Unwelcome Perspective

I believe every strand and crook in the web of life is woven into an intricate pattern with perfect purpose and meaning. 

On Tuesday my sister and her husband arrived from California. All of my family, but Stan in Vietnam, was in Utah by Thursday. And in the middle of the workday, I don’t believe it was chance that my mom and cousin were at my office for a chat while Holly was hanging out with most of my other family when we got a bone chilling phone call from our sister-in-law in Provo. “Sam has collapsed and is being rushed to the hospital”. That’s all she knew at that moment and we were stunned as the memory flooded back of another call that came 4 years ago. The words were almost exactly the same. My younger brother Drew collapsed and died while running. It turned out he had a severe heart condition passed on from my dad. The following year, we were all tested for that same condition and Sam was tested positive and underwent surgery to have a defibrillator and pace maker implanted into his heart and chest. Its purpose is to restart his heart if it fails with a severe jolt of electricity sent from a small box under his skin. 

Nine months ago Sam got a letter in the mail from the defibrillator company stating that 2-3% of the leads (wires) that are implanted in people during the years he had his implanted were faulty. It was suggested that he not replace it as the surgery is more dangerous than the likelihood that the patient has one of those faulty leads. Afterall, there’s a 98% chance they don’t have one.

Well, it wasn’t exactly Sam’s lucky day this Thursday. He stepped onto the tennis court for a mild doctor-approved game of tennis with a friend and started hitting a few balls. He had previously explained his condition to his friend and said there is a very slight chance that his heart won’t be able to keep up and he’ll get faint, OR very rare instances where defibrillators will malfunction and send a shock similar to a horse kicking him in the chest. He explained that neither of the two are likely to happen, but just a warning. Good thing Parker had warning. He said he hit the ball to Sam and right as Sam was about to hit back, “it looked like an invisible horse kicked him in the chest and sent him flying into the air off his feet and onto his knees”. Parker knew exactly what had occurred. He ran over to Sam and although in severe pain and shock, Sam said “Call my wife, and if it happens again, call 911.” It happened again and sent Sam flying into his back. Sam was conscious and in his panic was asking himself if this thing was saving his life because his heart was failing or if it was malfunctioning and killing him. Unfortunately it was the latter. He started getting jolt after jolt in increasing voltage, as the defibrillator couldn’t sense a heartbeat (due to it’s malfunction) and so it ups the power and jolts the heart again. The defibrillator was going off every 20-30 seconds and was starting to inhibit his heart from getting the blood he needed, so his heart rate was dropping and he was becoming less coherent. He asked Parker for a blessing and suddenly the jolts stopped. 

He’s been in the hospital since and has a major (possibly open-heart) surgery scheduled for Monday. The surgeons need to go in and extract the faulty lead and implant a new device in place of the old one. This procedure is uncommon and there are multiple aspects through the process that make it a high risk surgery. This is all thanks to a poorly manufactured product that costs more than the average american makes in a year. 

We’re fasting and praying for him today and ask to keep him in your prayers as well. This is, as you see in the post title, an unwelcome opportunity for a new perspective. Although very unfortunate and unwelcome, it’s part of God’s elaborate plan. Without unwelcome  perspective, we’d become more and more blind, ungrateful, unappreciative, and so forth. It’s always painful, but what in life - that is worth gaining - doesn’t require resistance?