In 1999, I had open heart surgery. Since then, I have had five stents placed in my heart. The pain that drove me to the ER before my surgery and those other times for stents was always in my back. I also get back pain from just setting in front of my computer working. So, when I have a heightened back pain episode, I can’t tell if it is my heart or just my back. A call to 911 for me is a trip to the ER. But, I would rather be safe than sorry.
I was thinking how this little conundrum of reading my body is not unlike some folks trying to read the church. Similar symptoms are often seen, but the underlying problem, the systemic problem, that is causing the problem may be different. If one doesn’t understand the underlying problem, at best one can only bring relief to the overt symptom.
As in my recent ER visit, assuming that it was my heart, I took nitroglycerin sublingual on ten occasions over a very short period of time. The pain in the back begin to relinquish a bit finally it subsided. Because of the ten dose of nitroglycerin, the on call cardiologist thought that I needed to have a heart catheterization to discover what was going on. I was in Evergreen Hospital ER in Kirkland, WA. There were no beds available in the cardiac wing. So, they transferred me to Providence Hospital in Everett, WA. When I arrived there, I had to deal with a brand new cardiologist who painted a wide and bleak picture. But, I was admitted just at shift change. His partner came in to visit me after the shift change and ask me to tell my story. I told it to him all over again. He heard something in the story that the others had missed and his analysis was that I had three different choices to proceed not just one. I choose the less invasive one to discover what was happening. He told me that in his opinion that was the correct procedure based on all the other evidence they had gathered. So, off we went for a stress test which revealed I had a small narrowing in one artery but in his opinion that would not have caused the pain that I was experiencing and was not life threatening. So, when they found that the underlying problem was not my heart, we reverted back to back pain caused from working at my computer too many hours without a break.
I’m not unhappy that I went through the test, but I think of all the stuff that my body had to go through to discover that it was structural and no heart related. I wonder how many times we put the church through the same thing as we try to read the Body of Christ and end up treating a possible problem in a rather invasive way, when if we listen closely to the story, we may find a clue that there are other ways to determine what the underlying problem might be. Typically, in the medical world it has been my experience that the doctors start with the least invasive test and move toward more invasive test. However, for some reason in my recent episode they pretty much wanted to start with the most invasive one first. I happy that there was a different path that was less invasive to my own body.
I wonder what we can learn from this little episode as we try to read the problems that the Body of Christ often presents. I wonder…
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One of the things I love about you Winn is you tend to look at these stressful times and ask the question “What does GOD want me to learn through this experince?” You have taught me this through the 20 years that I have know you, and I am glad I have learned to do this also. Thank you Winn for being my teacher…
You are welcome Robin!