An Open Letter To family and Friends:
I’m probably getting a reputation as a man of too many words, and for that I am sorry, but please, be strong, read to the end, to get the meaning of this letter.
The odyssey I describe probably began seven months ago, maybe later. There was a point in time for me when writing was natural, and it grew out of inspiration and imagination. Somewhere in that back-time I began to find it harder and harder to create, to write, without being fully aware of the why. During that span of time my weekly devotionals were affected; I think I wrote only one or two original Watchwords, the rest I filled in from the 900 or so I had previously written.
It wasn’t until my recent appointments with Dr. Robertson, discussing options for a heart procedure, when he said something that raised questions in my diminished mind. We had decided on the TAVR as the procedure, and he commented that the replacement of the aortic valve could resolve 80% of the problems I have been having with cognition, imagination, coughing, etc. It was then that my friend Lin raised a question related to oxygen in the blood, and the role that the valve played in oxygenating blood.
Okay, that got me thinking about crazy stuff like ‘writer’s block’ caused by blood? Really? So, I did Google research, and you can, too. For me this was an epiphany. Check it out: A decrease of oxygen in the blood, caused by a defective valve, has a decreasing domino effect in the brain on such things as mood, mental acuity, even a sense of exhaustion. It seemed to hold the answer to why I bog down in the book I am writing. I had written some 35 good chapters, but I was having a devil of a time trying to form those into a plot, into a story, into a book. I just couldn’t seem to go on. No imagination, no creativity.
The decrease in oxygenated blood also has an impact on my tolerance for frustration, which seems to come on in flashes of anger without much cause and without reason, and certainly without thinking.
During the consultation with Dr. Robertson Beth raised the question of risk. There’s no question that anytime a procedure is done in the heart there is risk. Recently I’ve concluded that risk is interrelated with faith. It isn’t that we defy the risk, so much as knowing the risk, we move forward despite it, based on faith. I can find great confidence in the knowledge that God is in charge that he is a God of love. Therefore, in the practical sense, even with risk, I need not fear. It may sound like a mantra, but it is the foundation of what I believe.
Well, there you have it, a lot of words, I’m communicating my thoughts and belief. I hope you can take something meaningful out of it. Come March 5th the Lord will be standing beside me holding onto my right hand throughout, as some really talented guys will be fixing my heart using the TAVR procedure, and I, under ‘conscious sedation’, will not be afraid. Such is the nature of my faith. God bless you all.
