Wednesday, September 6, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement today, but not in our Coleman tent
Perhaps as you read this I am waiting in the pre-op room, or I am being wheeled along the hall, into the patient’s elevator, down into the surgical area of Ascension Seton Main, colder than I expected, covered with a heated blanket, being introduced to each of the nurses who will be attending me and then the doctors, perhaps as many as three, who will be opening my femoral artery and beginning to move my new aortic valve through a catheter into place. They call this a TAVR procedure, and it was invented and developed in Denmark in 1989, first performed on a human person in 2002 in France and is now approved in more than 50 countries.
Including the Republic of Texas. No, I mean the state of Austin. No, I mean the state of Texas, in the USA. Identity is a big deal around the Lone Star State. I am trying to catch on.
The valve they choose must be the right size, of course. It’s made of cow tissue sewn into a metal fabric, and it will push up into my restricted, stenotic, sick old valve and press it out to make room for the new one. The video kind of blows my mind. Take me out to King’s Island and put me on the tallest fastest roller coaster, let me watch myself from the corner of my eye and fly. Fly, fly away, O glory.
We always give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the holy ones because of the hope reserved for you in heaven.
Aki dropped me off around 7:15 this morning. Andi plans to pick me up tomorrow afternoon, if all goes well. All of you, so many friends and family are praying for me and my doctors, and Margaret, and I am lifted up by those prayers. High and lifted up.
I, like a green olive tree in the house of God, trust in the mercy of God forever and ever.
So, remembering the joy of my salvation, I think of Miles and Jasper in their nice Coleman tent that has seen many sandy beaches, rocky mountains and rich grassy meadows, now sitting quiet on our rug in the middle of the living room on Saturday night, and those boys are wrestling, laughing, full of rascal pirate joy. What shall we do with the sleepy sailors? We went out on a daring night walk below the almost full moon, read a Robert Munsch story, made up stories just as good as his, and watched a little bit of Cars after a DQ date and a couple quarters of football. In due course, sleepytime collapsed onto the top of the tent like a big handsome light-headed eight-legged yellow dinosaur. There was no longer even the sound of breathing that came from in there.
But in the morning, we heard other sounds, sounds that woke us up too soon, sounds that preceded breakfast, and parents coming, and Sunday School, and life on a Sabbath afternoon.
Could be there’s no hurry, it’s all good, those hours in the tent and in the hospital, and in the arms of God all the time, everywhere.
I will thank you always for what you have done, and proclaim the goodness of your name before your faithful ones.
Large and small.
I trust in the mercy of the Lord forever.
(Colossians 1, Psalm 52, Luke 4)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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