The 12 Hours To Live Story: Reformation Begins
Published December 31, 2013
As my eyes focused and I became aware, I saw my children and family standing in front of me with tears staining their faces….Dying on a respirator, gasping for air, on a piece of paper I wrote the word DIE? My mother said “YES we think tonight you will be meeting God”. I wrote the word CHANCE? ….This time the doctor replied: “Are you asking what chance you have to survive?” .. I shook my head YES….He looked directly into my eyes and said: “Steve, I give you a 3% chance that you’ll live more than 12 hours.”
In January 2008, doctors woke me from a medically induced coma to say goodbye to my family. I was on a respirator and could not speak….With everything in my being, I wanted to speak to my children, tell them that I loved them and give them wisdom that they could shape their lives with.
I tried to tear out the respirator and they had to hold me down…
You see my life up to this point was tragic. While I was successful many times in business, I had a beautiful family and amazing children, there was a deep sadness within me that caused me to act contrary to who I really was and I could not comprehend that this was the end of the road, and this was how the story of my life ends….
Hearing a doctor tell you you have a 97% chance of dying within 12 hours will sure get your attention and bring things into simple clarity real quick!
That night in the hospital I had the most profound near death experience which set the stage for things to come…
After open heart surgery and a rare complication, I had a massive removal of my digestive system. The doctors said I was to remain on intravenous amino acid infusions (TPN) as a life support for food and nourishment for the rest of my life. They gave me no hope to eat food again to survive, I would have to get my food through my veins. Never eating much again is a “hard pill to swallow” (pun intended). I had to carry a portable pump everywhere I went which gave me a sense of “freedom”.
To give context here, one day while in the hospital, a week after I had awoke, I asked a nurse: “when do I get to eat?” She’s sarcastically answered never!
I thought I must have had heard wrong, so I asked again..the answer was NEVER, they physically removed all the equipment we use to sustain life. It simply wasn’t there anymore.
I can’t describe what that is like in words alone, to never eat food again..I don’t know about you but I had sure taken for granted eating to survive, ummm it was like I had been eating something from before conscious memory. So I said the first hing that came to mind:
I said, YOU GO GET THAT DOCTOR WHO DID THAT AND TELL HIM TO PUT ALL THAT BACK INTO ME! I WAS USING THOSE INTESTINES AND I NEED THEM NOW!
Needless to say she said “that’s not the way it works” so sorry….
I new I was lucky to have something that I could survive with, in this case it was a custom made solution called “TPN”, costing over $20,000 a month to feed me which also required a permanent IV line into my bloodstream….then about 4 months later, I had learned that at some point while in the hospital, I had been infected with a common infection found in hospitals through that IV feeding line and that the TPN formula that was keeping me alive was also causing this infection to grow as well. This left IV feeding too dangerous, and tests showed I could not live on food. This was a real “catch-22” I was given another hopeless outcome, maybe 3 – 6 months to live.
I turned to a personal development course and in the midst of them talking about “goals in life” I decided to reach out to Jesus who I did not understand in a move of faith, and the evidence of it was the next morning I disconnected my IV feeding machine and went to breakfast, then lunch and finally dinner. Instantly I had adapted to food and was healed!
I didn’t tell my doctors what I had done. When they found out, they thought I had gone crazy as I had tests from all the specialists that confirmed I did not physically have the equipment for normal digestion.But all my tests showed I had normal nutritional levels stumping the specialists.
I went on with life but in April 2011 a recurrence of that infection caused another emergency open heart surgery and the implanting of a mechanical heart valve, and it took months to heal again…
Then 11 months later I was hit by a drunk driver in a near fatal car accident and had emergency surgery to remove an additional 20 percent of my guts! . Doctors told me sternly that now ” I had to face reality: “I had to admit I would NEVER again eat food to survive …..I smiled and asked for a menu.…began eating again and I choose to rest in God for comfort and wisdom.
Today, I live on healthy food, have an active life, which is most rare given the trauma my body has endured. It is my absolute dependence on God and the close connection with my kids that makes life meaningful along with my ability to support various charities to witness healing on a grand scale.
Against All Odds
Our bodies are amazing machines and miraculous in the way we operate . For a man my size, normally there are 27-30 feet of the digesting system where food is turned into energy. It takes long length to breakdown food. However in my case I have about 4 feet in total . I am missing around 25 feet or so and conventional thought says it’s not enough to survive on. New research has shown in rare cases something called “digestive adaptation” occurs as my body reversed itself in how it operates. It’s said to take about 2 years but in my case it was instant. It had to be because I would have died.
God uses everything including medical science to heal us, and our faith and the prayers of others were the defining difference in my experience.
Through all of this I have learned the difference between my body and my spirit and I have learned the healing power of contentment and joy. I have learned how to deal with the wide-ranging emotions serious illness causes. I’ve learned how to make healthy decisions based on a whole food diet and how to allow my body to heal itself and when to use medical sciences and when not to. I have also learned how to navigate the healthcare system with a rare condition like I have and how to be my own healthcare advocate.
I am so very blessed to have had to face these issues mid-life as I have gone through what I might think is end of life issues at a young age. It has radically changed the way I think and behave and I can say that life becomes simple when we are grateful for just being alive! God did not send my illness or car crashes, no that was just life. However, I thank God for all of these trials in which he completely turned around and became for me disguised blessings as I choose the way to look at them….as what evil means for harm God will turn to gold for me and then others.
