Testimony:[1] Well, Here We Are
Denny Unzicker had become accustomed to a waist size of thirty inches during his adult life, but one day, within a matter of weeks, he could barely fasten pants with a forty-six inch waist. Something incredibly mysterious and destructive was happening to his body, and the cause was never fully identified medically, but might be described in simplest terms as hydropsy or edema. Some change in the chemical composition of his blood had taken place, creating a great deal of fluid retention and the debilitating swelling of his body.
He first noticed on January 6, 2002, after spending time with family during New Year’s celebrations, that his feet and the knuckles in his hands were somewhat swollen. He marked it up as too much salt intake while snacking on high-sodium party food. But this was only the beginning. Within days the swelling progressed from hands and ankles, up his calves, then his thighs, and into his waist. By January 17th, he was at the emergency room where they gave him a diuretic by injection. The worst case scenario painted early on by the kidney specialist implied possible kidney transplantation or dialysis.
He almost died twice within the first sixty days of this ordeal.
First, all the diuretics he received orally and by injection depleted important minerals like potassium and sodium. As a result, he went into convulsions on February 8th. Denny passed out in the bathroom and his son, along with wife, Linda, carried him to the bed. His son came home from late night studying at the nearby college just in time to help because he felt God told him to.
A medical test revealed the amounts of these vital minerals were so low they could not get a reading. They immediately gave him an intravenous solution to replenish his system. They also found out he was dehydrated. Dehydrated?! All one had to do was look at Denny and know he had plenty of fluid; his swollen body was evidence of that. But in spite of the presence of a great deal of fluid, too little water was in his bloodstream. All of this created a great deal of jeopardy for his physical well-being. Fluid collected in the soft tissues of his body and created most of his problems. The oral diuretic had not been helping the situation, and he left the hospital February 12th with nearly fifty pounds of weight gain over the last 37 days.
By February 27th, incredible pain in his elbow drove him to the hospital again. After describing the pain to the nurse by phone, she directed him to the emergency room.
In the cold, Illinois February, extreme shaking settled in as fever battled what turned out to be a strep infection racing through his body. This infection probably originated from the IV he had near the elbow while in the hospital a couple of weeks previous. The many medications he had been taking had certainly also weakened his immune system. Five warming blankets created no comfort as his body jerked uncontrollably. His arm felt like fire, and a resident physician feared a blood clot. With a dangerously low blood pressure of seventy over thirty-seven, Denny hovered not far from death’s door. Even though the strep infection had not yet been discovered, the emergency room doctor knew something had to be done and guessed to give him strong antibiotics. This guess created a 180-degree turnaround overnight.
However, his blood sugar spiked, and he needed a blood transfusion. But then the blood sugar went to normal. In an effort to play it safe with this delicate medical issue of blood transfusions, two willing sisters-in-law prepared to give blood. However, by the next morning the doctor came in to say, after another blood test, that things had changed overnight. He professed that this could not happen, though it did. No transfusion needed—so they dismissed him from the hospital on March 5th. The undeniable was trumping the unexplainable.
Both knocks at death’s door had more to do with prescribed drugs, human error, and exposure to infection than anything else. However, he still had this extraordinary fluid retention that kept getting worse. He did not know at the time that for the next two years and four months he would have to find a way to deal with it, still hold a job, and learn to function in life. This new challenge proved amazingly poignant as Denny and Linda had always been crusaders for an intervening and healing God in the lives of others.
During this time, protein was measured in his urine with readings at 8,000 to 11,000 milligrams. Normal is zero to 150. Then, the doctor introduced high doses of a steroid drug that turned him into a different person. He had to work hard at not getting easily agitated. His wife’s meticulous coaching to help him successfully navigate eating and diet issues became essential as the drugs created an insatiable appetite for food. This dynamic only added one more critical detail with which to contend.
His body felt like a waterbed acts. Family members would massage and squeeze his feet and ankles in an attempt to manipulate the fluid retention up his body away from the lower extremities to make his feet small enough for his shoes. Doing so in the morning allowed him to get his socks and shoes on, but only with great difficulty, after which he would waddle out to the automobile. He would sit in his car seat and then pick each leg up with his hands to place them in the car. After the fifteen-minute drive to work, he would quickly get to his desk chair, since sitting with propped up legs was the most comfortable position. He then would direct a staff of twenty-three employees as he served as County Engineer for Champaign County, overseeing the county highways and the twenty-eight commissioners. This is a big responsibility for a man in such pain.
