On Day Three of my recovery from my quadruple by-pass surgery, my partner in the next bed, who was going home that day, received a visitor who had the same surgery several years back.
He looked at both us, and said, “Guys, listen up! Appreciate the fact you have just received a ‘Second Chance’. Wow what a statement and what a sobering thought. Me, a second chance – One who often took pride in developing chances and taking advantage of them, was now going to get a second chance from the hand the hand of a surgeon’s skill.
Everyday, that sobering, but uplifting thought sinks deeper into my psyche making me so aware of the startling truth of those words. I indeed have received a second chance that’s put the spring back in my step, the resonance back in my voice, the color back into my skin, removed the swelling from excessive fluid, and multiple reasons to celebrate, to numerous to mention.
I’m breathing the God-given breath many take for granted, but that I had difficulty with before the surgery, often struggling for breath after a walk up the stairs or a simple turn at the local grocery store.
Today, I’m moving easily, without much effort except for the pain that still reminds me of what they actually did to my ribcage: Saw it open, bend it to the sides, so they could remove my heart and place it on the table, attach the four new arteries taken from my left leg, and then get ready for D-Day.
Many hearts at this stage require significant massage to restart, but mine started bang on, on the first click. Wow, I was alive to enjoy yet another day and start on the first day of my second chance. I didn’t know it right then, but later when I awoke in the ITC Unit, breathing better, but still under the heavy influence of morphine to manage the heavy pain.
My surgery took place on Friday morning, September 14, 2007 at the St. Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg, Manitoba under the guidance of Dr. John Lee and his most capable and friendly team. I wasn’t just a number here, but a person whom the team wanted to make better, to give that second chance to, that so many had received before me and already have received after me.
On Sunday, I had walked that long hall from one end to the other seven times, with and without a walker, enjoying each moment, only on Day Two after surgery.
On Monday morning, Dr. Lee and his team came into see me and asked when I wanted to go home. That’s Day Three after surgery. Well, I said, as soon as possible. With a twinkle in his eye, he teased me a little about letting me go that day, but Tuesday Day Four was just fine with me.
On Wednesday, Day Five, I walked the street down from our house three times with my daughter Lynn who had come home from Vancouver to help look after me.
Each day the pain became less and the walking easier. As I write this on September 24, I’m well on my way to a full recovery,
Thanks Dr. Lee and your most amazing team, to the staff at St. B., to my friends and business associates around the world, and locally, to my most endearing family, our church family, and last but not least, to an amazing God who is faithful, loving, and gracious, to have given little old me a second chance. Somewhere, sometime, somehow, I’ll see you again with a spring in my step, a boom in my voice, a twinkle in my eyes, that will show clearly the effects of my Second Chance.