It Felt Like a Heart Attack

75mph on the highway somewhere near Bowling Green, Kentucky yesterday, a sharp pain gripped my chest and would not let go. For nearly 5 minutes, I drove along in blinding pain unable to breathe in or breathe out. I pulled over to let Debra drive when my arms started to go numb and my head began to swim. I was sweating and nauseous.

“Oh God no. God, please no!” I kept thinking, panicked. “I can’t afford to go to the hospital.” Uninsured, out of state, and having every symptom of a heart attack. I could just see the bill sitting ominously in my mailbox and I debated just NOT going in. Surely it would pass... The bitter irony that I was more immediately concerned about money than the fact that I could drop dead any second was very stark in that moment. I struggled to understand this rock-in-the-gut feeling that millions of underinsured Americans feel every day: “Oh God, I can’t afford to be sick.” But the pain didn’t pass. My vision continued to blur and I nearly passed out. So to the hospital we went.

I’ve never seen Debra go 15mph over the limit on purpose. I smiled to myself sardonically as she whizzed past the traffic toward the hospital in Bowling Green while Annabel happily drew princesses on her "magnedoodle".

Staggering to the reception desk, I explained as calmly as possible, “I think I might be in the middle of a heart attack.” The nurse looked unimpressed. Clearly, I was still standing. “Have a seat and I’ll be with you in a moment,” she said, looking bored.

After all the standard pokes and prods, a young sympathetic doctor came in and I politely begged for his discretion in ordering an expensive battery of tests. I could live with some ambiguity in my diagnosis. I just didn’t want to lose my house over this.

An x-ray revealed my diagnosis: chest wall pain. Awesome. Well I knew I was having chest pain, but at least now I know that it was chest wall pain. But I was grateful to know I wasn’t dying even though the results felt pretty flimsy. While the nurse pulled out the IV, she confided that her son had just experienced identical symptoms which hospital dismissed was chest wall pain. Her son continued to have residual dizziness—which the doctors blamed on stress—and was scheduled to see a specialist. The specialist said he had seen an outbreak of similar cases recently with no real explanation. Perhaps, I joked, we were among the first victims of the yet-undiscovered “Moose Flu epidemic of 2012.”

While I support socialized medicine now more than ever, I was profoundly grateful yesterday for a few things: First, that little sign on the hospital wall explaining that even I couldn’t pay, I had the right to be seen and stabilized. Second, the lady who helped me apply for charity assistance to cover part of the hospital bill. Third, a responsive medical system that saw and diagnosed me right away. Fourth, a gut instinct that while this is a major inconvenience, God’s care and provision are by no means on the line. I felt I was able to say in the midst of it, “Okay, this is one more way for God to show me that he loves me and isn’t going to abandon me.” Even if we’re chained to this thing for years, I feel God’s heart towards us is not in question. I wouldn’t have been able to say that 5 years ago. But at this point we’ve seen God take care of us over, and over, and over.

And over again. We’ve seen that he’s willing to let us get extremely uncomfortable but that He never abandons us.

Now to be fair, I’m waking up this morning and I feel hung-over from all the stress of yesterday: a long drive home from Chicago with screaming kids, the threat of financial strain (or ruin), the profound stress of a medical emergency, general sleeplessness, and a wife who spent at least an hour calculating the ramifications of being a single mom… we got home late last night and collapsed on the bed unable to move or to attend to Levi who toddled around our room happily after a long nap in the car.

So this morning, Georgia is gray and rainy and I feel kind of gray inside too. Not because I doubt God but just because I’m just tired all around.

(I’ve moved now to my screen porch and it has started pouring rain like a spring storm in Minnesota and I am grateful to live here. Nearly Christmas and it feels like spring.)

Today is Levi’s first birthday and I wish we could do more to celebrate him on this gray, exhausted day. He has brought a sweetness and insanity to our family perfectly characterized by those middle-of-the-night hours in which I’m so annoyed to be up with him and can’t fathom where all this joy and playfulness comes from at this ungodly hour and can’t believe he can keep it up for 4 straight hours when he doesn’t even stay awake for that long during the day; yet I’m so endeared by his big baby grin and crabapple cheeks and playful boyish giggle that I can hardly hold it against him. More stress. More dying-to-self. But so much more sweetness and fun and fullness. I sure do love that guy.

Happy birthday Levi. You were born into one crazy family walking a crazy tightrope adventure through life with God. I hope you feel seen and loved in the midst of it. The life of this family may always feel uncertain and not totally safe. But I hope that even if we can’t give you security, or nice things, or food bought from a real store, that you sense that this family trusts, and this family loves, and this family receives Love. And I hope you will also sense that YOU can trust and love and receive Love. I think we don’t feel guilty about the life we’ve chosen because at the end of the day, if you can do those things, then you’ll be doing pretty darn good in life.