Three miracles that saved my life

I’m sure anyone who reads scripture marvels at Christ’s healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, and other miracles, and wonder why we don’t have miracles today? I would argue, we still do.

Many of you know I had a heart attack in Sept 2018. My chest discomfort began about 10 on Sunday night. I called 911 and less than 10 minutes later the first responders were at my side.

I was on the floor, curled up in the fetal position, saying my prayers, they when they rushed in. They wasted no time; one took my blood pressure – 60/30, my pulse – 30. Another recorded an ECG and sent it electronically to our local hospital and my cardiologist; still another started an I.V. and gave me an injection of some medicine. A “pacer” with two paddles was attached to my chest which gave me 70 electric shocks every minute. With each shock, my heart would beat and my right arm would jump. Miracle # one!

I don’t remember the ride to the ER. I woke with my cardiologist at my bedside. Mary had alerted two of our sons who were in town and was there with them. The doctor explained that I needed a stent and a few seconds later, I was on my way to the cath lab. There they placed a stent in my right coronary artery. Miracle # two.

By 1:30 I was resting comfortably in the Cardiac ICU, happy that Doctor said I could go home in the morning.

I did not sleep well the rest of the night. I was connected to a monitor and every few minutes, its ring alerted the night owls, all the other patients, and the nurses telling everyone that I had had some extra heart beats. Every time I fell back to sleep the automatic blood pressure machine nudged me, not so gently, from my slumber.

I survived to eat a small hospital breakfast before the birds were even thinking about getting up, and waited for Doctor to come and discharge me. Shortly before lunch, Father Anthony visited and brought me Communion and the Sacrament of Healing. The extra beats stopped around noon. Miracle # 3.

Later that day the doctor arrived with not so good news. He didn’t like my extra beats, and I could not persuade him to let me go home. I told him the extra beats were now only history, but he insisted on one more night. I was not happy.

Next day I was out of there, feeling fine and ready to start cardiac rehab. I continue to do well.

Oh, so what about the miracles? First one: by the EMTs, including electronic transfer of my ECG. Second one: the stent placement. Third One: The extra beats stopped.

I admit many people would say these were not miracles; they were easily explained by medical science. I disagree! Let St. Teresa of Avila explain with her poem “Christ has no body.”― Teresa of Avila

Christ has no body now but yours.

No hands, no feet on earth but yours.

Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world.

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.

Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes.

You are his body.

Christ has no body now on earth, but yours.

Let me explain:

Over many years of study, learning, and struggle scientists discovered that hearts generate electricity which controls the heartbeat. Eventually, they learned how to record the electric current in the form of an ECG and how to send the ECG from via radio waves from the heart to a hospital miles away.

Other researchers found heart attacks happened if a heart artery was blocked with cholesterol plaques.

Still others discovered x-rays and learned they could make a movie inside the body using x-rays. We call it fluoroscopy. They found a liquid that was radio-opaque and didn’t harm a person. If they injected it into an artery and see if it was open or plugged. Like Edison inventing the light bulb, they tried over and over again to place a tube inside a beating animal’s heart. Eventually they found the right substance to make the tube (stent) and learned how to manipulate it into the clogged artery.

I look at inventions, ideas, and even thoughts, as God given. As St, Teresa says, God uses man to do his work. He guides our thoughts and actions to work his miracles; all we need is more faith.

Some call today’s miracles, God directed evolution.

So we might add another line to St. Teresa’s poem. Man has no mind but Christ’s.

Science is working, with God’s help, to improve each other’s lives here on earth and to glorify God!