Whether gravity was his friend or his enemy depended on his situation. He took very fast showers because the fluid inside his body would make its way to his feet and create a great deal of discomfort. Standing still for any length of time would result in his feet filling quickly with fluid, making them look like water pillows. Wearing shoes actually helped prevent fluid from getting in his feet. When he lay down to sleep, he would stop breathing because the fluid was getting up by his lungs. So he slept with his upper body at a forty-five degree angle to prevent the fluid from getting into his upper torso. Of course, experiencing a real and restful sleep simply did not happen during this time. Normally, he would sleep in only two hour intervals. Much later, when his sleep was restored, he had a dream. This made him realize that he hadn’t dreamed in over two years because he was never asleep long enough to do so.
Things were up and down during the course of this battle. At times, Denny would lose his fluid weight, and then it would come back. One time he lost seventy-five pounds in two weeks. That would be the equivalent of approximately nine gallons of water. And then it would start again. He has the stretch marks to prove it.
As time went by, the medical challenges started coming to an end, and he returned to health. He took his last medication pill on July 16, 2004 and has not had so much as an aspirin since. He went back to the doctor in October 2004, and his protein measurement was normal. And in October 2005, one year later, the reading was zero. The kidney specialist, who doesn’t get to say these kinds of things often to his patients, announced, “You’re cured; you’re just cured.”
All’s well that ends well, right?
Well, as dramatic as this story is, I need to now tell you the missing parts. Those would be the parts that created the real substance behind God’s preserving Denny’s life twice and eventually bringing him to healing and health.
Denny would tell you without reserve that he loves God and his Savior the Lord Jesus and that he also loves God’s Word. When the swelling began he focused immediately on Biblical promise.
While in the hospital on January 17th and just after the elders of his church had prayed over him a prayer of faith with the anointing of oil, he felt like the Lord spoke to him and said, “This sickness is not unto death but for the glory of God that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.” He knew those words were in the Bible, but felt that God was speaking them directly to him for that moment and in a very personal way. As you might imagine, because you already know the story, you can understand why he would tap those words with all his heart in the next few weeks and eventually for the next thirty months.
But that’s not all.
Immediately, Denny and Linda realized they must protect their spiritual environment because life and death issues, as well as health and disease issues, were staring them in the face. This was not a time to be slack concerning God’s Word or careless concerning faith in Him and His promise for deliverance. Straight away they made sure they defined their television watching. They decided they must certainly view no secular programs and they limited their viewing of Christian programs to assure their faith was being fed during this time of medical challenge. They knew they must cut everything else off to be able to pour in the Word of God.
They also avoided energy-takers. Denny and Linda were in a very real battle, and the right people focused on the right things became important to the atmosphere. They had decided to take some stands based on Biblical promise, and affirming friends became part of the fuel that helped keep them moving forward when moving forward seemed like the last thing that was happening. Their church included a body of people who provided a great deal of prayer and practical support even when Denny had to sit with legs propped up during the services. Their united prayer efforts were vitally important to Denny during this time. They were also very grateful for family members who were supportive.
Denny decided to act like a healed man as best he knew how, so he was in church every Sunday. The only Sunday he did not make it to church was March 3rd because of being in the hospital. Even there, he decided to act like he was in church, although he was in the hospital bed. Viewing the clock, he would determine when the prayer time was going on at church, so he would pray. When they would be singing and worshipping, he, too, would sing and worship. And when it was time for the preaching, he would read his Bible.
On that one Sunday he read from Psalm 23. He felt like God spoke to him to say, “I am with you.” Then he was reminded he had been spared from death three times in his lifetime. Twice in the last few weeks, and then he remembered another time when he was nineteen years old and a much-needed surgery preserved his life. He knew now, from experience, that God’s promise to be with him while walking through the valley of the shadow of death was indeed true. He could now tell others and testify that he had no fear.
