Early in the morning on October 21, 2011, feeling perfectly fine I entered Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta. I must be crazy I thought – I am volunteering and freely submitting myself to Open Heart Surgery – to make matters (really better but seemingly crazy) worse I felt good like nothing is wrong – yet instinctively I knew the tests the doctors ran in late September were accurate and true! I had a serious and deteriorating heart condition known as stenosis of the aortic valve along with an aorta aneurysm. Doing nothing would mean a slow and almost certain deteriotion of my heart from which it could not recover!
(Stenosis = calcium deposits on the aortic value causing the valves to harden and narrow – thus creating an inability to close resulting in regurgitation – blood flowing backwards in the heart. The regurgitation causes the aorta artery at the top of the heart to compensate for the narrowing stream and widen into an aneurysm).
On October 21, 2011 life started all over again with a new adventure to be reveled in time!
So I decided to ask each nurse and doctor as I encountered them what they wanted me to pray for while I submitted to their care. Most had to ask a second time- what are you asking? Guess not many patients ask nurses and doctors to pray for their intentions since the patients are usually fearful, nervous and jerky themselves. And they are the ones placing their trust and submitting to the skill and talents of those whose hands their life rests.
Say What? Are you wanting to pray for – for me?
So let me ask – what is it this day that you like me to pray for you?
Being put to sleep was easy – it was waking up reality that creates the passage into the struggle of the life among the living. The first thing I asked my nurse was – what would like me to pray for for you? Say that again! In ICU the first nurse answered “Health”.
The First Great Gift!
The really great gifts are always right in front of our noses – often too close to see with our eyes. In ICU it was = Ice – “Oh Lord Have Mercy on me” send ice the most wonderful gift from God. The critical care ICU RN’s could make a fortune selling ice to patients! The breath of God passed over the waters – the well spring of all life!!!” Ice is just water with the capacity to revive dry parched flesh.
The breath of God passed through a life sustaining breathing tube. Unfortunately this tube causes one to suffer with a sore dry throat once removed. Lord have Mercy!
To Be Continued …………………