Many Blessings and a Christmas Reminder

Friends

    Peace be with you. 

    I want to thank everyone for the prayers and support you offered me during my recent heart procedure. I believe that the graces from your prayers that I experienced were abundant and I want to share some of them with you. First, as you may remember, it was snowing that morning and, despite the bad weather conditions, my Mom and Brother were able to make it safely from Marshalltown to the hospital. The nurse showed me to my room, lucky number 5, and showed me the gown I would be wearing and I changed into it and settled into what I thought would be two hours of waiting for things to proceed. However, the doctors called down and apparently their morning had gone faster than anticipated and they were ready for me. A nurse came in and took an EKG and found that I was in V-Flutter, meaning my heart was “acting up”. This was a good thing because they would be able to see what was misbehaving easier if it was acting up. It’s the equivalent of having your car, which periodically does weird things, actually do the weird things when you bring it to the mechanic. Both my surgeon and the anesthesiologist came to talk to me to explain the procedure. They told me I would be awake during the surgery because they needed my heart to respond and, if I became conscious and uncomfortable, to let them know. That caused a little anxiety for me but I just tried to focus on getting it done. They wheeled me into the operating room and hooked me up to a bunch of things including a breathing tube for anesthesia. I was talking to the anesthesiologist about how he grew up in a town close to my home town and, next thing I knew, I was waking up. I opened my eyes and the nurse told me they were finished and everything had gone really well. It was surreal. It went so quickly and was so painless that I’m not sure why I was worried. They wheeled me back to my room and my Mom was there. In a past experience of anesthesia, I’ve been a bit vocally euphoric so I made a point of being quiet until I felt more like myself. The doctor explained that they were able to trigger V-Fib easily since I was already in V-Flutter and that my heart was beating at 200 beats per minute until they cauterized the problem and my heart went back to normal rhythm. After the procedure, they again tried to trigger the V-Fib and were unable to do so. That’s a good indication that they “fixed” the problem. I believe your prayers were part of the reason everything went so smoothly and that I just happened to be in V-flutter when I arrived. I am also grateful, however, for an amazing surgery team at St. Luke’s who did a great job of making it such a painless procedure. I truly feel blessed by the whole experience. 

    The good thing was that I have, for the most part, been back to normal since I arrived home that evening. I didn’t have any complications. I did get tired at first but had no real pain, even at the incision site. I want to thank everyone who brought me food during the week of my recovery. None of it will go to waste, I promise you. If there was more than I could eat for a single meal, I put it in the freezer and will eat it in the days and weeks to come. Especially with communal penances and extra Masses for Christmas and New Years coming up, I will appreciate it! And I appreciate you for thinking of me. 

    Speaking of that, I’m going to, once again, remind people that, if possible, it would be best to avoid the 4:00 Mass on Christmas Eve. It tends to be very full so it would be best to go to one of the other Masses which aren’t as full to alleviate some of the crowd. I seem to remember the 8:00 Christmas morning Mass being kind-of sparse last year. I also remember the midnight Mass being one of the most beautiful Masses I’ve ever experienced, despite a good amount of fatigue and a fair number of seats available. Regardless of what Mass you go to, also please remember to welcome people we haven’t seen in a while. Maybe don’t sit at the edge of the pew if you're all alone. It’d be good to move into the middle of the pew so others can join you. And please don’t get annoyed if someone wants to sit in the pew with you but, instead, welcome them. We cannot celebrate the Word-made-flesh if we get angry at a little extra flesh in our church.