Micah Gerry nearly missed Easter this year.

Instead, the 31-year-old Roseville man will be in church this morning, thanking God for the resurrection of Jesus, the power of prayer and the gift of life.

His wife, Carrie, will be there, too, reflecting on her husband's brush with death last month shortly before the birth of their fourth child.

Micah's recovery, according to his doctor, is a miracle and an answer to prayer. Thousands of people who read of his plight on Facebook and responded with prayers from as far away as Africa and Asia would agree.

The story starts in late February in Modesto, where Carrie grew up.

"We had dinner with the whole family," Micah said. "Her brother had the stomach flu and gave it to all of us. I was sick Monday and Tuesday, and never felt fully healthy the rest of the week."

On March 5, he started coughing. The following day, he slept most of the afternoon and his cough got worse.

"That night, I went into the bathroom and coughed up blood," Micah said. "I'm no medical professional, but I knew that was not a good sign."

The couple drove to Kaiser Medical Center in Roseville, where doctors discovered he had pneumonia and septic shock, with high levels of toxins in his blood.

"I said, 'OK, do I need pills so I can go home?' They said, 'No. We're going to have to start pumping in antibiotics.' The head resident came in and said, 'He needs a C-line.' What they do is stab you in the chest and work the needle under your ribs to connect directly to your heart."

Also called a central line, the tube is used to monitor things such as heart rate and blood pressure as well as to deliver special medications.

His health problems "came on pretty quickly," Carrie said. "He didn't have symptoms before the cough, just a little achy and flu-like. The next day, they moved him to the intensive care unit because they thought in the worst case, he might develop ARDS."

That's acute respiratory disease syndrome, a life-threatening lung condition that prevents oxygen from getting into the blood.

Doctors first tried a breathing mask to force oxygen into Micah's lungs. When he woke up the next morning, he said, he felt claustrophobic for the first time in his life.

"I felt like I was drowning, like I couldn't breathe," he said. "I don't remember this, but I begged them to intubate me because I couldn't breathe. Then I passed out. I had a very long, very real dream and I opened my eyes. I thought it was the next morning, but it had been two weeks. I had no idea."

A 20% chance to live

Carrie, however, remembers those intervening days clearly. Another X-ray revealed that Micah's lungs were rapidly filling with fluid. Two days later, he was diagnosed with ARDS.

In the early morning hours of March 9, the on-call pulmonary specialist, Dr. Gehan Devendra, moved Micah onto a ventilator. The first one didn't work, and the family was told he had only a 20 percent chance of survival.

Then Devendra tried another tactic, moving Micah to a special breathing machine called a high-frequency oscillatory ventilator. Up until about a year ago, the ventilator was used only for infants who were in respiratory distress.

In order to go on the special ventilator, Micah had to be put into a medically induced coma and given a drug to paralyze his body.

"Basically, only your heart beats and every other function is shut down," Carrie explained.

On March 10, new X-rays showed the fluid in Micah's lungs was decreasing. Two days later, however, his fever spiked and tests found a secondary infection. He had been in the hospital for six days.

A new physician, Dr. David Herbert, took over Micah's care. A specialist in infectious diseases, he moved Micah back onto an intermediate ventilator and began weaning him off the paralytic drug. The family also was told that Micah's survival rate had improved to 60 percent.

Prayers on Facebook and radio

Each day was an up-and-down battle, some improvement and some setbacks. On March 14, Micah's white blood cell count declined, so doctors believed he was on the right antibiotics, Carrie said.

That was also the day that Ryan MacDiarmid, pastor of the Gerrys' congregation, Creekside Church in Rocklin, was allowed to visit Micah with other elders of the church. They prayed over him and anointed him with oil.

Meanwhile, Micah's parents had friends in Southern California who started a prayer page for him on Facebook. It received some 20,000 hits.

About 2,000 people signed up to pray for Micah, including a man in Kenya and people in Indonesia.

Another family friend works at Air One Radio Network, a Christian broadcast heard on 210 radio stations in 40 states. He shared a prayer request for Micah with an Air One DJ, who began broadcasting daily updates.

On March 16, Micah "started making amazing improvement overnight," Carrie said. Doctors took him off the ventilator the next day. They moved him out of the intensive care unit the day after that. He was not yet out of the woods, however.

"My lungs were still full of fluid," said Micah. "The way they cleared me out was they'd put this other tube down into me and push a plunger and I'd choke and cough up more fluid. I didn't know I was still fighting for my life.

"My motor skills were completely gone. When my parents and wife would leave the room, the doctors would talk in front of me about whether I had brain damage. Then they saw me looking at them and they stopped talking and said, 'Do you understand us?' I couldn't nod. I couldn't grip a pen. I got to the point when I could barely whisper a few words. My few words were 'Discharge.' I didn't want to be choked anymore."

Micah was discharged March 21, 15 days after he was admitted.

The Gerrys attribute his recovery to the excellent care he received. They also look back to Micah's out-of-the-blue decision three months earlier to begin running, which strengthened his lungs.

But they also credit prayer.

"I never had reassurance that Micah would make it through. I had faith that God heard my prayers and that he loved Micah immensely, that he was doing something even though I couldn't see it," Carrie said.

God's sense of humor

Micah, a financial adviser, was irritated at first when told about the Facebook prayer page.

"I didn't want my clients or my boss or anyone at work beginning to speculate on my health," he said. "It was a shallow worry.

"During my time out (in a coma) my mom and my sister and my wife posted everything – my condition twice a day. I was just blown away. People all over were rallying around us. I didn't know why. I'm deeply humbled that I had so many people praying for me."

"I think a huge part of why I'm saved is because of Facebook. I think God has a huge sense of humor. I hated Facebook, but now I can see how God can use social networking. I believe that prayers are powerful."

How powerful? Six days after his release, Micah walked back into the hospital on his own power, this time for the birth of the couple's fourth child, a daughter named Brooklyn.

"The most important medicine that all people can do is prayer," said Devendra, who was born in Sri Lanka, grew up as a Buddhist and became a Christian when he was studying to become a doctor. "I believe in the power of prayer. There's no doubt prayer had an impact on (Micah's) recovery."

Micah said he has a greater appreciation for Jesus' death and resurrection because of his experience.

"I finally get what fighting for your life feels like," he said. "I didn't go through a fraction of his suffering. He went through the worst kind of torture by the Roman soldiers. He basically suffocated — that's what crucifixion does. In a small way, I have a glimpse of that, what he had to endure."

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Modesto Bee staff writer Sue Nowicki can be reached at (209) 578-2012 or snowicki@modbee.com.

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