The best laid schemes gang aft agley

So, this was supposed to be Ebertfest Sunday and a chance for me to celebrate Anne’s birthday with her.  Happy birthday Anne.  Wish I could have been there, but, as you know, there was a prior church commitment I had forgotten.  I am one of two huddle group leaders for our confirmation class, and while I have faithfully remembered to be at the classes every week, I had not properly marked the eight grade banquet down on the calendar.  Nor did I realize when we made our May plans that next Sunday is Confirmation Sunday.  “You don’t really need me for the banquet, do you?” I asked the organizer, Jackie, who quickly answered, “Oh, no, you’re expected to be there, and you have to say a few words, too.”  There is still a chance, Anne, that I can still make it down there next week, though. They do not really need me for Confirmation Sunday, as the parents and sponsors and pastor and families and of course the kids themselves are more prominent on that day, but a part of me does want to be there for these eight eighth graders who have journeyed through the Catechism with me this last year. But you do not have to sway me one way or the other.  I will let you know, but I am currently leaning towards Champaign.

So, this too is our church’s annual meeting Sunday, where as one tradition the council members call on various people to stand up and say something about what it has meant to them to be an active part of the church.  Kirsten has stood up on two different years and spoken about being a worship leader, one of three or four people who lead us in song.  Meanwhile her dad had established a pretty comfortable position in the pews, but the last year or two I have become more involved (to Andrew's surprise praise last week: "I like seeing you getting involved, Dad") so I was asked to say a few words.  “But I’m not going to be there that Sunday,” I said, while Ebert and Annie were still in the plans.  “That’s okay,” said the council president, Mike, who suggested I write something out and he would read it.  It was an especially busy week last week, but I got it written and was going to offer to read it myself.  But then those plans changed too.

I sent the script in, something about remembering a rare time I had sat next to Uncle Harold in a church service and taken notice how he put his heart into the hymns, not with a choir voice, not drowning things out either, but truly participating in the worship service.  Harold’s lesson has stuck with me for thirty plus years because I have had constant reminders of it, many Harolds sitting in the pews with me and encouraging me to sing a little louder, showing how easy it can be to not just come to church but be a part of the worship service.

Mike liked the piece and said he would be happy to read it.   I hadn’t told him that I would actually be there and could read it myself, and that was my intention, too, until yesterday evening.  After a few days of having clear signals this week, and after Andrew urged it and Mom seconded the motion, I drove to the hospital emergency room to have them help me make sense of some upper abdominal (even here I hesitate to say chest) pains that had been grieving me. No, I had told myself, this can’t be the heart.  Some online self-diagnosing confirmed it was not the appendix, but suggested it could be the gall bladder or pancreas or yes, even the heart.

If any of you had a chance to hear Garrison Keillor yesterday, at about 5:00pm he was doing a comedy skit about the bureaucracy and inanity of the emergency room system.  And did I mention that I am currently uninsured, a fact that would surely add to the soon to be measured stress?  Garrison made me laugh, but I turned off the radio and I almost turned around.

Probably a good thing I did not.  After I stressed (there is that word) to my assigned nurse, Liz, and a quickly gathering crew how important it was to me that they kept the costs down and let me get back home to my kids soon, they pressure-cuffed me and immediately EKG’d me and ultrasounded and Xrayed me, then hooked me up to an IV drip.  I don’t remember the exact number, but that first pressure reading was something over 210 over something over 130.  I have a feeling I will be getting more familiar with these measurements in the future.

In the course of six hours, Liz and the attending doctor, Dr. Johnson, determined it was not the appendix or gall bladder or kidneys, and it did not seem to be the heart either.  But the numbers alone would be cause for them to admit me into the hospital if they did not improve.  Finally, after four different BP meds (two oral, two intravenous), several EKG readings and two or three Channel 11 movies, Dr. Johnston let me go home.  I do not have the bill yet, but she assured me she was doing what she could to keep it low.  We’ll see.  Liz and Dr Johnston were very nice people and I will not blame them, but we’ll see.

So I am not in church this morning.  I will still plan to be there for the banquet, but this morning I am still feeling the effects of the Addovan they gave me (to take after I drove home, of course), and I have been told to take it easy and to get my prescriptions filled before anything else.  I still feel something in my upper abdomen - apparently it was GI related, but severe enough to drive the pressure up and, yes, threaten the heart.

When I got home, Kirsten was still not home from the last night of her school play, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.”  I did not want to miss this one, but she probably wouldn't have noticed me there anyway.  She was a stage manager, big role for a sophomore, and there was a cast and crew party afterwards, and the timing was such that she didn’t even know I had gone to the hospital.  I stayed up until I heard the front door open, then let the Addovan do its work.

I am painfully aware, by the way, that I am now a year an a half younger than Dad was when he died.  I know, too, that I can immerse myself in my work like he did and have terrible on-the-run eating habits.  The last few days I have been working on four hours of sleep per night, and the only thing I’ve eaten in the last twenty four hours (after eating too heartily on Thursday and Friday) was a banana and a bagel.   But I only mention this so you know what to pray for.

The kids, of course!