Gaining Perspective

My husband had his gall bladder removed this week. He spent an evening in emergency a couple weeks ago in Madison, Wisconsin, halfway between home and board meetings in Chicago. Gall bladder symptoms look a lot like heart attack and within two minutes of walking into a local clinic they had him in an ambulance, dissolving nitroglycerin under his tongue.

He had had a similar attack the previous night after I served him waffles and sausage for breakfast, grilled brat-worst for lunch and pot roast with Yorkshire pudding and gravy for supper to welcome him home from his latest overseas trip. (This is the man who collects countries-in-which-he-has-eaten-pizza. Current count? 78) He got up long after jet-lag should have knocked him out and sat in front of a TV ball game I had recorded while he was gone. He would have liked to throw up and be done with it. I got up and made him mint and rosemary tea.

"I'll be fine," he said. "There's nothing you can do. Go back to bed."

I brought him a cup of tea and didn't mention our friend reading in bed while her husband died of congestive heart failure in front of the TV minutes after assuring her he was fine.

Eventually the emergency room doctors in Madison determined Steve was not having a heart attack, or other life-threatening problems and sent him on his way with instructions to see his family doctor. Due to my commitments in Indianapolis, he lived on oatmeal, un-buttered pancakes, grilled chicken and dry toast for a week before that could happen. They brought him a lovely vegetable platter at my $60-a-plate awards dinner.

Last Sunday I participated in the Race for a Cure with my daughter, grandchildren and a group of friends. For us it was less a race and more an amble among the strollers, wagons and 50,000 other people raising money to fight breast cancer. All around me were little groups with names like "Treasure Chests" or "Angie's Angels". They walked in celebration of a survivor (wearing a special pink T-shirt) or in memory of a loved one gone. Each of those 50,000 people had a story to tell. My cousin's daughter is fighting breast cancer right now. Her grandmother is a survivor.

Our pastor friend, Don Gerig, is blogging his journey with a brain tumor. A colleague from Africa recently retired to Australia only to find she has advanced pancreatic cancer. It all puts gall bladder surgery in perspective. In the future Steve may have to be a little more careful about the quantity of pizza he consumes.