I don’t typically devote my weekly blog to reporting on the status of my health. But the latest of circumstances suggests that such an update might be appropriate. Since several friends and family have called to check on me.
A recent heart catherization revealed some major blockage in some major arteries, so I was scheduled for coronary bypass surgery a couple of days ago–on Wednesday, August 28. That date was, of course, the 50th anniversary of the “March on Washington” where the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” sermon.
I mention that, remembering precisely where I was on that hot August day in 1963–a 20-year-old college student–as I watched the unfolding of that historic event on television.
But back to the present. On this past Monday I started catching a cold. So I went to my primary care physician, Internist Tim Jones, on Tuesday, thinking my unfortunate emerging upper respiratory condition might negatively affect the surgery scheduled for the next morning–I was to be at Roper Hospital in downtown Charleston at 5:30 AM for the scheduled 7:30 surgery.
On Monday evening I had also begun a cleansing ritual on my chest, washing myself with some special anti-bacterial wash cloths I had been issued, the purpose of which was to minimize possible surgery-related infection.
Except, the result of this washing was as if the skin on my chest had been set on fire. And my scratching such discomfort led to an unpleasant looking rash which Dr. Jones discovered the next day. Such that, between the rash and the cold I was catching, Tim–out of his concern that the combination of such minor conditions might compromise my upcoming surgery the next morning–he called my cardiovascular surgeon, Dr. John Spratt.
Their consulting together resulted in a decision to postpone my surgery until these two minor conditions I’m reporting have cleared up enough to proceed.
I’ll meet with Dr. Jones, first thing next Tuesday morning, and hopefully the surgery can be re-scheduled for sometime next week.
Meanwhile, I’m trying to figure out how to survive a week’s worth of supposed healing before my previously scheduled time for even more serious healing gets re-scheduled to begin. So far, I’ve coughed and blown my nose enough for my chest to hurt. Is that somehow appropriate preparation for the kind of chest discomfort I’m likely to experience from what I’ve yet to face?
And, considering the circumstances–a common cold and unfortunate skin rash colluding to trump open-heart surgery–I’ve found myself thinking of the proverbial: “For the want of a nail, a shoe was lost; for the want of a shoe, a horse was lost . . .” and so on and so forth, as the rhyme proceeds through the succeeding losses of a “rider, message, battle,” and ultimately “kingdom.” Only to conclude, with “And all for the want of a horseshoe nail,” how the seemingly smallest of things can have such inordinate impact on matters of far greater importance.
Meanwhile, I remain thankful for family and friends who care for me, who are thinking about me and praying for my healing in these days.
