The Little Ferrari That Couldn’t

When asked if you wanted a Volkswagen or a Ferrari put in your head you’d choose the Ferrari…right? Me too. That was one of my consolation prizes to leaving the hospital on Thursday. Sure, I had to be stuck with needles and have all of my family and friends make fun of me in my gown, shoes and cap, but the fact that I was getting a Ferrari by waiting a day, made it all worth it. I would be only the 3rd person in the entire world with this new Ferrari stint put into their brain. I dreamed of it last night. I was ready. Vroom Vroom.

Friday morning felt like “Groundhog Day.” We did the exact same routine as the day before. Everything went great, all the way down to my final kiss to Suzi. They wheeled me down the hall and inserted some Versed into my I.V. Goodnight.

I woke up 4 hours later to a shaved groin (shaved by a gay man no less) and Dr. Replogle standing over me shaking his head. That’s never a good sign when your surgeon shakes his head over you as you come of out of your anesthetic coma. “It didn’t go well.” I remember my countenance falling. “Tell me,” I told him. “You’ve got a big honking aneurysm in there, bud.” So tell me something we didn’t know going in! “As we deployed the stint, it deployed proximal to our alignment. The stint anchored in one side of the vessel, but it failed to anchor in the other side. The other end is inside the aneurysm.”

I kid you not…the first image I could think of was one of those ‘grand opening’ guys on the side of the road that are anchored at their feet, with their arms and head waving freely. Side to side, up and down and back and forth. I giggled thinking about this being in my head. It must have been the anesthesia…because, quite honestly, not much else was funny about the situation.
A FAILED operation. I spent my entire adult life in the operating theatre. I, too have seen my share of failed operations, but that happens to the ‘other guy’…not me…but it was me. I thought, “I just went through a procedure in which there was a 20% chance something horrible could have gone wrong. I could have stroked out or bled to death right there on the table, and it would have been for naught. What if I woke up not knowing my wife or children‘s names?” I heard the Lord tell me that I didn’t. He protected me. His healing angels watched over me during the insertion of the motorless Ferrari.

I spent my day wrestling with the Lord. I, unlike Jacob, came away with a sore groin, not a dislocated hip. My groin will heal…unfortunately Jacob walked with a limp for the remainder of his life. I wrestled, not because I forgot the faithfulness of God, but instead, I wrestled because this body is tired. I so desperately want relief from these headaches…these cruel symptoms. I waited a long time for this procedure and for the relief that was to come with it. But God had a different plan for my healing.

I must have open brain surgery. Tears well up in my eyes as I type that sentence. Open brain surgery. Will you still love me with a scar on my head? It’s a tough procedure…perhaps the toughest. I suppose you could make a case that my time in the O.R. has done more harm than good when it comes to surgical procedures. I’ve seen them all over the past 13 years. My heart always hurts for the patients when I’m in a neuro surgical procedure. To expose the brain, the doctors have to pull out a saw that you’d swear was bought down at The Home Depot. Recovery is difficult and hard. I don’t want to go down this road…unless it’s with the Lord.

I can only assume that it is. As the Writer and Producer of this play, I hadn’t written this into the script. I couldn’t bring myself there. I was taking liberty with my writing of the scenes. The Lord wants me to go deeper. Today, I woke up submitting to that will. I’m scared, but submitting.

I don’t know you’re theological persuasion when it comes to prophecy. So, at the risk of alienating some readers I will tell you this. A dear friend was in a small group last week praying. During the prayer, a man interrupted and asked, “I feel like the Lord has a word for someone here with a friend with a giant aneurysm in his head.” My friend swallowed the lump in his throat and said it was for him. “The Lord wants you to tell your friend that his head will be opened, then closed and he is healed.” A later, more detailed description was of a glow or a light coming from inside of my head as the skull is removed. The word didn’t make any sense before. They weren’t “opening and closing my head.” I just thought perhaps the Lord used the wrong verbiage…as if He didn’t understand the term “stinting.” I believe now that the words spoken were for me….now. Thank you Lord for those words. They prepare me for what lies ahead in the next month.

So, today I giggle. I think about that party going on in my head. Just as my kids love to see the “crazy guys” on the side of the road, the platelets and gray matter must be having a great time watching their new friend waving forward and backwards, side to side and up and down. The Ferrari never served it’s purpose…but I’m still the 3rd person in the world to have one. It just sits up on blocks…never to race as it was designed. That’s alright. The Lord can fix this with or without the Ferrari.

I’m back. My faith walk continues. I feel the Master’s hand grasp mine and gently lead me down a more scary road than the one before. But, it’s o.k. It’s the Master who leads and I follow. The love I feel is real…not some conjured up religious speak to sound good. I feel my Father’s love and am drawn to it. Can someone tell me how those who don’t follow Christ make it? I don’t know. I continue to daily pray for Anonymous and those who do not trust their life to Him. I don’t judge them, but pray that they answer to cry of their heart…to find their way back to their Creator.

I love my walk…bumpy or not. With each step my love deepens for my Abba. I hold on tightly and allow Him to take me on this journey. He’s good and faithful. My Ferrari will never be used as it was intended, but as my Father intended. Perhaps my brain needed some comic relief and I needed something to set off the metal detectors in the airport.