I repeat: It was NOT a heart attack.

 

I have to say this with the disclaimer that I’m a man. And I know we men have an innate ability to discount the serious while amplifying the trivial. (Bullet to the stomach? It’s only a flesh wound. A few days of diarrhea? Oh my goodness, Come Lord Jesus! Actually, in all fairness, I think I’ve been through some significantly tough times with this cancer journey. Being nearly ‘killed’ three times with heavy doses of chemo in hopes the body will resurrect itself time and again took a certain toll. But this was different.

 

While driving to Des Moines, I – a man – recognized that I needed to pull over. The pain in my chest was severe to the point of nearly matching the incident when the millions of immature white blood cells broke through to my back. So calmly, I pulled over and walked to the passenger side so I could rest. I was doing pretty good until I fainted and smashed my knee on the pavement and then fainted into the ditch. My loving wife got me turned around and back to the car. No problem. But apparently seeing my eyes roll into the back of my head and my lips turning blue scared her. I remember her calling 911 and me saying I just need to lay down and rest. I remember ‘waking up’ to her yelling at me to breathe. My tender and loving wife never yells at me, so you can understand that after nearly 43 years of marriage, I almost immediately recognized this as a cue to open my eyes and remember to breathe again. Men have this innate ability to sense such subtle cues.

 

The ambulance crew came to ‘check me out’ but when they strapped me in the gurney and loaded me into the ambulance I knew I wasn’t going to get my way. So they started an IV, EKG, and oxygen ‘just to be sure’. These paramedic types are cautious folk. All I wanted was to get warm and lie still. After some 1800 miles on a bumpy dirt road, we arrived at the hospital where I got all I wanted, to lie down under some warm blankets…in the ER hallway…for three hours.

 

Those poor medical staff must have been busy. I remember thinking how many *really* sick people they must have to deal with. All I wanted was a GI cocktail (simethicone, maalox, and lidocane). And a sip of water. And once all my symptoms disappeared after a couple of hours, they gave it to me. Apparently some pigmy tribe stole my blood work and that of four other patients, so after a CAT scan, they reran the tests. As I suspected, everything was fine. I’m healthy as a racehorse, just not as strong.

 

So eventually my dear wife collected the discharge papers saying I should rest and notify my doctor if symptoms recurred and lasted more than two weeks. And we drove home, thinking about the experience. Is it just me or do you also have the capacity to waste your own time and money without any difficulty, but find it unbearable when someone (or something) else is in charge of the wasting? So I bring up the checklist of lessons learned:
1. God saved me from something that might have been serious. Check.
2. God is always faithful. Knew that. Depend on him daily. Check.
3. My dear wife and devoted son are always dependable to be at my side in a moment’s notice and without a whisper of complaining. Knew that. They proved that over and over this past two years. Check.
4. Sometimes there doesn’t seem to be any great benefit to waiting. It’s just part of life. The key is to not let it make you bitter. Discipline yourself to be thankful. Check.
5. Hospitals have some sort of meter that measures how many tests and procedures are required to drain your bank account. You generally get better in proportion to the number of tests they run with negative results. Maybe I would have felt like I got my money’s worth if they actually found something wrong! Check. (At least, I think this might be true.)
6. Learn to laugh at yourself. Check.

 

All is well. God is good – in tough and scary times and the great times too. I have the most amazing wife in the whole world. Sleep is one of the greatest gifts of all.