Oh  dear, if loving vernon has it, he needs help as like Phil says it is
like death. I don't suffer from it any more but believe me, it's wretched.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Pat Ferguson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2004 8:27 AM
Subject: Re: It Felt Like Death


Kerri,

I think my loving Vernon has Sleep Apnea. He has never been checked for it,
though. He's fallen out of bed twice in one week.

I'm praying for you and for everyone with sleep Apnea.

Love and Blessings,
Pat Ferguson


At 11:35 PM 8/3/04, you wrote:
>Pat, I had sleep apnea and he is right on the mark.
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Pat Ferguson" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 2004 9:12 PM
>Subject: Re: It Felt Like Death
>
>
>Phil,
>
>I'm praying for you. Those words were excellent. Keep up the great work.
>You have helpped me more than you will ever know.
>
>Thanks for that.
>
>Love and Blessings,
>Pat Ferguson
>
>
>At 10:31 PM 8/3/04, you wrote:
> >This may change slightly once I put it on my website but for now, here it
>is
> >for what it is worth.
> >
> >Phil.
> >
> >
> >It Felt Like Death
> >
> >By Phil Scovell
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >      Although I have not slept well for many years, something had
> >recently changed.  After awaking each morning, I felt unable to
> >physically function until late in the afternoon.  I finally
> >decided it was time to see our family doctor.
> >
> >      Although he ran blood tests to see if anything showed up that
> >might be a possible suspect, his first guess was sleep apnea.  My
> >wife, a medical transcriptionist for 35 years, had been trying to
> >tell me that I had sleep apnea for more than two years but I just
> >didn't think that was my problem.  I have since learned that
> >people with sleep apnea rarely know, or think, they have it
> >because they generally don't realize their sleep is being
> >disturbed.
> >
> >      In case the reader doesn't know what sleep apnea is, simply
> >defined, it is when you literally stop breathing during sleep.
> >So your brain sends a critical wake up signal, since you aren't
> >breathing, and your body will do anything to jump start your
> >breathing again.  It can literally feel as if you were
> >electrically shocked into consciousness if the apnea is severe.
> >That, in fact, was happening to me at times.
> >
> >      One of the most obvious symptoms of sleep apnea is day time
> >total exhaustion to the extreme.  I have never been able to
> >describe that feeling until recently.  Saying I was just tired
> >wasn't exactly right.  Saying I felt extremely exhausted didn't
> >exactly define how I felt either.  I said often it felt as if I
> >were weak but that still could not describe my physical feeling.
> >Additional sleep would not make the feeling go away.  There just
> >wasn't a word in the dictionary I could find to identify how I
> >felt.  Strangely enough, by later afternoon or very early evening,
> >I always felt normal and my strength seemed to return and I could
> >function normally.
> >
> >      Upon my doctor's recommendation, I entered the hospital for
> >an over night sleep study.  They glue four probes to your scull to
> >watch brain patterns during sleep.  They  wrap a strap around your
stomach
> >and another around your chest in
> >order to monitor your breathing.  Additional probes and sensors
> >are taped to your legs to see if your legs jump rapidly during
> >sleep because often people with sleep apnea will jerk
> >spasmodically when their brain is trying to jolt them back into
> >breathing again.  I had experience many of those symptoms to the
> >point I was jerking awake and if one of my hands was near the head
> >of our bed where we have a book shelf, I often knocked things
> >over.  Frankly, awakening during the night time and time again in
> >this violent way, can be quite frightening and other emotional
> >concerns then easily come into play because you can't analyze what
> >is happening or why.  Also, they taped probes on my chest to
> >monitor air flow in and out of the lungs and to monitor the heart
> >during the night sleep.  In some cases, they have to come into
> >your room during the night to put a sleep mask over your nose in
> >order for you to breathe better.  During the night, from beginning
> >to end, you are video taped.  An intercom monitor is likewise on
> >in your room throughout the night.  This is so they can listen to
> >you and if you need assistance, all you need do is speak and
> >someone comes running.  All the wires running from the probes,
> >sensors, and straps, connect to a central device which is then
> >connected to the computer.  Specially trained technicians sit and
> >watch your data being displayed on the screen all night.  In
> >short, if you so much as break wind, which is an old way of
> >saying if you even pass gas during the night, it is recorded and
