I am learning to live with an aneurysm, for now.
The Thursday before Mother's Day I went to the doctor for a regular check up. My blood pressure was in the range the doctor wanted. All the numbers that were high in my previous blood work had dropped and most where back into the normal range. Somehow my weight even dropped. My doctor was very pleased and announced I was doing good and was healthy even with my slightly above average bacon intake. I was happy because instead of having to go back monthly to make my copayment donation to her children's college fun I got a six month pass.
Then Friday come, Friday afternoon to be exact. I was running some errands with my daughter and felt a small but sharp pain in my lower right side. It didn't stay long. It later came back but left again. This pattern continued for the rest of the evening. The time in pain got longer and the pain got worse while the pain free time got shorter and shorter. By bedtime there was no relief and the pain just came in waves. On the pain scale it would stay a 6 or a 7 and then a wave would hit and it would go to 12 or 15. I did what any normal man would do. I listened to my wife and daughter's advice to go have it looked at while I took some Ibuprofen and then went to bed to "sleep it off". For those of you asking, "How did that work for you?" Early the next morning when the pain was staying around an 8 or 9
with waves as high as 20 my wife drove me to the ER.
Once there I shared my symptoms with the nurse who told me I was describing appendicitis or kidney stones. In my mind I was thinking if it is kidney stones I would be mad since I had not had a soda since February and could count the glasses of sweet tea I had on one hand with fingers left over. The doctor came in and touched my sensitive area and at the same time a small girl screamed. I don't know where the small girl was but I am sure that wasn't me screaming. The doctor laughed and said, "Looks like that is coming out" referring to my appendix. So they started the routine tests. I gave a urine sample and they took lots of blood while I was waiting on my CT scan.
As I went for my CT scan things took a funny twist. The tech was telling me about the scan and how they would be checking to see how bad my appendix was to figure our how soon it needed to come out. Another tech joined us in the CT scan area and told me the doctor was now thinking kidney stones after getting the results back from my other tests. After my CT scan the doctor come back into the room with a puzzled look on her face. She said my appendix looked good and there was no sign of kidney stones. To make matters more confusing I already had my gall bladder out so she was clueless as to why I was in such pain. On the other hand, on the opposite side of my pain she did find an aneurysm. She said there was no connection between the aneurysm and my pain. She gave me a prescription for some pain meds and sent me on my way. I looked at my discharge papers and besides following up with a Vascular Doctor it said to wait on conditions to get worse before returning to the ER. That was comforting.
I spent the next couple days on pain meds as the pain slowly went away. It comes back to visit but hasn't come back to stay nor has it been as extreme. So a week later I am off to see the Vascular Doctor. When he looked at my aneurysm he said it was bigger than the what the ER Doctor thought but wanted a contrast scan done to be sure of the size and to look for others. A couple weeks later I am rescanned to find it is a growing aneurysm and is collecting blood clots. Now I have a surgery planned to fix it. Many times I have laughed how I looked good and healthy to my doctor even though I had something very dangerous in my body. Now, she had no way of knowing what was going on because she was only looking on the outside so to speak.
I am learning to live with my aneurysm for now. I am trying not to lift any heavy things. My wife, daughter, family and my church members have been great to remind me when I forget and have started to grab a table to move it. The hardest part so far was learning how to spell aneurysm. Thank you to all my teachers who taught me to try to spell by sounding out the word because that didn't even get me close enough for spell check to figure out what I was trying to say.
It is funny though. I have something dangerous inside my body so instead of hiding it or waiting to see if it will go away I have made plans to get it out. On the other hand, you, me and everybody else walks around everyday with something dangerous in our spiritual bodies, sin, but we don't make any plans to get it out. We ignore it, claim it isn't that bad and we hope someday it will just go away. It will not though. God has promised to help us get it out just like the doctor has promised to fix my aneurysm. If I trust a doctor to fix my physical body shouldn't I trust God even more to fix my
spiritual body? My aneurysm could throw a blood clot into my kidney and cause some great big problems. My sin can cause even bigger problems.
It is time Christians everywhere begin to worry about the health of the spiritual body. Just because nobody sees the sin doesn't mean it isn't dangerous. Remember, nobody can see my aneurysm but it is still dangerous. When your physical body breaks down we see a doctor. Our spiritual bodies are broken so it is time we go see the Great Physician and allow Him to fix us. I made my appointment with my physical doctor and my Great Physician to get both my physical body and my spiritual body fixed. How about you? Thankfully, there is no copay or deductible with the Great Physician. Jesus already paid it.
