BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

The pastor’s altar call resulted in a 100% salvation response. That had been Aunt Janice’s endgame, Dan recalled: to get her son and nephew born again. When they returned home she said, “Let’s celebrate by praising the Lord.” “She put on a Kenneth Copeland album and we danced and praised the Lord for what He had done,” Dan said. Sitting here now, decades later, Dan felt horrible about his aunt. He’d flown her from Ohio to Lantana, Texas, for a much-needed vacation. Instead, Aunt Janice had become a nursemaid when both Dan and his wife, Valerie, had been diagnosed with COVID-19. The first week they were treated with ivermectin, steroid shots and antibiotics. After a few days on ivermectin, Dan felt great. However, on day six, after the medicine wore off, he’d crashed. Thinking he just needed another steroid shot, Dan asked Aunt Janice to take him to the clinic. Just then the doctor came into the room. “The normal level for oxygen saturation is 95-100%,” the doctor explained. “Yours is in the low 80s, which is very dangerous. You need to get to a hospital now.” As Janice rushed Dan to the hospital, he felt as though he was in an adult version of a haunted house, someplace like a house of mirrors where the earth shifted on its axis and he lost his equilibrium. A place so alien, and with such thin air, it was impossible to take a deep breath. Not Enough Oxygen “On Aug. 16, 2021, I was admitted to the hospital, diagnosed with COVID-19 with acute respiratory failure and pneumonia,” Dan remembers. “They started me on remdesivir, an antiviral medication approved by the FDA for the treatment of COVID.” The next day Dan learned that his niece, a physician’s assistant, had stopped by to check on Valerie. Her oxygen saturation was in the 50s! The niece and her husband rushed Valerie to the hospital, where she was admitted to the intensive care unit. “Valerie had pain in her shoulder and they wanted to give her morphine,” Dan said. “With her respiration so compromised, she was afraid to take it. Our pastors, George and Terri Pearsons, were standing with us. Pastor Terri called and prayed Mark 16:18, where Jesus said that if they drink any deadly thing it would not hurt them. Valerie took the morphine and it didn’t hurt her. Thank God that Pastors George and Terri prayed that over us. We would need it many times.” Getting oxygen turned out to be a challenge for Dan. “They put a cannula in my nose, but it didn’t work. My nose had been broken three times and I had a deviated septum. It would bleed and clog up the cannula. I told everyone I couldn’t breathe through my nose but they didn’t listen. “Next they put an oxygen mask on me, but my oxygen levels dropped so low that alarms rang constantly. After that, they put me on a CPAP machine, like people use for sleep apnea. It was supposed to push oxygen into my lungs, but it wasn’t working right.” When Dan told the technician the machine wasn’t working properly, he was told, “I don’t try to tell you how to do your job, so don’t tell me how to do mine. Just put that thing on and be quiet,” Dan recalled. “I told him I was an electrical engineer and that I know when something isn’t working right,” Dan said. “Finally, they got me another CPAP machine and realized that the first one really wasn’t working.” The Blood of Jesus Within a week, the circulation below Dan’s knees was so compromised he couldn’t feel his toes. “It felt like I had frostbite, and it was very painful,” Dan said. The staff kept saying they couldn’t do anything about it, but one nurse put warm compresses on his feet to ease the pain. When she went off duty, no one else would do it. “By the next morning, the pain was so severe, I began shouting praises to God. Over and over, I asked for a blood transfusion of Jesus’ blood to restore the circulation in my legs. That went on for hours, until I finally passed out in exhaustion. “On Monday, Aug. 23, Valerie sent me a link from EMIC’s service the previous day. I watched Pastor Terri thank God for the blood of Jesus over the nation, the congregation and every hospital room….” Then, Brother Copeland called Pastor George on his cellphone and shared the following word: 18 : BVOV

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