> >logged as data.  If you absent mindedly pick your nose during the
> >night, you are not only caught electronically by the computer but
> >you are on video tape as well.  Now, there's a family video you
> >can drag out and force your friends and relatives to watch for
> >seven or eight hours.  Makes sure you pop a 55 gallon drum of
> >popcorn if you plan on watching it straight through.  They also
> >want you to sleep on your back for the first hour or two,
> >something I normally find next to impossible to do, but then you
> >are allowed to sleep in any position you normally use.  Sure.  Try
> >rolling around with all these wires and cables hanging from every
> >part of your body and see how comfortable you are.  Then, when you
> >are awakened in the morning, feeling lousy, the quickly rip off
> >the tape and gummy glue in your hair to remove the wires and
> >probes.  Too bad if you forgot to shave your legs the night
> >before.  I did forget, I'm proud to say.
> >
> >      In basic layman terms, sleep apnea occurs due to the tongue
> >sliding too far back and blocking the throat and thus cutting off
> >air flow to a lesser, or greater, degree.  Wearing a nose mask
> >with air flowing in and through the nasal passages, is often all
> >that is needed to keep the passageway opened for breathing to
> >occur normally.  In more severe cases, a surgical procedure is
> >available but most people find almost instant positive results
> >from wearing a device over the nose called Continuous Positive
> >Airway Pressure or C PAP for short.  This keeps the throat from
> >being blocked so the person can breathe and sleep normally.
> >
> >      One day, following my doctor's appointment, and learning that
> >nothing in my blood work showed anything abnormal, I was sitting
> >on our deck swing praying.  The sleep study had been successfully
> >concluded and now I was waiting for my doctor to get the data back
> >from the hospital to see if I in fact had sleep apnea.  It was mid
> >afternoon so I was beginning to physically feel better for that
> >day.  I was thinking about how I felt and about what might be
> >wrong.  Since I couldn't describe the feeling in my body, I heard
> >the Holy Spirit suddenly say, "How does it feel?"
> >
> >      Then I knew.  I said, "It feels like death."  It was true.  I
> >felt as if my body were physically dying yet I wasn't tired, I
> >wasn't sleepy, I wasn't weak, and I wasn't exhausted.  It felt
> >truly as though my body were physically dying.  As an intercessor,
> >I immediately recognized the warning signals and I began to
> >quickly do a spiritual search, as it were, to locate the cause of
> >the feeling of death.  Why?  Because I wasn't dying so the feeling
> >of death should not be there.  Yet it was.  I was going to pray
> >and find out why.
> >
> >      I prayed and asked the Lord where this feeling came from and
> >I instantly saw the demon.  He was up high, as if sitting on a
> >tall hill near my head, and small and black.  I prayed a simple
> >prayer; binding his words and condemning them.  After dismissing
> >him from his assignments against me, I then turned him over to the
> >True Lord Jesus Christ.  He left.  The next day, I felt the best I
> >had felt in months.  Did it cure my sleep apnea?  No.  My prayer,
> >however, removed that feeling of death and prevented the Enemy
> >from creating a new foothold in my life.
> >
> >      When we are sick, tired, run down, or physically ill, it is a
> >perfect opportunistic time for a demon to come and implant
> >thoughts of lies.  These lies are much easier to believe at such
> >times because we are blindsided by the illness, sickness, disease,
> >or infirmity.  I learned another valuable lesson.  When something
> >doesn't feel right, it isn't.  That means it has an origin.
> >
> >      When I prayed, I fully expected to go to a memory where a lie
> >was rooted concerning death.  For example, when I was very small,
> >perhaps not more than 3 years of age, my mother and two older
> >sisters and I were in a car wreck.  Fortunately, none of us were
> >hurt but one of my sisters literally fell out of the car into a
> >muddy bar ditch which probably saved her life.  To this day, I
> >have strong vivid memories of the event and I have learned,
> >praying with others, an event, just like this one, could be, and
> >often is, traumatic for a child with subsequent emotional
> >repercussions.  Additionally, I well remember the time, in my
> >youth, I stepped on a nail.  I was taken to the hospital and the
> >ensuing infection became so painful, I remember telling my dad, as
> >he tried comforting me one night, that I wanted to die.  Bingo!
> >Perfect opportunity for a lie to be implanted by the Enemy or for
> >fear to become rooted.  I had to have my appendix removed when I
> >was quite small and I frankly do not have pleasant memories of
> >this event due to my age and being alone at night.  Another golden