Parting Thought: It is easy to identify the people who can't count to ten. They are in front of you in the express checkout.
Then Friday come, Friday afternoon to be exact. I was running some errands with my daughter and felt a small but sharp pain in my lower right side. It didn't stay long. It later came back but left again. This pattern continued for the rest of the evening. The time in pain got longer and the pain got worse while the pain free time got shorter and shorter. By bedtime there was no relief and the pain just came in waves. On the pain scale it would stay a 6 or a 7 and then a wave would hit and it would go to 12 or 15. I did what any normal man would do. I listened to my wife and daughter's advice to go have it looked at while I took some Ibuprofen and then went to bed to "sleep it off". For those of you asking, "How did that work for you?" Early the next morning when the pain was staying around an 8 or 9
Once there I shared my symptoms with the nurse who told me I was describing appendicitis or kidney stones. In my mind I was thinking if it is kidney stones I would be mad since I had not had a soda since February and could count the glasses of sweet tea I had on one hand with fingers left over. The doctor came in and touched my sensitive area and at the same time a small girl screamed. I don't know where the small girl was but I am sure that wasn't me screaming. The doctor laughed and said, "Looks like that is coming out" referring to my appendix. So they started the routine tests. I gave a urine sample and they took lots of blood while I was waiting on my CT scan.
As I went for my CT scan things took a funny twist. The tech was telling me about the scan and how they would be checking to see how bad my appendix was to figure our how soon it needed to come out. Another tech joined us in the CT scan area and told me the doctor was now thinking kidney stones after getting the results back from my other tests. After my CT scan the doctor come back into the room with a puzzled look on her face. She said my appendix looked good and there was no sign of kidney stones. To make matters more confusing I already had my gall bladder out so she was clueless as to why I was in such pain. On the other hand, on the opposite side of my pain she did find an aneurysm. She said there was no connection between the aneurysm and my pain. She gave me a prescription for some pain meds and sent me on my way. I looked at my discharge papers and besides following up with a Vascular Doctor it said to wait on conditions to get worse before returning to the ER. That was comforting.
I spent the next couple days on pain meds as the pain slowly went away. It comes back to visit but hasn't come back to stay nor has it been as extreme. So a week later I am off to see the Vascular Doctor. When he looked at my aneurysm he said it was bigger than the what the ER Doctor thought but wanted a contrast scan done to be sure of the size and to look for others. A couple weeks later I am rescanned to find it is a growing aneurysm and is collecting blood clots. Now I have a surgery planned to fix it. Many times I have laughed how I looked good and healthy to my doctor even though I had something very dangerous in my body. Now, she had no way of knowing what was going on because she was only looking on the outside so to speak.
I am learning to live with my aneurysm for now. I am trying not to lift any heavy things. My wife, daughter, family and my church members have been great to remind me when I forget and have started to grab a table to move it. The hardest part so far was learning how to spell aneurysm. Thank you to all my teachers who taught me to try to spell by sounding out the word because that didn't even get me close enough for spell check to figure out what I was trying to say.
It is funny though. I have something dangerous inside my body so instead of hiding it or waiting to see if it will go away I have made plans to get it out. On the other hand, you, me and everybody else walks around everyday with something dangerous in our spiritual bodies, sin, but we don't make any plans to get it out. We ignore it, claim it isn't that bad and we hope someday it will just go away. It will not though. God has promised to help us get it out just like the doctor has promised to fix my aneurysm. If I trust a doctor to fix my physical body shouldn't I trust God even more to fix my
It is time Christians everywhere begin to worry about the health of the spiritual body. Just because nobody sees the sin doesn't mean it isn't dangerous. Remember, nobody can see my aneurysm but it is still dangerous. When your physical body breaks down we see a doctor. Our spiritual bodies are broken so it is time we go see the Great Physician and allow Him to fix us. I made my appointment with my physical doctor and my Great Physician to get both my physical body and my spiritual body fixed. How about you? Thankfully, there is no copay or deductible with the Great Physician. Jesus already paid it.
Parting Thought: It is easy to identify the people who can't count to ten. They are in front of you in the express checkout.
Ashley, I just saw this! When is the surgery scheduled? You are in my prayers for a successful surgery and a quick recovery. Thank you for being able to turn this into a spiritual lesson and a good one at that! Sending love and prayers!
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