I'm baaaaaack! -Redux

Wow, what a journey it has been! It is with gratefulness that I return here to post again. This has been one difficult year for me, suffering another heart attack and spending more time than I like in the hospital, medical facilities, rehab programs, and the like.

But God has been merciful to this sinner, and so I return rejoicing at His great grace to me. I have decided to take up posting to my own blog here and to our church website at www.spurgeonheritage.org. I had thought that I might go back to the Theology List and contribute, but for the time being I will rest content to do some stuff here on the blog.

For my friends I will review a little of what has been happening in my life. This is not one of those annual letters that people send out at the Christmas season, but just a bit of summary of why I have been somewhat absent from the world for a time.

Wintertime is very difficult for me, with my heart condition and all. So each winter we face the winter weather with some fear and trepidation, recognizing that over the last several years I have experienced strokes and heart attacks during the months of December, January and February.
In the fall of 2006, my health was already falling off and I was struggling to keep up with my duties and responsibilities. I was limited in what I could do physically and chose to concentrate on ministry and preaching, leaving all my writing and other activities [like bowling, golfing, fishing, etc] to be resumed later, if God willed.

My doctor decided to send me back to cardiac rehab, even though I had “graduated” earlier. So I began working to restore some health to my heart. It was during this time [March-April, 2007] that I was having much physical distress and heart pains. My doctor was doing what he thought was right for me, and ordered a sleep lab, after which I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea. We had problems getting the report from the sleep lab and thus could not get the C-PAP apparatus as soon as would have been desirable.

In fact, before we could get it, I took a trip down to Illinois to visit my grandsons, and to spend a few days with them. On the very day we set out to go, I had an appointment with my cardiologist. As I was sitting on the examination table, I reported to the nurse that I was having chest and back pains and was fearful that I was having a heart attack right there in his office. She quickly went out and reported to the doctor, but he came back in and made light of my concerns. So I left and went to Illinois. I fought serious pains the entire time while there and was unable to sleep but for short stretches of time, measured in minutes rather than hours. And I kept feeling worse and worse as the time went on.

We returned to Holland on Saturday and we had our regular services on Sunday. I could hardly stand and was enduring almost constant pain. On Monday morning, 9:30, I was scheduled to work out at cardiac rehab there at the hospital. When I arrived, I was in serious pain and was quite irritable. The head nurse there [Cheryl is her name, and she is an angel to me] knew intuitively that I was not my usual jovial, joking, smart-alec self, so she would not allow me to exercise and took me down to the ER. There I was diagnosed as having suffered a heart attack some hours before. I personally suspect it was back in the cardiologist’s office, actually.

Well, I seemed to recover some, but this one left me far weaker than what I had experienced in the past. The doctor told me that one of my bypasses had blocked off, causing the attack. He indicated that there did not seem to be anything that he could do, and that there were “no targets for revascularization.” In simple terms, he was saying that it was impossible to do any more bypasses. His advice and medical plan for me was that I should complete an advance directive of DNR [that’s Do Not Resuscitate, if you are unfamiliar with the nomenclature]. Nice medical plan, eh?  In plain language, he was saying that if the guy has another heart attack, let the old boy die!

Mind you, I am not at all afraid of dying. Indeed, as the Apostle Paul put it, “to die is gain.” But I was not at all convinced that I should give up the ghost that easily or without at least a second opinion. So I sought a second opinion from Prairie Cardiovascular Center in Springfield, IL, who had done my original bypass surgery. They were confident that the DNR “plan” of action [or inaction, more accurately] was unwarranted and that they felt there were other interventions that were not so dire. Long story short, I underwent two procedures to unblock some old arteries, but both procedures were unsuccessful. The cardiologist at Prairie was quite disappointed in himself and seemed far more discouraged than I. But he still felt that there was hope and that there were other interventions that might be warranted. With that thought, I returned home to Holland, MI.

Since that time, I have once again graduated from Phase 2 cardiac rehab. But as the summer wore on and winter time approached, I became again concerned that things were not going well. This time, I self-referred myself to cardiac rehab, phase three, and am still busy at that. There has been some good progress, and I am feeling fairly well at this time, though I am certainly not back to “normal.” I am back to bowling and fishing, but other than those activities I am pretty limited.

So, here I am, back again, hoping that I can recover and still contribute something to this life. So far I have not had to curtail much of my ministry, and have only missed a few Wednesday evening sessions and not a single Sunday service, no matter how serious my problems have been. For this I am very thankful to God for His mercy to me.

As if this were not enough, my dear wife Bev underwent hip replacement after several years of debilitating pain and discomfort in that hip. She is home recovering quickly and we are hopeful that both of us will resume something akin to normal life soon.

I wish to thank those of you who prayed for us during our travail. We would covet your continued prayers, actually. We have many, many friends across the nation and even around the world, and we are thankful for their shared fellowship in Jesus Christ. Their love and prayers have made our tribulation more tolerable and even joyful.

It is good to be back. Drop us a line if you can and visit our church website, which I am about to update soon.