Gary's Posts

Refresh. And refresh again. Five and a half months ago, a team of surgeons stopped my heart. That's still a strange sentence to write. They replaced my aortic valve. Repaired my mitral valve. Removed muscle from my septum. Then they somehow convinced my heart to start beating again and sent me on my way to recovery. Since then, life has steadily become more normal. I've gone back to work. I've traveled. I've walked miles and miles. Most days I don't think much about heart surgery anymore. Then comes a day like today. This morning I had an echocardiogram. For those fortunate enough not to know, an echocardiogram is basically an ultrasound of the heart. The technician moves the wand around, asks you to roll this way and that, takes pictures from every possible angle, and occasionally says things like, "Hold your breath." Then, after spending an hour looking directly at your heart, they tell you absolutely nothing about your heart. The technician was wonderful. Professional. Friendly. And completely unwilling to tell me a thing. I understand why. I don't like it, but I understand it. So I left with exactly as much information as I had when I arrived. Now comes the hard part. Waiting. The rational side of me knows that the results are already what they are. The pictures have been taken. The measurements have been measured. Whether I look at my patient portal once or fifty times today will not change a single thing. The irrational side of me keeps saying, "Maybe check one more time." Just in case. I suspect many of you know exactly what I'm talking about. When you've been through a major medical event, every follow-up test feels a little different. Even when you're doing well. Even when the odds are in your favor. Even when your doctors are happy with your progress. You still want to know. You want confirmation that everything is working the way it's supposed to. You want the report card. You want someone to say, "Everything looks great. See you next time." And so I wait. Not particularly well. In fact, I have refreshed my patient portal enough times today that I may now own stock in the server that runs it. Every time my phone buzzes, I look. Every email notification gets my attention. Every few minutes I think, "Surely the results are there by now." They never are. At least not yet. I have often prayed for strength. I've prayed for wisdom. I've prayed for healing. But I've always been a little reluctant to pray for patience. Because experience has taught me that God rarely drops patience from heaven like a care package. Instead, He gives us opportunities to practice it. And if that's true, today's lesson plan appears to be well underway. The funny thing is that waiting has been one of the recurring themes of this entire journey. Waiting for appointments. Waiting for test results. Waiting for surgery. Waiting to wake up. Waiting to heal. Waiting to feel normal again. And now, five and a half months later, waiting for another report. Maybe that's because so much of life is lived in the space between questions and answers. In the space between prayers and outcomes. In the space between "not yet" and "now." I wish I could tell you that I've mastered that lesson. I haven't. The portal is still empty. I checked right before writing this sentence. I'll probably check again after writing the next one. So for now, I wait. God knows. Trust.