It has been a wild couple of weeks. And not something I would want to go through ever again. I’ll give you mostly the highlights, and you can look some things up if you want more details. But all-in-all, I know God was with me the whole time, and there was lots to be thankful for even in the midst of the storm.
It all started after I got back from Camelback in Phoenix. I had been home a mere 30–45 minutes when I felt a sudden intense pain in my lower right abdomen. I immediately thought appendix, or kidney stone. (I am so thankful that I was home when this happened, and not still in Phoenix, or worse, on the airplane.) I also noticed I was quite weak. I went upstairs to my bedroom to see if it would go away. It didn’t, and in fact got more intense. I called downstairs, trying to not sound anxious, for my wife to come up as quickly as possible. I told her I needed to go the hospital immediately.
We got to the ER and I told them my symptoms, and they got me back to a room fairly quickly. A ruptured appendix is an emergency. They got me hooked up to all the monitors etc. and then a doctor came in and asked, “Do you have Afib (Atrial Fibrillation)?” I said I didn’t think so, but then another doctor came in and asked the exact same question. I was now not sure. I was moved to a larger treatment room and noticed about nine other ER staff moving into the area. I was rushed to get a CT scan of my chest and abdomen. They found that the pain I was having arose from a clot that was formed in my heart and traveled to my kidney. (Thankful thing #2. The clot went to my kidney and not my brain, which would have caused a stroke). The doctor asked if I needed anything for pain, and I said YES!!!!. He left the choice up to me knowing now that I am a nurse. I wasn’t sure, so they gave me fentanyl. That was nice for about 2 hours, then the pain was back.
I was transported to the Cardiac Floor though there was talk of me now going to ICU, esp. with my heart racing at 180 bpm. With a big batch of tests, pokings, proddings, scans, etc., the ultimate conclusion was that I had been in Afib off and on for some time, but didn’t notice it, though I probably should have. Hey, I’m a baby boomer, and our motto is, if you ignore it, it will eventually go away. The Afib lead to Congestive Heart Failure with a life-threatening decrease in Ejection Fraction (should be 50–70% and I was at 20%), decreased kidney function (down to 30%), pleural effusion (lungs filling up with fluid), and some liver damage thrown in for good measure. In other words, I was in bad shape. With each diagnosis, days were added to my stay in the hospital.
The first thing was to get the excess fluid off of me so my organs could work with less stress. After a boat load of Lasix (a diuretic) and a loss of 20 pounds of excess water, I went in for a procedure called cardioversion to see if they could correct my Afib. IT WORKED!!! for about a half day. Then back to Afib, and a racing heart, though now down to 140 bpm.
It was determined that I needed a cardiac catheterization to see if I had any other heart disease process, which thankfully I did not. The next thing then was to take care of the Afib with what is called ablation where they interrupt errant electrical signals in my heart to get everything working together. The problem? I had to be transferred to another hospital for the surgery. I had the heart surgery on Wednesday, March 18, and it went well. I was told that technology in even the last two years has made this procedure way more successful, so Thankful Thing #3.
I was released from the hospital the next day, and am now home and ready to take on the world again.
God is good, and He is always in control. There were people I met that I hope to have had a big influence on. One night nurse, Roshan, a nurse from India who is also a husband and father, I was able to share Jesus with him. I pray God will convict him. I was also able to share the gospel with other nurses and aides. And I found many Christians in the system, and pray that they will have an influence on those they come into contact with.
I have gotten back to my daily reading and have just finished 2 Kings. The thing that really stood out to me was the time of Josiah, the good king who cleaned up Judah for a time before the captivity. As I read of all of the reforms he made, it really struck me just how bad things had gotten of the years and years of the people neglecting God’s law. And though He sent prophets to warn them, they continued in their same practices. It’s almost as if they were saying, “If we ignore it, it will eventually go away.” All the signs were there, but they got so used to them that they didn’t seem that bad. And then the crisis hit.
As I look back on this crisis of health, I am also reminded of the other crises that God brought me into, primarily to get my attention and bring me to helplessness in that area of life that I wanted so much to control. If I had time I could speak of how God showed me I was not in control of my mental health, my family, my career, my finances, and now, my health. All of this can be taken so quickly. We need to hold all things with an open hand for God to put in and take out and He wills. I am finally coming to the point where I can boast in my weakness knowing that his strength is made perfect in my weakness.
And I’ll be reminded of this at least twice a day as I take my new meds, weigh myself, take my blood pressure and pulse, get a new smart watch that can keep track of my heart rate, etc. And, as we have Samaritan health sharing, as the bills come in, and as they are covered by God’s people, I will be reminded of His provision in all things.
I know that God is not done with me yet, because I am still here. He could just as easily taken me home. And I was a times afraid He would, and at others afraid He wouldn’t. But my faith is stronger now than before, all because of Jesus who is the Author and Perfecter of our faith.
Amen
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