Over the past 6 years God has used all these experiences to change my heart from a life lived in fear, in futility, to a life lived in faith, in the spirit.
Looking back at the video at the top of this page it was made in 2010 BEFORE my second heart surgery and almost fatal car crash..when I faced those adversities it was with the promise that Jesus brings life and life abundantly….Most important is this: I serve an awesome God who heals, who knows what best for me in the scope of eternity and who reigns in heaven above, with wisdom power and love, he is an awesome God!
I created this site out of the desire I felt that night dying on that respirator to reach my children. Daily, I need to focus on what’s important and push aside the nonsense. I am hopeful that I can help others with my experience. If I were to find myself again on a respirator and dying and looking at my kids, this would be a place they could go to understand more about how God radically changed me. Today my life is “strategically” un-complicated and I encourage others to slow down the pace and keep sharing inspiration with those in their circles regularly.
ref·or·ma·tion
ˌrefərˈmāSH(ə)n/noun
A Reformation Miracle?
Is it a miracle that I survived and am thriving? Yes!! All glory to God!…and while it happened in 2008, it is still happening now as I write this. I do not possess the normal equipment to digest food, but yet I live. Every 12 hour period for me is a literal miracle, all glory to GOD!
Through this, God has renewed my mind and “Re-Formed” my patterns of thought! It’s good news that that miracle is available to everyone…you don’t have to go through all this to get it!
However, when I hear people say to me “you are a walking miracle” I tell them and I’ll tell you know that: “Yes we all are!
There is nothing special about me, in fact I think it’s also a miracle for people to live in relative health without going through something as dramatic as I have. My father is 80 years old and hasn’t seen the inside of a hospital ever!.
If you are healthy and alive then be grateful that you are the miracle.
Have you ever stopped and considered your body? Not how it looks but how it operates… stop for a moment and consider your amazing body……it’s beyond belief!
Watch a baby discovering it’s hands and feet, it seems to be astonished at how it works, and then when they realize they can control it all they can’t seem to get enough. We need to be more like that, and realize that every day our eyes open, we are witnessing a miracle that is beyond the scope of human understanding…that is the miracle called life!
Something to consider:
What would you tell your kids, friends and even strangers, if you knew you had just 12 hours to live? Would you focus on the hurts the misunderstandings and the pain?…..or rather would you focus on love, appreciation, beauty and the honor of being a part of their lives and just to have been alive?
Most important: are you ready to face that final day we all know is inevitable?
It seems on average we have about 12 hours of productive time in a day so….How will you spend your next “12 Hours To Live”?
Living in Gratitude!!
Steve Maust
Anthony Brown and Group Therapy can sure SING it better than I can say it…
This song’s dedicated to everyone who made it
Through Many test and trials
Hopeless situations
Now you have a story that the Angels can’t sing in Glory
You’re redeemed from the hand of the enemy
Here we go
Whether it’s in the court room
Or fighting in the board room
Trying to feed your family
Or keep doubt underneath you
God is more than able He can turn the tables
So Turn and tell your neighbor now it’s time for you to return the favor
Can I a witness, just need one witness
That’s God’s still working Miracles
Opening doors that were closed before
He’s still making ways
when others say that there ain’t no way
If you know this is true
This is what I need you to do
Get up with me and say
Can’t nobody tell like it me
Can’t nobody say it like
You don’t know the story like me
Cause it’s my, it’s my testimony Say
Can’t Praise Him like Me Say
Can’t Nobody Praise Him for me
He’s given me the Victory
And now I got a, I got a testimony
Anybody ever had a sickness
Been bound by any illness
laid up in a sick room
And the doctor said there’s nothing he can do
While they called your family
You cried out Lord please help me
Cause you knew deep down inside that He would heal you
Now let’s fast forward
Now the doctors can’t explain it
Some way some how you made it
Never stopped believing
Now your walking in your healing
Everything’s Not perfect
But you don’t look what you been through
Now you can tell somebody
If He did for me He can do it for you!!!!!!
Can I a witness, just need one witness
That’s God’s still working Miracles
Opening doors that were closed before
He’s still making ways
when others say that there ain’t no way
If you know this is true
This is what I need you to do
Get up with me and say
Can’t nobody tell like it me
Can’t nobody say it like
You don’t know the story like me
Cause it’s my, it’s my testimony Say
Can’t Praise Him like Me Say
Can’t Nobody Praise Him for me
He’s Given me the Victory
And now I got a I got a testimony
Say, It’s my, It’s my Hey it’s my testimony say
I got a, I got a I got a testimony say
Say, It’s my, It’s my Hey Say it’s my testimony say
Now I got a, I got a I got a testimony say
Can I get a witness, just need one more
Just need one more
God’s still working miracles,
opening doors that were closed before
He’s still making ways
when others say that there ain’t no way
If you know this is true
This is what I need you to do
Get up with me and say
Can’t nobody tell like it me
Can’t nobody say it like
You don’t know the story like me
Cause it’s my, it’s my testimony Say
Can’t Praise Him like Me Say
Can’t Nobody Praise Him for me
He’s Given me the Victory
And now I got a I got a testimony
Author: Steve Maust