Friday Focus...Chicago traffic oh my!!!

My Friday found me in downtown Chicago at a nationally known medical facility.  After a 3 hour drive through rush hour, I found the parking deck and had to wind up 10 floors to find an open spot.  I was re-thinking my plan and wished I would have caught the train in Aurora and walked from the Union Station to my destination.

I had two parishioners there on this day.  Transversing from one side of this humongous hospital to the other offered me some daily exercise.  Speaking to the front desk receptionists; riding various elevators and escalators; reading wall signs for directions; and probably looking lost at times to the medical staff on duty are common activities for me on these excursions to hospitals amongst the skyscrapers of this city.

All this is secondary for being there.  It is a time to have some extended time to communicate and provide company with the family after a bedside prayer with the beloved patient before they are wheeled down the hall out of site.  It is a big surgical waiting room.  We are watching the monitor screen to see how our patient is progressing.  Others are gathered here for the same reason.  Families occupying the chairs facing each other with conversations flying back and forth dispersed with occasional outbursts of laughter.  It is a terrible place to meet up but some bonding is happening around the surgical event.

Hospital waiting rooms bring back memories.  I think the one that "takes the cake" in my book happened in Alpena, Michigan.  The older patient had a cancerous tumor and the surgery was to remove it.  His wife and I made our way after he left for the operating room and were getting settled into the very little surgical waiting room for the 4+ hour surgery.  I had my book on my lap as we talked about family and watched the daily newscast on the mounted TV in the corner.

I didn't even crack open my book and the surgeon was in the waiting room standing in front of us.  "So soon, this can't be good." went through my mind.  "How about we meet in the chapel around the corner" the surgeon said and we both looked at each other expecting the worst.  We followed him around the corner and entered the little chapel fitted with a small kneeling bench beneath the cross on the wall.

We had prayed earnestly for this man when his diagnosis was shared with the congregation.  He and his wife were members.  Their daughter and son-in-law and their 3 children also were faithful attenders.  This was a family that was very involved in the life and ministry of the church.  We brought up his name many times in the services leading up to this date of surgery.  

We were braced for the worst after such a short time in the surgery.  Maybe it was just enough time to open him up and see how bad it really was.  We held each others hands and then the doctor said, 

"We can't find it."  

I was speechless while his wife cried aloud a "Praise the Lord!"  This surgeon was the one who identified  and verified with a biopsy what he was going to be cutting out of this man.  He knew all about this case because it was his case for no others were apart of this process.  He had seen it from scan to biopsy and now to possible surgery.  

"I have looked all over for the cancer and it is just gone."

Instructions were given on his recovery and he would not be staying for 3 or 4 days but coming home today.  The surgeon left the little chapel and we sprinted to the pay phone in the surgical waiting room.  Calls were made to waiting family members and tears were flowing down the face of this faithful wife.  The news flew around the church prayer chain like lightning.  "Praise the Lord!" was the common response along with "Our God reigns." 

Not all hospital waiting room sessions end like that one.  Usually there is some good news but I am so thankful to have been to one when the report was that the Great Surgeon had done His perfect work already.  Let's keep praying for another one!

Adam