In March, I noticed some impressively plump veins switch-backing their way across my chest and down my right arm – blue, snaky ropes that belonged on the biceps of Hulk Hogan or Rambo or Conan (yes, my body-builder references date me). When they weren’t gone after a week, I whipped my shirt off for a few doctor friends during our regular Wednesday night gathering of families. Their diagnosis: “get in the car.” In the ER, an ultrasound tech asked if I wanted to see the blood clot in my neck. My ears tried to unscramble the words and my eyes stared at the throbbing screen.

A few days later a specialist informed me of problem #2: the blood clot needed to be dissolved quickly because of suspected problem #3: a main vein was anatomically smashed between my collarbone and exceptionally large upper rib, forcing blood to create those blue, snaky paths. So, I laid in the hospital for three days in mid-March, being wheeled down to my new friends in Interventional Radiology each morning, and spending the rest of the day watching the news –the whole world, by the hour, seemed to be dissolving too.

Returning home, I became a person dependent on a “commercial pill” – one of those medications that they advertise on TV where actors in a sunset field lay in empty bathtubs holding hands while a voice over lists 172 side effects of the drug that always include death, bankruptcy, gout and bloody stool. I did, however, need the actual effect of thin enough blood that I would not produce another clot.

In May, I waved goodbye to Greg in the early morning dark of the eerie hospital parking lot. Surgeons sawed off my overachieving rib, pulling it out through my armpit so that all would be well again; except that I was becoming an expert at being exceptional. The vein, freed from its bony prison, still was too damaged to be and stay, open. I spent the summer visiting those new operating room friends every few weeks to fix a problem that should have already been solved, having wires coaxed through my arm (or my GROIN, dear God) and having teensy balloons stretch out damaged membranous tissue in the hope of becoming appropriately elastic once again. After procedure #5 in August, my arm began to think about looking … normal.  And in a couple of weeks, after procedure #6, I think it might get to wave my normal-ish arm goodbye to my scrubbed-up friends.

My Top-Ten “Letterman”

Here’s my Top-Ten “Letterman” list of things I’ve learned (yes, once again my late-night reference dates me). If you’re done reading (I understand!), I just request that you consider taking a look at #8 –

1. Getting half-naked in your church small group might save your life. 
2. I encourage you to reach out to the person that is STILL dealing with the health-related (mental or physical) THING – they don’t want to talk about it as much as they do. They want so badly to sing a new song but are a broken record that needs to be played over and over to someone willing to listen, again.
3. Medicine is a practice that is ultimately practiced on unpredictable human bodies. Things don’t always add up or clear up like they should. In my case, this was the fault of no human doctor charged with fixing my human body’s problem. 
4. On that note, ask questions and advocate. I waited too long to do both. I did what I was told. What do I know about fixing what’s happening underneath my skin? But … it is still my body. Don’t suppress questions because of internal insecurity or the external fear of conflict. It took me a while to realize I had a right to be an active part of the medical team in which I was the patient.   
5. On that note, our bodies speak. They often say things that are not going to help us do the things we “need” to do. This is super annoying. Speaking hypothetically (of course), we tend to push, hurt and ignore the body out of the need for control and prove evidence of results it is not ready to produce. And then our bodies stomp and scream and shut down and protest and stop working or healing. This is even more annoying. 
6. On that note, I was forced to admit that I cared more about how my body looks then how it functions. Vanity has a price and the cost is high. It’s higher at 45 than at 25. 
7. Healthcare takes energy – physical, emotional, mental, spiritual. It just does. Questions to consider as you expend your healthcare energy: what qualifies as “taking care of your health” in your brain? Is the answer “working out?” Or is it – taking care of “that weird thing I ignore, but should probably get checked out?”
8. NOT MAKING THE APPOINTMENT TO HAVE YOUR BOOBS SMASHED IN THE CLAMPS OR THE CAMERA THING SHOVED UP YOUR BUTT OR THE SWAB THING SHOVED UP YOUR LADY-PARTS OR THE FINGERS SHOVED IN YOUR MALE-PARTS IS THE DUMBEST OF DUMB THINGS. HAVING YOUR AGE-APPROPRIATE SCREENINGS UP TO DATE IS A PRIVILIEGE. I DIDN’T. DUMB. BECAUSE I LIVE IN A WORLD WHERE DOCTORS CALL MY CELL PHONE TO CHECK ON ME AND THERE ARE PEOPLE THAT I DEEPLY LOVE IN THIS WORLD WHO WILL NOT HAVE ACCESS TO A QUALIFIED DOCTOR – OR THE GIFT OF PRE-SCREENING – IN THEIR ENTIRE LIFE. 
9. Miscellaneous thoughts from here on out: First, if you ever have the opportunity to have a bone removed, fill out the necessary paperwork so you can take it home. Not getting my rib as a take-home prize is a real regret. It would’ve made a super cool necklace, paper weight or doorknob. Right?!
10. Even if you have really, really big veins, it might take FOUR tries to get an IV in. The phlebotomist will initially joke at how easy their job will be. You will envision ripping that person’s throat out or stabbing them with the needle weapons they wield, which will seem appropriately violent at the time.

I do not take for granted the fact that, for now, with only one more procedure to go, my medical concerns can mostly be tied up, checked-off, and done – that is not true for so many. No matter how much we want to rush our bodies – or our brains – we are not in control of this fragile flesh. Healing takes time. In the wait, friendship lifts a languishing spirit. I am grateful to each person that reached out, sent a card, had freakishly enormous cookies delivered, brought a meal – or donuts, regularly checked-in and prayed, most especially.

Postscript:

Thank you to that Wednesday night group that sent me to the hospital with a ring of hand-written index cards from adults and children that I slept with while my clot – and the world – dissolved. Thank you to my sister-in-law for holding my head while I sobbed on her shoulder and holding my feet when they couldn’t get that damn IV in. Thank you to my Café Rio friends who asked me to play and listened to the broken record, over and over (and over) again. Thank you to my Marco Polo friends who promised never to share my post-fentanyl videos. Thank you for all the texts – and group text strings – I couldn’t keep up with. And of course, thank you to Greg Ross for telling me what an idiot I was for doing push-ups post-surgery and for loving me like the good man he is through it all. I wasn’t alone. Except, of course, for when I was literally alone – laying on a gurney in an empty hallway yet again, in a hospital room watching the hours tick by. But even then, I knew I was still held in the good hands of our good God who is ever-present and ever with us, most especially in the hard, bad things that force us to surrender the illusion of control and discover in what, or who, we ultimately have hope.