The Diagnosis

by Gene Shelburne

All public speakers live in dread of the occasion when it’s time for them to speak and like the Pope last Christmas they are hit with sudden illness that makes them turn away from the waiting audience, unable to perform.

On a February Sunday morning in Phoenix, it was my turn. Without warning waves of weakness hit me early in the worship time. Cold sweat broke out all over me and I had to stop singing. 15 minutes later I tried to preach, but that sermon lasted less than 30 seconds. I barely got my text announced.

The next half hour was a blur. Paramedics summoned by 911 hooked me up to all their diagnostic equipment. By ambulance I was shuttled to the Emergency Room at Phoenix Baptist Hospital.

While we waited for test results, I lay on the E.R. bed with my head raised enough for me to see out my door to the nurses’ desk across the hall. Covering the whole wall behind the desk was a huge chalkboard used to track the status of every room. The line for each room contained patient’s name, admitting symptoms, attending nurse, doctor involved, and all the tests ordered. All the pertinent data.

There was my name on the line for Room 4. “Syncope” was listed as my admitting complaint, followed by the initials of Sara, my on-the-ball black nurse, and then the name of my good-natured Jewish cardiologist. Three lines below was a Mr. Smith. His admitting complaint: SOB.

“Hey,” I said to my nurse wife, “I’m glad that’s not me!” I’ve known some in my day, but I didn’t realize it was a medical emergency.

“Shortness of breath,” my lady interpreted. “Shortness of breath.”

Within 2 hours the doctor dismissed me, having decided my ticker was ticking just fine. I was weak still, but pleased to be headed on schedule toward my flight home.

And I was freshly and acutely aware of my own lack of permanence. None of us is any stronger than an errant corpuscle or a migrant blood clot. Disorder a few enzymes or tangle a neural link or two and our bodies go kaput.

Our only real strength is His.