I have a personal story to tell today.
My wife and I have been on the road touring the States for three weeks now. We go to Churches, home-groups, and congregations to present our music and give lectures. Everything was going well until twelve days ago in the morning my wife noticed a redness accompanied of some sort of hardness on her left leg. After seeing it getting painful, bigger, and hotter throughout the day, we decided to go to emergency. At the time we were staying with friends in Arizona. I took my wife to the nearby hospital and, after waiting the ‘normal’ ER time of three hours, the doctor diagnosed it as a superficial blood clot. He told us that a superficial blood clot is not a big problem, but that it can often be a sign of deeper clots which are dangerous, if not fatal. The doctor ordered an ultrasound. As it would not be ready for over an hour, Christina and I passed the time playing Wheel of Fortune on my tablet. By the way, we didn’t win any money…The doctor also asked Christina if she felt pain in her lungs which she didn’t at the time. Finally the time came to go for the ultrasound and a different doctor asked my wife if she felt pain in her chest, which she did not. We waited another hour for the reading of the ultrasound results, and then two doctors came to confirm a DVT- deep vein thrombosis. Again, the doctors asked if there was chest pain, and yes, by now there WAS chest pain. As she went through a CT scan they discovered not one, but several blood clots in Christina’s lungs. The doctor then came with a strong warning about the situation. Christina needed to take medication and have close follow-up. “But we’re on tour…!” she said, to which the doctor replied that we need to be serious about this and in his words, ‘..Put our social life on hold!’ For a moment we considered just going home, or flying my wife back to Portland while I continued the tour by myself. In the meantime, she was admitted at the hospital for the night. I went back to our friends’ house (who have been sooooo helpful) and brought Christina her overnight things. The next morning the doctor was encouraging and told us that as long as Christina had stabilized, could get her medicine, do a follow-up visit in three weeks, and not spend very long days sitting in the van, we could continue on our tour together. At this point, we are still on the road. We are in Kansas today, in a little town called Manhattan. Last Tthursday we celebrated Christina’s birthday with a lunch at a Thai restaurant then went bowling. In the course of the afternoon we received a notice that on this very same day, a musician friend of ours lost her 31 year old son from the very same condition my wife had just escaped. We knew she had dodged the proverbial bullet, but this sad piece of news brought it home even more. We realize now that if we had not paid attention to that ‘superficial’ wound, I might be writing a different story today. We also realized that we considered going to the hospital and staying the night because we have insurance. We might not have done it otherwise, which also could have also brought this situation to a different ending. All in all, while we do not understand His ways, we thank God for sparing Christina.We pray for our friend who lost her son, and are reminded of something that probably every EMT, doctor, religious leader, counselor, colleague or friend knows, that superficial conditions, be they of the body, of the soul, of the spirit, or of the heart can, and often are the tell-tale signs of a deeper, and very serious condition.
1 Comment
Laureen
6/18/2016 12:33:11 am
Yasher koach! HalleluYah! : )
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