6 minute read
A SECOND CHANCE, NOT BY CHANCE, Ben Pohl
“We’ve got some work to do.” These were the first words Mike Ball heard when he came out of the coma. If they had come from his nurse or doctors, they would have been an understatement. On January 13, 2019, Mike suffered a major heart attack at his home, and was unresponsive for thirty minutes. Finding him shortly after the onset of the heart attack, his wife, Pico, tried to administer CPR, while their son waited at the front door for paramedics. She “tried,” because, at the time Mike was 290 lbs. and incredibly fit. He ran “Mike Ball Fitness” and loved spending time in the gym with his clients. Mike was one of the last people you would imagine being on the floor that night, his life hanging by a thread. But nearly two weeks later, as he awoke from the coma, the Lord of life spoke to Mike a word of mercy: “We’ve got some work to do.”
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In a world charged with the advances and successes of modern science and medicine, we are tempted to consider as factual or relevant only those things that are material or physical, things that are testable by the scientific method. To a secular mind, providence is an antiquated way of understanding the survival of people like Mike who, in their mind are simply “lucky.” But the experience of the Ball’s that night, and in the weeks and months that followed, challenges that assessment. As Mike says, “There was a sequence of things that were not just chance. It had to be divine intervention.” Pico recalls that while doing CPR, desperately trying to save her husband, “Some guy comes running in; the paramedics hadn’t even arrived yet.” Marty, an offduty paramedic with the Lansing Fire Department, happened to be in the area, and responded to the call before any other emergency personnel arrived. When help did arrive, their CPR machine failed. Marty continued to help with chest compressions and was, as Pico puts it, the Ball’s “guardian angel.”
Pico vividly recalls the scene, which seemed to reflect our Lord’s Passion: “He was lying in between our bathroom and the hall, and I had this huge mosaic cross that I had bought when my daughter was in sixth grade at Resurrection’s auction...he was basically laying at the foot of the cross.” Later, when he awoke from the coma, Mike relayed to those gathered in the hospital room that though unconscious and without a heartbeat, he had a faint memory of that night: “I wondered why all those people were there…I couldn’t move or help them.” After arriving at the hospital, Mike was placed in a medically-induced coma, and his body was cooled in an attempt to prevent brain damage. He had to be intubated twice. “If I did survive,” the medical team later told Mike, “there was a pretty strong likelihood I’d have total brain damage, or at least a lot.” He was given only a 3-5% chance to live.
Throughout this time, the Ball’s were supported by faith-filled prayer warriors and many who came to visit and pray for Mike’s healing. Pico found comfort from, to name just a few, her niece, Guine, who came to see her nearly every day, her siblings, especially her sister who works at Sparrow, and Mike’s brother and sisterin-law, who came up from Tennessee. Fr. Steve, as well as Liz and Sean O’Neill, visited frequently to pray over Mike and with Pico. “The support from Resurrection was wonderful…and the whole medical staff was outstanding,” Pico shared as she remembers all the people God put in their life. “His intensive care unit doctor…I find out she’s Catholic and she tells me that she had prayed the rosary for Mike the night before!”
One day, a woman who knew Mike from Lansing Community College and the fitness center came to see him. “I didn’t even know who she was and I told her, ‘Oh no, he’s not taking visitors.’” As they spoke in the hallway, the woman said to Pico, “I just felt this calling by God that I need to come today and pray with you.” Not with Mike, but with Pico! “And I did [need prayer]. I was so stressed and worried that day about him… she came over and we were just praying in the hall.” A member of the facilities staff at Sparrow, who also knew Mike by way of LCC, would stop by and pray with them every night after his shift. “Without fail! He would make us all hold on to hands and he would just pray…and he would print off prayers for me to pray and say, ‘Here, pray this.’”
The road to recovery, though miraculous and charged with the Lord’s healing and providential care, is still filled with challenges. “He’s had to do speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy,” Pico shared, noting all that Mike has gone through in the past year. Yet his physical recovery is not the only recovery he is experiencing. Before their life was turned upside down, Pico tried to get Mike more involved in the faith: “I was trying to do Alpha, and I was trying to get involved with all these things and I would ask him, ‘Would you please come to this, would you please come to this?’ and he just did not want to go to anything.” Mike now sees things more clearly: “I had a milquetoast relationship with God…I was busy, I was working a lot, and I didn’t feel like I needed that in my life.” But through the months of recovery, the “work” that the Lord had invited him into was becoming real. “My relationship started out, there was a lot more praying going on, spiritual reading. There were hours a day of this because I was making up for lost time. And I had time to fill.” Mike was given the time to reestablish not only his relationship with God, but also with his father who soon after passed away, as well as with his brother, wife, and children.
Through it all, Mike has been filled with the desire to go out and spread the good news. But many physical challenges remain. Mike would often ask himself during this process: “Is God punishing me for my
sins?” “Is He trying to help me grow in faith through my pain?” Through prayer and contemplation, Mike has come to understand the concept of redemptive suffering. St. Paul said in 2 Timothy 9-10 that Jesus bore his sufferings for the sake of those who are chosen, so that, in the end, we may all have the salvation that is in Christ. Mike now feels that if we offer up our sufferings to God, we can grow in our love for Him through the peace, grace, hope and joy He brings to our lives every day.
- Ben Pohl is a parishioner at Church of the Resurrection and Director of Campus Ministry at Lansing Catholic High School.