His drive to work was filled with spiritual prayer release as he depended on the Holy Spirit to direct him. When Denny arrived at work he always took the stairs to his office, not because he couldn’t take the elevator, it’s just that the elevator was notorious for getting stuck. Those stairs were one of Denny’s opportunities to declare healing scripture with every step he took, in spite of the pain. He leaned left to make it easier for his right leg to take a step and then leaned right to make it easier for his left leg. He did this while simultaneously pulling himself upward, using both the left and right stair railings. For more than two years that stairwell knew the echo of Biblical promises declared from Denny’s mouth as he gave voice to his faith.
Denny will tell you he wasn’t in denial about the facts or the pain. It wasn’t mind over matter. He began to realize his need to tap the eternal, which is not seen; therefore, he needed to be moved by what he believed of God’s Word and not moved by what he could see or feel.
Days, weeks, and months went by and Denny and Linda gave themselves to increasing their intake of God’s Word. Understand that they were already students of the Bible and had spent literal decades learning, knowing, and sharing God’s Word in their sphere of influence. But the accompanying challenges were making them realize how desperate they must be for Him and His Word. They read the Bible and re-read the Bible, revisited vital personal passages, discovered new insights, and gave themselves to soaking God’s Word up at the highest levels of absorbency.
Denny said he was not in the Word of God during this time for academic reasons. “I was in the Word to see what He had to say to me.” He began to truly understand that the words of God are spirit and they are life.
One day Linda drove down Mattis Avenue taking note of the fact that they had been doing battle for this extended length of time—keeping the Word of God constantly before them. In that moment she felt faith rising in her heart. And then she received this insight. She felt like their Word level was just now reaching the point where it had driven out the fear and unbelief to where their faith could work. This was both exciting and sobering.
Up to this point and through the duration of this ordeal their life at home was lived mostly with Denny in the one comfortable chair, the living room recliner. Linda would sit on the nearby couch as they prayed, confessed, read the Bible, listened to audio scriptures, and did it over and over again. They found grace to give themselves to God’s Word during this time, and they learned so much. And more than anything, faith grew in their hearts.
They realized they must not let the Word of God slip so their daily priorities were confessions of the Word and time to seek the Holy Spirit for direction. The two and one-half years included the initial deliverances from death imposed by incomplete medical care and then various intermediate victories along the way.Isaiah 53:4-5 empowered their faith during this time. They would confess these and other verses declaring healing and deliverance. They listened over and over via audio media to specific scriptures read by various teachers and pastors. The hospital stays were themed by audio CD’s played over and again and throughout the night. They saturated themselves and made confessions of God’s Word. They would read books with various Bible–based confessions and kept some of those books held together with adhesive tape. What people thought of their proclamations and practice became of no concern or consequence, as fighting for life by seeking God’s Word and ways was their single-minded priority.
In retrospect, the lessons learned were amazing. They gleaned valuable insights about faith and fear and making stands on God’s promises. They learned lessons about putting God’s Word in, but they also became more sensitive to what makes it leak out. They began to understand better the dynamics of patience and perseverance—the need to outwait your troubles, but to do so with an active faith in God fully engaged.
If this story had stopped halfway through, you might have come to the false notion that some people sail through these kinds of things, experience a certain sadness as they passively wait, and then it’s over. But Denny didn’t just have an experience characterized by some unfortunate suffering. He gave himself to the discovery of the substance he needed to apply in this situation. The substance that makes faith in God what it is.
Some days Denny helped Linda through. Other days Linda helped Denny. People would come over to support and encourage but would go home having been ministered to by Denny and Linda instead.
Since that time Denny will be walking down a store’s aisles shopping and he will hear the Lord say, “Do you remember?” With tears running down his cheeks, he does remember how he could not walk without great pain, or even stand for any length of time, and stops right there to rejoice and thank God from the bottom of his heart.
Today, Denny attends church with his family—wife Linda, their four sons, their wives, and seven grandchildren (and another on the way). During the worship time, Denny and Linda always stand even when others may not. This is just one more way for them to honor their God.
During the ordeal Linda pointed out to Denny a path in the community where people go to exercise. She announced to him that they would walk that path one day soon. The day came when they did indeed walk that path. They stopped for a little while, turned to one another, hugged and said, “Well, here we are.”
[1] As told to the author by Denny and Linda Unzicker. Used by permission.
0 Comments