Santa meets Jesus (almost)

Yesterday, Feb 20 2025, I almost met Jesus. I was praying to him fervently.

Let me start with some background. I have been having problems with sharp short lived cramps in both legs. The doctors did some tests and decided I had blockages in arteries in both legs. They wanted to do angioplasty to open them up.

I had the right leg done on Jan 20, and it went well. Not so with yesterday's procedure on the left leg.

I came out of surgery to the recovery room. With this surgery you have to lie flat for 4 to 5 hours after the surgery is done. That gives the incision point in your groin time to fully close up. I came out of surgery at about 3:30. I had to lie flat until 6:30 before I could go home. I was a good boy and did what they asked, cause I really wanted to go home.

About 6:15 my blood pressure started dropping. It had been running 130/60 or so.  When everyone went into panic mode, my BP was 47/22. Heather and Joyce said when my BP dropped, I was white as the pillow case, and was sweating. A crash team came in and started working on me. They decided to move me down to the emergency department and that's where I'm writing this.

They set up a CT scan to see if there were any active bleeds from the surgery. There were none. They did see one area that had bled a little, but was not active.

When the crash team got working on me is when I was looking for Jesus. I really needed his help and protection. I think earlier In the blog I talked about going to church as a young man. I received Jesus as my personal lord and savior when I was 10 or 11. It didn't have much effect on my life after that until I started going to Holy Trinity. Fr. Ralph taught me a lot about the love of Jesus. It still wasn't at the forefront of my daily life, but it was there. 

Yesterday. HELLO. Right in the center of everything there he was. I talked to him, prayed to him, and asked for protection. He came through on all counts.

While all the docs were working on me Jesus and I had some alone time. I didn't float up to the ceiling and stare down, but I felt safe and at peace with whatever happened.

All the girls were here and I was so proud of all of them. I know yesterday was hard for all of them, but Joyce needed their support and they came through. They distracted her with everyday things and that kept her from spiraling.

Enough of that right now, I'm proud of ALL my girls.

Last night they all left at about 1230 AM I think. When I told them to leave, we all thought I would be moving to a regular room out of the emergency dept. That did not happen. I'm still in the same room from 7pm yesterday and it's 910 am now. Have not heard from the docs as to what comes next.

I’m getting better at waiting. 

I may have spoken too soon. I have been waiting to see the resident Hospitalist since early this morning. It is now nearly 1 pm and I'm getting a little upset. I feel like the hospitalist isn't too concerned with my case, because I'm in an ED room and not on his floor.

The hospitalist came into the Emergency Department at about 3:30 pm and spoke to me about getting a room upstairs. This was after I told Heather and Joyce to leave at about 3pm. About 3:45 my surgeon Dr. Addo came in examined me, and took off the pressure bandage that had been on my incision. About 4:30pm the nurse came in and told me they had a room for me on the 9th floor. About 4:45 an attending for my surgeon came in and told me I was being discharged. I called Joyce and told her to head back to the hospital. At 5pm it's about a 1.5 hour drive. They got back to Hospital and picked me up.

I was really grateful to be going home. We got back home about 8pm, I watched a couple of Jeopardy shows that I had missed, and went to bed. I slept a lot better than at the hospital.

I know some people believe in what's called “foxhole” Christianity, but what I felt while the crash team was working on me did not feel like that to me. I felt a personal connection and it gave me peace and a feeling of being protected.

Here ends the sermon on the ED bed. Amen.