Who was Patrick and why do you care?
Patrick Day was a 27-year-old boxer who died of a brain injury in a boxing match on October 14th of this year. “Patrick Day didn’t need to box,”…. “He came from a good family, he was smart, educated, had good values and had other avenues available to him to earn a living.” … “It’s how he inspired people and it was something that made him feel alive.” That is who he was, now why do you care? “Many people live much longer than Patrick’s 27 years, wondering if they made a difference or positively affected their world. This was not the case for Patrick Day when he left us.”
Can people say that about you? Can they say that about me?
I have another short story about one of my stones. I
think I may have mentioned that in my early years I was somewhat driven. Actually,
I was bullet proof and invisible. I did everything in excess. One of my
excesses was running 10 miles a day rain, sleet or shine. It was an endorphin
high and an obsession. In the spring of my 30th year I started
getting tunnel vision around 4 to 5 miles. I would walk a few steps; it would
go away and I would continue running. As it was spring and I wanted to ramp up
my running, I went to the doctor to see if I could take something to get rid of
this inconvenience.
The inconvenience put me in the hospital for a few days as
they ran a complete battery of test to determine the problem. All they knew for
sure was that it had something to do with my heart and from the initial signs it
was much more dangerous than tunnel vision. They couldn’t find the source. I
was told to back off on all exercise. Basically, I was told to sit in a rocking
chair and find a good book. As a 30-year-old I needed to act like I was 90. As
I mentioned, I was bullet proof and invisible. This is a minor setback. It will
go away. They’ll give me a pill and poof, back to normal. …. But, not so much….
Days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months and no real
progress. The problem was getting worse. More tests, maybe this, maybe that… no
real answer. I started out with a partial heart block that was slowly turning
into something worse.
Then one day
I’m living alone in my apartment watching TV when it
happened. Prolonged tunnel vision. The protocol was to call my cardiologist for
instructions. Dr. Wickliffe (Charles) was a friend before he was my doctor.
Me “Charles, tunnel vision, kind of long this time.”
Charles “stop doing what you are doing and relax.”
Me “I’m lying on the couch doing nothing, the only thing I
can stop doing is breathing.”
Charles “I have a full schedule tomorrow come see me before
the office opens, say around 7:30.”
Waiting is not my strong suit, so I decided to go to bed,
get up early and see Charles in the morning. What I am going to tell you next
is real. I can still see it in my minds eye. It still scares me today. I woke
up in the middle of the night looking at myself lying in bed. I was on the
ceiling looking down. That was me in the bed. I was awake. My body slowly slid
down the wall and onto the bed. I was now looking at a blank ceiling. I laid there
drenched with sweat, my heart was jumping out of my chest and I was terrified. I
had never experienced anything even close to this in my life and I had no idea
what it meant.
Options, what are my options? Stay here alone and maybe die
in the night? Not good. I could go to the hospital across the street from Charles’
office and wait for him. Better idea, but how. It’s only a few blocks away (I
was living in mid-town at the time), I could walk. Not good, most of it is up
hill and would put a strain on my heart. Then I would die in the middle of the
street alone and at night. I know, I could drive, but that would put other motorist
in potential danger. Idiot, it is the middle of the night, what other motorist?
Drive it is.
I walked into the emergency room at Piedmont Hospital around
2 A.M. I really don’t know what I am doing other than I want to be around other
people. I don’t want to be alone. This whole thing had become rather confusing.
I found a chair and made myself comfortable until Dr. Wickliffe shows up at
7:30. Well as it would turn out, they don’t allow people to “hang out” in the emergency
room. The night nurse said “Hey, you’re in or you’re out, choose” … I’m in.
They put me in a small observation room, hooked up an EKG
and watched for a while. All’s cool, I’m safe and in good hands. I had a male nurse;
he left the room for a few minutes and comes back with a defibrator. For those
of you who don’t know what a defibrator is, it’s a heart shock devise. I worked
my way through undergraduate in surgery at a hospital. I’ve seen a lot of defibrators
and I know what they do.
Me “curiosity, whatcha got that for?”……
nurse “well your heart has stopped three times since you got
here. Don’t worry Dr. Wickliffe is on the way.”… que dramatic music….
At this point my brain didn’t have thoughts, it only had
half sentences. I think it was oscillating between my natural positive attitude
and outright panic. Thank goodness Charles showed up to stabilize my attention.
He assured me that everything was going to be fine. I did the right thing…. Yada,
yada, yada… I don’t think I was listening. My brain was still having its own
convoluted dialog.
Job 33:4 “The Spirit of God has made me, and the
breath of the Almighty gives me life”
BAM… I hit my head…. Bright lights…. What…. A man in a
white mask says, “it’s going to be alright”. My heart had stopped in mid-sentence
in the emergency room and they took me directly to surgery. I hit my head as a
reaction to them starting my heart back. It was an emergency, they didn’t
follow standard protocol, there was no time. In post-op I sat there looking at
this big box taped to my arm. It had a blinking red light. Charles said it was
my temporary pacemaker. Because of my age they had to order a special pacemaker
and it would be here the next day. I had to go back to surgery to have it
implanted. But I was and will be fine.
What does all this have to do with Patrick Day? God was
extremely compassionate with me. He gave me another chance to be the man he
wanted me to be. Patrick was already that man.
The rest of the night I watched that blinking red light.
That was my life, it was my future, it was everything I wanted to be, but wasn’t…yet.
It took me over a year to get used to the fact I was dependent on an electrical
devise implanted in my chest. I was no longer bullet proof or invisible. I was
human. It made me look at the past and project it forward. I didn’t like the
picture. For the first time in decades I picked up a bible and started to read.
Ephesians 2:10 “For we are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should
walk in them.”
I wasn’t there yet, but the search had begun. I missed my chance at being Patrick Day, but I could find a way of becoming Tomme Stevenson.
2 Timothy 2:15 “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”
