The week that wasn't

         As I sat in the wheelchair covered in a garishly green blanket that didn’t cover nearly enough I thought, a woman on the tarmac to the X-Ray room glared.

         She asked what I did. I mumbled preacher. She considered this a moment, then asked, “Do you have a minute?”

         We talked a bit, she asked, “What you in for?”

         Suddenly I felt the walls lose in around me like I was indeed in prison.

         It took a while, but the diagnosis came in.

          First, they decided what I didn’t have.

         That took a while, and was inconclusive.

         Okay, then they decided what I had.

         Everything.

         Then, they treated everything.

         Till I had …

         Nothing or as close as I could come or can come.

         For now.

         On Friday of last week, I nearly died. Okay, maybe a tad dramatic, but those words were used. Pneumonia (oh, how I love you, how I love you, my dear pneumonia) again, fourth time in five years (including in Eunice) and a continuing bout with it for the third straight month. But this time it invited the throat (strep), it invited an infection caused by all the antibiotics, it invited the pancreas and it invited worst of all its friend the kidneys.

         Oh yeah. That covers it or about covers it.

         And they about ended the game.

         When I arrived at the Shreveport emergency room, I had 13 percent kidney infection. I know nothing of how they do these figures, but if I was a head coach in the NFL and that was my winning percentage, I would have been fired quite a while ago.

         Long, long story short, I’m emerging from a dark night of health (always heard there’s a difference between being sick and being in ill health but now I understand).

         Here’s a few things I’ve learned or wonder:

         1. There are as many more doctors than there are pastors. I’m wondering if that’s the right way to go?

         2. What do these people do who are in speaking parts in commercial do for a living the rest of the time?

         3. Who knew there were morning shows on TV?

         4. Watching someone who used to work for you on his own show on TV makes you feel what besides old?

         5. ESPN should cut out eight of its 24 hours of no new coverage at all.
         Seriously, for once, what I’ve learned is the weight of the diagnosis. A doctor sitting on a coach talking to you about being on dialysis or having a kidney biopsy is different in a real way from sitting on a coach with someone who is getting the diagnosis.

         When you’ve been the comforter instead of the comforted, it’s different in the most dramatic of ways. That goes without saying, perhaps but you learn much more in the most dire of situations and all of us one day will go through them.

         Perhaps thinking about this beforehand might be the way to go. You never know when you might need one of the fewer pastors.