FGGAM thanks the Cottonwood County Citizen in Windom, Minnesota for allowing us to share this story written by our Dear Friend Dave Fjeld of the Citizen. This story is about another Dear Friend, Rod Byam. I had not seen Rod in nearly 40 years when God put him on my heart to call him and ask him to head up the Windom Revival for FGGAM. Rod did not hesitate one bit and accepted the assignment on the spot to help lead the effort in Windom. He worked daily for months to get the word out about the Revival and set up all the necessary arrangements. I am so thankful for Rod and his lovey wife Deb, pictured above. Pictured below is Rod presenting Windom Legend Jack Kelly with a portrait Rod did of Jack, also pictured is Greg Warner of the BARC where the Windom Revival was held in August of this year. I have to add that Windom is so very blessed to have Dave Fjeld at the Citizen, I pray for more writers like Dave! I also will never forget the kindness of Greg Warner and staff at the BARC! The Lord has shown me we will be back in Windom at some point. For HIS Glory Alone! 
Fall to GRACE
Windom’s Rod Byam continues to recover after fall from tree 18 months ago.
Ask Rod Byam what he’s thankful for this Thanksgiving and his response is short and quick:
“God!”
Nearly 18 months after an estimated 28-to-35-foot fall from a tree in rural Springfield, the 67-year-old Windom man continues to recover. He has lingering effects from injuries that included two crushed heels — his left fibula went through his foot and shoe; two crushed vertebrae; a concussion; and a torn renal system.
But he is walking again, albeit slower than he’s used to, and, mentally, he may be better than he ever has been.
And for that, he has only God to thank.
You see, after spending two weeks in critical care and moving to a rest home in Rochester for rehabilitation, depression set in.
“I thought, ‘Holy cow, this is where old people go,’ ” Rod recalls, then laughs, knowing he was 66 years old at the time. “I was so depressed. I wouldn’t eat, I wouldn’t drink water.”
Even a visit from a director at the home, who sternly informed him that his kidneys were shutting down, didn’t shake him. He was ready to die.
That night, he dosed off and at about 3 a.m., he was startled awake by a booming voice.
“He said, ‘Rod! Your choice! I brought you into this world, you can take yourself out!
You make the decision,’ ” Rod says. “I sat up and I said, ‘Who said that?’ I looked around and there was nobody there. I was drenched in sweat when I woke up. I was scared. I couldn’t go back to sleep. I knew Who said it and it scared me.
“About 6:30, the orderly came in and said,
‘Time for your bath.’ I said, ‘Scrub away. I’m going to go down and eat.’ I had made my decision.”
Not only did he begin eating and drinking, but he gained 40 pounds while being laid up. He quickly notes that he has since lost 20, gained back four and wants to lose another 25.
He kept that story to himself for eight months before finally sharing it with his daughter-in-law, Kari, earlier this year.
“She said, ‘Why haven’t I heard this before?’ and I said, ‘Because I’m so ashamed of myself for what I thought and felt, what I went through and didn’t appreciate and that I’ve been given a second chance,” Rod says.
His approach to life has done an about-face, thanks to his fall to grace.
“I was in the rest home and I was at the point where I had no hope. The doctor told me it would be at least a year before I would walk again. The doctor said I should be dead. I had given up. Do I have a lot to be thankful for? Heck yes!” he says.
It was June 4, 2015, when Byam received a call from a woman in rural Springfield, who had a swarm of bees in a tree in her yard.
Byam, who has been a beekeeper for ?? years, had two goals in mind with the phone call. First and foremost, he wanted to help the woman get rid of the swarm. Secondly, he could get a free batch of bees to add to the colonies he already had. After all, a package of bees runs about $105 these days.
“Dr. Taber said, ‘So, you spent about a quarter of a million dollars for those bees,’ ” Rod says with a laugh.
Byam and his wife drove to the woman’s house where Rod got out a hive that he was going to put the bees in and his ladder, which he extended the full 22 feet to the first branch. He started stepping on branches of the half-dead tree hoping to reach the bees and sweep them into a bucket.
“While I was laying in intensive care, I thought of four different ways I could have (done the job) — one of them was to walk away,” Byam says.
Instead, he continued to climb. At the moment he realized he couldn’t reach the bees and it was time to call it a day, the chicken barns that he was viewing over the roof of the two-story house disappeared. Neither Rod nor Deb heard a branch break, but he realized he was falling.
“People say they saw their life flash. No. What I saw was I was outside my body watching my face and I saw a terrified look,” he says.
When he hit the ground — feet first — he stood for several seconds then toppled over and couldn’t catch his breath. He could feel his arms and legs and was able to move his head.
The Springfield ambulance took him to the Springfield Hospital.
“As they’re wheeling me in, one of the EMTs says, ‘You’ve got a stick sticking out of your foot.’ I said, ‘That’s not a stick,’ ” Byam says, knowing it was his fibula that had been driven through the bottom of his heel.
After doctors took a variety of X-rays they transferred him to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.
The entire time, Byam remained conscious and alert and felt no pain. His body had gone into shock.
Surgeons in Rochester waited two days to allow swelling to subside before doing surgery. However, surgery is where Byam first experienced God’s grace. He nearly died on the operating table — twice. On two occasions during surgery when doctors removed his breathing tube, his brochial tubes spasmed and constricted. Ultimately, they had to insert an infant’s breathing tube into the constricted airway to get him breathing on his own again.
