My favorite college football team won a big game this weekend. I watched that, went to church and did a skit, and then found out one of my friends almost died.
Sunday I went back to church and did the skit/scene/thing three more times, watched part of my favorite pro team's game(they lost), and went to a party/dinner/thing that I was helping to put together.
My friend was having abdominal pain that escalated to him getting incredibly sick, his roommate calling an ambulance, and a doctor telling him later that if hadn't...Dan wouldn't have made it. (I should mention that this is all 7th hand and it might turn out that he just chipped his tooth on some bad pretzels) Apparently he had internal bleeding, his stomach was filling up with blood, he had a blood clot moving to his heart....and I guess all of that hurts.
They gave him a minute to talk with him mom before going into surgery and then cut him from chest to belly button.
That's the news I was given Saturday night.
I never really know what to do that. My first thought was that he was 7 hours away...but I had to do three skits the next day.
Skits and a party. That's why I didn't go.
Sad,huh? The hard part was that one person had worked hard on the skit, a few support folks had worked to some degree on it, and two other people had been practicing the skit for a week. We also had a team of folks putting together the party/dinner/thing and I didn't want to bail.
That's the problem when someone goes in the hospital that isn't your grandpa, brother or even cousin. It's hard to get people to understand why it's so urgent for you to be there.
So I didn't go. The doctors never called me for advice. In post-op they didn't call for my recommendations on pain meds. There's just not much I could have done, except be there.
they tell me he's doing well, but I want to see for myself.
Keep in mind that he's a 22 year old who's in great shape and wasn't smoking crystal meth when he got sick. He just did.
You never know. The last thing I said to him was in an e-mail I sent him Friday about a poet I thought he'd like. I'm glad that's not the last thing I'll ever say to him. I'm still praying that he'll come back 100%...and you can to. Pray for Dan.
I'm praying for Dan. Maybe traveling to see him wasn't the only (or even most important) thing you could do for him. I think creating a web of prayer and good intentions for him via the community you've created on the web is pretty good too. Thanks for telling us, and God bless Dan.
ReplyDeletePraying for Dan!
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