> >opportunity for a lie to be inserted into a little mind that is
> >unable to process the fear being felt.  I could go on with many
> >such events but I hear someone saying, "these aren't major
> >traumatic experiences."  They aren't?  Try telling that to the 50
> >year old woman seated in my office who has suffered from
> >depression for literally decades.  When we pray and the Lord takes
> >her back to similar memories and events I have just described
> >which happened in her own life, and she is healed of the lies and
> >the fear associated with simple childhood events, what would you
> >call it if it was other than traumatic.  Furthermore, my father
> >died when I was 11 years old.  Exactly one year later, to the
> >exact date, I was pronounced totally blind and sent home from the
> >hospital after six months and more than a dozen surgeries on my
> >retinas.  These two events alone, even if nothing else ever
> >happened to me as a child, create fertile soil for the Enemy to
> >implant lies that my young mind simply found impossible to process
> >with adult understanding.  How do I know this?  Because, when I
> >turned 50 years of age, I slammed into depression full force and
> >began experiencing anxiety and panic attacks.  Nightmares and
> >voices kept me awake for days and I found it impossible to even
> >eat.  When the lies were exposed and remove, the anxiety attacks
> >and nightmares and voices all went away.
> >
> >      Sometimes people wonder if all I do is hunt for demons.  The
> >answer is yes and no.  No, I don't look for them, and yes, I find
> >them during prayer sessions all the time.  Let me ask you a
> >question.  What would you say the cause would be when praying with
> >a woman who had been raped many years ago but when she embraces
> >those strong and powerful emotions of fear again, she becomes ill
> >and pukes her toenails up?  "Oh," I hear someone saying, "She
> >isn't a Christian because that wouldn't happen to a Christian."
> >If you think that, you would be wrong because she is a Christian.
> >"Oh," you say, "but all her sins were forgiven at the cross."
> >That's true but we aren't talking about the effects of sins
> >already forgiven; we are talking about lies buried so deep, just
> >the memory of the event brings back the fear and the apprehension
> >and the dread so strongly, the physical body reacts violently as
> >if the rape just occurred.  Using your salvitic theology I would
> >say you likely believe, therefore, God's Son just died for our
> >sins and nothing else?  Is this woman, for example, although born
> >again, unable to live a totally free life or is the salvation
> >Jesus died and bled for insufficient for her?
> >
> >      "Well," the argument continues, "she is mentally ill.  That's
> >a case for the professionals."  What's a professional, if you
> >don't mind me asking?  Never mind.  I know what you think and I
> >know what you mean.  I am not a professional.  I have no degree
> >except for a three year THG general theology degree from a
> >seminary and I've lost that diploma.  I was once licensed to
> >preach in a very large Baptist church but I lost that piece of
> >paper so I can't prove it.  I was later ordained in the Baptist
> >church once but I lost that document, too, and have no idea where
> >it could be.  So, in short, I am definitely not a professional.  I
> >will tell you what I am even if you find it impossible to
> >believe.
> >
> >      First, I'm born again.  Secondly, I was told by God I would
> >be an intercessor at a time in my life when I had no idea what an
> >intercessor was.  Nearly twenty years later, the Lord led me into
> >praying with people on a one-to-one bases.  I have watched God
> >heal people who the "professionals" called mentally ill and said
> >they never could be fully well.  How could someone, who is not a
> >professional, do that?  He can't.  Only a loving God, who gave His
> >Son that we might live, and was bodily resurrected after three
> >days of being dead and buried, could do something like that.  What
> >I really want to know is, where is the church when it is needed
> >the most?
> >
> >      Now, if you break your leg or arm, come down with an illness
> >that doesn't go away, or need a cancerous tumor removed, for
> >crying in the sink, go to the doctor.  On the other hand, instead
> >of buying the lie of the Enemy that certain things should be left
> >up to the "professionals," maybe it is time we learned to pray.
> >Guess what will happen when you learn to pray?  You are going to
> >cross paths with demons who really exist and really talk and
> >really deceive even born again Christians.  So let's all get back
> >to work and stop trying to prove each other wrong.  We will have
> >lots of time in Heaven to find out who was and who wasn't.  For
> >now, keep your spiritual ears open when you are ill or facing an
> >infirmity.  You might be tricked by the Enemy.
> >
> >
> >I Flew Kites With Jesus
> >www.SafePlaceFellowship.com