and I got up using my walker. I started up the aisle towards Pastor Joe.

He said, “People of Indian Springs Baptist Church we have had a miracle!”

Look at Fred! He is moving his left leg. Praise the Lord, our God!”

            On December 13^th, 2004, I called Dr. Dunkle so I could tell him about my latest miracle. When I told him, he dropped the phone. After he got back on the line he said he wanted for me to start physical therapy right away. He put his nurse on the phone so that she could help make arrangements to get me in touch with Town Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation in Monroe.

            A few days later I got a call from Town Physical Therapy letting me know they could start my rehabilitation on Friday, December 17^th, 2004. My baby sister Corky took me to therapy in order to know how they were going to help me. The lead therapist Sheri Poffenbarger checked my legs and arms to see how they could help. She set up a therapy plan for me to last three months at three times per week. After one month I was walking on my own, no wheelchair or walker was needed thanks to our Lord in Heaven.

            In January 2005, after I was walking on my own I went to church on Sunday and walked into Pastor Joe’s office.

He was standing and I walked up to him and said, “How ya doing, shorty?”

The pastor had to look up to me for the first time.

            On January 30^th, 2005, after church I had a talk with Pastor Joe and I asked him if he would baptize me again. The first time that I was baptized, I did it for the wrong reasons. I wanted a girl to like me and I thought that would help me gain her affection. This time would be different.

Pastor Joe asked me, “Why now?”

I said, “For my love of the Lord Jesus Christ.  After everything that he has done for me with his miracles, I know that I will always love and serve Him.”

On February 6^th, 2005, Pastor Joe re-baptized me. All in the church took me in like one of their own family.

            Two of my new family that helped me grow more spiritually were Randy and Trish Johnson, along with Pastor Joe and Dianne French.

Later that year I was in and out of the hospital a lot. James and Reva moved away into a house. Billy and Kathy Schnelle moved into Reva’s mobile home next door to me. I have known Billy all of his life.

            At the end of July 2005 I was in the hospital with heart problems. I came home from the hospital on August 4^th, 2005 and in the early morning on August 5^th, 2005 Billy called and asked me to take his wife Kathy to the hospital. August 6^th, 2005 at 1:45am Kathy gave birth to Katrina. She was six weeks early and only weighed 3 lbs and 3 ounces. She is a miracle of God that is as an angel to me.

            I was in and out of the hospital for most of 2006. In December of 2006 I had a pacemaker-defibrillator implanted.

            In the year 2007 I had one real bad MS attack in March, which lasted about a week or two.

            I was in and out of the hospital with my MS and my heart. On June 9^th, 2007, I went into Ft. Hamilton Hospital with bad chest pains. Dr. Choudary did not think it was my heart. On June 15^th at about 11:00 pm I had a pain unlike any pain in my life. They took me down to have a CT scan done about midnight. The pain was so bad that I thought I was going to die. About 2:30 am Dr. Fitzpatrick came in and told me that my large intestine had ruptured and I would have to have surgery as soon as he could get a team together.

            Early the next morning they took me down. My sister Becky and her husband Mike were there, along with Pastor Joe and Dianne. They came to see me in the prep room.

            I was talked to the doctor who was about to put me to sleep about my odds of recovery.

She said, “about ten percent.”

I told her that she was my guardian angel; that she would take me on this trip and with the help of God she would bring me back, which she did by God’s power. They had to do a colostomy bag. Then on June 29^th, 2007 I went home.

            On August 18^th, 2007, I had bad chest pains and was taken to Ft. Hamilton Hospital again. The hear doctor did an test on me. Dr. Parker, who was filling in for Dr. Choudary, came and told me that the test showed my heart was a lot worse than it was on the last test. He told me that my heart was only doing about 10% of the work it should be. He recommended that I sign up for services with Vitas Hospice.

            My last word is that I have had a great life and great people around me. My very special ones are Marcie Mullins and her son Ricky, Dawn Curtis, and my very special friend Josephine Moses, who I have enjoyed having fun with, Randy and Trish Johnson who have helped me so much with Church and with God; and last but not least, Reva Lewis and her son Aaron.

            I have helped a few people to find God and I hope that this story of my life will help many more find a relationship with Jesus Christ as I have.

With all mine and God’s love, 
Fred H. Pierce