"You're Cured"

He carved her sorta like this...

At the end of October, my wife Linda had a hysterectomy. It was October 31 and before they wheeled her into surgery in her attempt at gallows humor she asked Dr. Bernard, “Well, Doc, are you gonna carve me like a pumpkin?” Everything went according to plan. For several years now she has been plagued by an irregular menstrual cycle accompanied by an unusual heavy flow. About a week later when we met with the surgeon for the post-operation appointment he informed us that the average uterus weighs 200 grams. According to the pathology report, her's had weighed 400. What's more, they had quit counting at 20 the fibrous tumors that they found within it. There was no poutyness on her part of saying good-bye to her child-bearing equipment (she did that shortly after Emma was born back in 1995). She was glad to be rid of it.

Since her three-year bout with depression back in the mid-90s, she has infrequently experienced what are usually referred to as “panic attacks” - these brief periods of time wherein your heart races, your head swims and leave you – depending upon the length of it – in need of a nap. For dealing with these odd occurrences her doctor prescribed Xanax to use as needed. On the morning she was to be discharged from the hospital following surgery, however, she had one of these. For an hour and a half her heart raced at 200 beats a minute all the while she was laying in bed. Essentially, she was running a race lying perfectly still. The good news is that they hooked her up to monitors and immediately informed us that whatever else was going on with her what she had just experienced was not a panic attack. So, an appointment was made to see a heart specialist at Luther Hospital in Eau Claire.

Do you follow?

Dr. Valverde is Peruvian (we asked) and is a prim, proper and soft-spoken man. He entered the examination room, shook our hands and asked Linda to describe what these “attacks” are like. He then got out his obligatory stethoscope, listened to her heart a few times and then said, “You have a condition called atrioventricular nodal reentry tachycardia (or AVNRT – Vanna, can I buy a vowel?)” As I understand the literature they put in our hands, the heart is an electrical machine and her's at the moment had a short in it. They would send a catheter into her heart and essentially “zap” that circuit so electricity could no longer run down that corridor and send her heart into arrhythmia. I courteously cleared my throat and asked “Um, no offense...I know you are an expert but can you really tell she has that condition just by listening to her heart for a few moments?” (I'm thinking he needs to hook her up to some machine at least). “Yes” was his curt answer. So an ablation was scheduled for early December.

This, too, went according to plan (apparently on the day Linda had her procedure, 4 other individuals had the same procedure done to them). Just the other day we sat in an examination room for her post-operative consultation with Dr. Valverde. Once again he came in and shook her hand and then mine and sat down and asked her how she felt. She informed him she was feeling good and that despite feeling her heart wanting to go into that irregular heart-beat on a few occasions since the ablation it was prevented. He thoughtfully nodded his head and said, “Well, you're cured.” 

"Well, you're cured."

We both are firm believers in healing prayer. We have never advocated anyone not going to a doctor for healing but we have come to encourage people to be prayed over as they begin something other than run-of-the-mill medical treatment. Linda herself had been prayed over on numerous occasions to be healed of both these conditions but in the absence of any improvement, medical intervention was sought. A month and a half later she is feeling wondrously better not just physically but spiritually and emotionally, too. It's just another reminder that each of us is an amazingly complex creation of not just matter and liquid but of spirit and soul, too. To treat one and ignore the other is to act like a materialist (i.e., “matter is everything”). To seek healing in the Name of Jesus Christ, however, is to trust that either via the prayer of faith or the tools that man has devised for the treatment of the ails of the human body – or both – is to show we have confidence in God's love and abiding presence with us.

She feels sorta like this these days

So, she's better. Lots better. She's lighter (well, physically maybe only 400 grams lighter) but the weight of the yoke of sickness has been lifted from her. Dr. Valverde and Dr. Bernard have done their wonders but the healing virtue of Jesus has lifted her spirits and continues to make her whole.

Right after Dr. Valverde announced quietly, “You're cured” he then said, “Let's see the groin” (it is where he had inserted the catheter after all). Linda looked at me and I smiled. Only in a hospital would a man say to another man's wife “Let's see the groin” in front of her husband as if he was asking for the time of day. If I had been faster on my feet, I would have said: “It's okay, Doc. I got this. I'm an expert at conducting that kind of exam on her.” Maybe next time...well, let's trust there is no next time.