Reasonable Health (part 5)

I think I would be remiss if I skipped over this important moment in my illness/recovery.  Later in the evening when the abscess was drained, I was lying in my hospital room, alone.  As I mentioned in my last post, just the initial draining made a huge difference in how I felt.  Up until this point, I had 7 straight days of unrelenting, uncontrolled high fever along with pretty severe body aches, chills, sweats, dizziness, weakness and a general feeling of crap.  After the draining, I could feel a significant lifting of those symptoms. 

So that night in my room, lying in the dark alone, I said a prayer.  As a rule, I try not to pray for things but instead I tend to say thankful prayers for those things I already possess.  But this prayer was a little different.  I thanked God for the grace that was given me on so many levels.  I thanked God for a supportive wife and prayed for her to receive continued strength to be able to deal with my illness.  I thanked God for the wonderful doctors and their knowledge that was able to help me through this trying time.  I thanked God for all the nursing support and the support of all the medical faculty.  I thanked God for the love my family shows me every single day.  And I thanked God for watching over me. 

This may sound like a simple prayer of thanks, but it had a different twist in that I thanked God for all the folks around me, those who saved my life and for Gods grace for a longer life.

Those folks who know me probably do not realize that I speak with God regularly; I tend to find such talk extremely personal.  However, this moment on that night was an important one for me.  It was a turning point in my recovery.  Not so much because of that prayer, but because of the gift of knowledge possessed by the doctors/nurses and the love of my wife, family and friends.  And that is why I felt that I needed to pray for those folks.

The next morning, Doc B (still slightly aloof), came into my room and asked how I was feeling.  I immediately thanked her for her expertise and for finding the cause of my ailment.  She did not acknowledge the thanks at all, but instead said,

"Where is your wife?"

I responded, "At home I think."

She then plainly stated, "She is very bright."

Confused, I said, "Thank you."

Then she said wryly, "She made you stay here when you wanted to leave..."

Still confused, "I don't remember wanting to..."

"Yes, you wanted to leave and she made you stay. She is very smart."

And with that, Doc B left the room.

Feeling slightly slapped down but with a smile on my face, I recognized the extremely dry humor.  Thank you Doc B, you have no idea how thankful I am for your help.