However, that surgeons were even battling to save his life is a miracle, as he later learned. During his second week in the hospital, Rod asked one of his doctors when he thought he would be able to start walking again.
“He said, ‘Mr. Byam, we’re scratching our heads and trying to figure out why you don’t have any back pain,’ ” Rod recalls. “ ‘We get a lot of these kinds of injuries — crushed heels — in the fall when hunters are out. They get in their tree stands, don’t tie themselves in and fall asleep. They’re about 12 to 18 feet high and 80 percent of them die. We’re trying to figure out why you’re still here.’ ”
He spent two weeks in critical care in Rochester before being transferred to a rest home in Rochester, where he experienced God’s grace a second time and also heard God’s voice telling him that he had arrived at life’s fork in the road.
Once decided to live — after the ultimatum from above — Byam spent just 1½ weeks at the rest home.
“I could maneuver myself from the bed to the wheelchair with the help of a slide board,” Rod recalls. “After the first week they said, ‘We can’t help you any more. You’re doing everything we expect you to do.’ ”
He spent the next 1½ months at the home of his daughter and son-in-law, Kelli and Chris Nibbe, in Rochester. But recovery was slow.
“Adapting to a different life, a new normal, is a process,” Rod says. “That’s what I tell people in the Red Cross. ‘We’re not going to get you back to where you were, but we are going to start you on a path to a new normal.’ ”
He returned home to Windom at the end of August 2015, where he began his physical therapy at Windom Area Hospital.
“I’m pretty sure I would not have been able to walk really well without Windom Hospital,” Rod says. “They push you.”
Byam read that for every one day spent in bed, three days of recovery are needed. Considering that he spent most of two months in bed or a wheelchair, he was facing at least six months of recovery.
However, roughly four months after the accident, he finally began walking again. He checked out of physical therapy at WAH on his 75th day.
So, how is he doing now, nearly 18 months since the accident?
Physically, he continues to recover.
“I only have half, if that much, the strength I had before I got hurt,” he says.
“My right ankle feels like I’m walking on a sprained ankle. My left is like walking on somebody’s fist. It doesn’t take too many steps before it starts hurting. The right has gotten a lot better and I’m hoping the left follows.
“But my new normal has got to be better than what it is right now.”
After sitting for some time, he is stiff and has to get his body moving again.
He also struggles with his balance, especially when going down steps. He also has noticed it has become much harder for him to stay motivated. To that end, he began driving school, which forces him to get up and get moving in the morning.
Because of the accident, he severely bruised the bones in his knees and will have to have both replaced in the future.
He has two goals in the meantime. Not only does he want to lose that additional 25 pounds, but he also has a goal of walking five miles a day, not all at once, but over the course of an entire day. He believes that he will likely get to that stage by bicycling first.
One casualty of his accident was his work at The Toro Company in Windom where he was a welder. Even though he had reached retirement age, he attempted to return to work first on a part-time basis.
“After the first day, I said, ‘Rod, what are you, nuts? You can’t stand on your feet for four hours a day,’ ” Rod recalls. “But they were good to me.
“I think it is up to me to regain my strength, which will only add to my character. I tell people all the time, it isn’t what happens to you, it is what you do about it.”
One thing he won’t be able to do is one of the hardest things he’s had to come to grips with.
“I like climbing. I like working on antennaes as a ham radio operator. It is very hard for me not to get on a ladder,” Rod admits. “If my kids find out that I’m going to use a ladder, they’re over here doing it for me.”
Although he has retired from his job at Toro, he hasn’t lessened his activity. He continues to serve on several boards and with several organizations and will continue to maintain his bee colonies. He presently has a dozen hives and would like to expand to 20 to 30 by the end of 2017.
Mentally, Byam says he is in a better frame of mind than he ever has been.
“I think I’m stronger,” he says. “I was able to help put on the Windom Revival (in August). Dewey Moede, even from a distance, made me a better person. I know it was God, but Dewey was His messenger.”
Through the accident, Rod also has learned that depression, specifically seasonal affect disorder, is a family trait. And now, he says, it makes sense. He has always hated to see the arrival of winter and its short days.
He’s counteracted the effects of SAD with light.
“The more light the better,” Rod says. “This house is not very dim. Electricity is not penny-cheap, but I like a lot of light.”
So, who does he thank this Thanksgiving?
In a word, “God.”
“Really, we’re nothing,” Rod says. “I read a book by Chuck Colson, ‘Prison to Praise.’ When I started praising God for the difficulties and trials he put in my way, that’s when my life started changing. You can pray all you want, but you need to praise God and thank him.”
There are angels on earth who helped him through his recovery, for whom he is eternally grateful.
“I know I wouldn’t be here today without her,” he says pointing to his wife, Deb. “They say marriage is 50-50, baloney. She’s not my better half; she’s 80 percent. I’m only 20 percent. It’s always been that way, I just didn’t know it.”
He’s also thankful for his children, who have been a world of support during his recovery.
Co-workers at Toro as well as his physical therapists at Windom Area Hospital provided support and rehabilitation.
And then there are the many people, including church family, who visited him, made phone calls, or sent cards and flowers, not to mention many more who prayed.
“People came to Rochester to see me. That blew me away,” he confirms. “I know this: it doesn’t matter if you’re a teacher, preacher or brick-layer, you do not know what effect you have, or may have or may have had on someone you touched during your lifetime. We need each other and we need not forget that.
“It really makes your day.”
Rod Byam experienced a mighty fall, but he now realizes into Whose arms he fell.
