After 28 days in the hospital — after 9 days on a ventilator — Jan Crysel made her way home and “gives the glory to the Lord, Jesus,” for being alive.
“I want to say thank you, Jesus,” Crysel said tearing up. “Thank you, Jesus, that I’m alive and I’m so happy to be home back with my family and children.”
Joanna McQueen, Crysel’s daughter-in-law, said Crysel was diagnosed with coronavirus on New Year’s Eve and quarantined at home. However, her health steadily declined while at home.
“Her oxygen levels were getting worse and worse,” McQueen said. “She got into the 70s, and when we found that out, Chad (Crysel’s son and Joanna’s husband) said ‘You have to go to the hospital now!’”
As Crysel’s health continued to decline, doctors put her on oxygen, a BiPAP machine and finally a ventilator. The family was unable to visit Crysel while she was in the hospital due to COVID restrictions.
“When they called and told Chad, ‘today’s gonna be the day. We’re going to have to make the decision of whether to put her on the ventilator.’” McQueen said. “He asked the nurse, ‘Are you telling me this is the best thing for my mom?’ The nurse said he didn’t want to give Chad false hope. ‘It’s never good, but at that point her body, her heart couldn’t hold up. This was our only hope we had of letting her body rest and heal.’”
Chad broke down in front of McQueen while on the phone with the nurse — a guy who doesn’t typically show emotion.
“As scared as I was for her, seeing my husband breakdown and cry like a little boy cause he needed his mom … ,” McQueen said behind tear-filled eyes. “Knowing that just a few days before, we dropped some stuff off at her house. We were able to stand on the sidewalk and talk to her through the window. We never realized that may have been the last time we’d get to see her.”
As the ladies’ leader in her church, Crysel messaged them the Sunday before being put on the ventilator to pray for her, and the ladies “dropped everything we were doing and met in the hospital parking lot to pray.”
“We gathered around a red blanket, anointed it, prayed for her and sent the blanket to her to let her know we were covering her in our prayers,” McQueen said. “We did this so she could have something tangible to hold onto while she was there to remind her she wasn’t forgotten, that she was not alone.”
McQueen said she was at church singing “waymaker, miracle worker” repeatedly, from the song ‘Waymaker.”
“We all have had moments God reassured us,” she said. “While repeating those words — waymaker, miracle worker — God reassured me that, ‘I am making a way. I am doing a miracle.”
During the song, McQueen said, a bridge sings, “even when I can’t see it, you’re working. Even when I can’t feel it, you’re working.”
“When I sang that, God just kind of spoke into my heart and said, ‘look. I told you I’m doing work, you don’t have to doubt it. Just let me work,’” she said. “God doesn’t do things instantly, and sometimes our lessons aren’t taught in the healing. Sometimes the lessons we learn are in the waiting for that healing.”
McQueen said her dad, the church’s pastor, was praying and said God confirmed to him “that her story was going to astound the doctors, that she was going to be a ‘miracle to surprise the doctors.’”
Crysel was on the ventilator for nine days, and the doctors told the family, “she was one of their success stories.”
“He said she was only the second patient he knew that had left the hospital and went home after being on the ventilator,” McQueen said. “None of us have any doubt it’s God at work. We have literally had people from around the world praying for her, and there’s no doubt it’s definitely been the hand of God that brought her through this.”
Crysel said she wanted to thank everyone who prayed for her everywhere around the world.
“I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you to every single one of them,” Crysel said.
Once she is back to 100 percent, Crysel said she looks forward to “caring for my grandbabies again.”
“I’m just 61 years old,” she said. “I’m not ready for all this. I have a lot of life left to live, I have a lot of things to do for God. I’m not done, and I’m looking forward to doing all I can for God for the rest of my life.”
“I give all the glory to the Lord, Jesus.”
Photos: Submitted
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