Good morning. It's Wednesday in Portland and down comes the rain. Yesterday was sunny and 60. It was an emotional rollercoaster of a beautiful thing.
Yesterday afternoon was my appointment to follow up with an eye specialist about the shingles that now stretch from my nose to the top of my forehead, all the way around my right eye.
The reason I went? When I was in the Emergency Room Easter Sunday the physician examining me peeked into my swollen eye, remarked that she didn't see anything (using nothing but her own two eyes and her glasses), and that if I had shingles in the eye I would probably know from the pain, but I should follow up with a specialist Tuesday or Wednesday as a precaution. Apparently shingles in the eye can lead to permanent vision loss. Blindness.
So I went to the appointment expecting them to take a slightly closer look and confirm that my eye was in the clear. That didn't happen. The three doctors who examined my eyes under several stains and dilation all noted multiple lesions on my right cornea. Not to worry, they said, so long as I started drops immediately my eye would probably heal fine. They wrote me prescriptions and told me they wanted to see my today. Meaning that a lot was supposed to happen between starting the medicine hopefully by 5:00 PM yesterday and today. Well, there was no appointment available today after all, so I'm checking back in tomorrow, but you get the idea of how serious they were about it being "imperative" that I start the drops 'immediately." Yesterday was big on emotionally charged "I" words.
Now, I had only one eye working yesterday, so one of my girlfriends had kindly volunteered to cart me around. Note to you all: If you are facing any sort of potentially weird and/or stressful situation it helps to have your girlfriend who is actually on the comedy club circuit as your wingman. I didn't know when we left the appointment how important my friend's wit and wisdom would be.
So we wheeled our way homeward, swinging by the local pharmacy to grab the meds. The local pharmacy doesn't stock that medication, however. None of the local pharmacies do. By the time it was apparent that none of them carry the prescription the doctor's office had stopped answering their phone and turned on the voicemail that instructs patients how to reach the on-call physician. So at 4:45 PM I began what became a series of about 11 calls to and with the on-call doctor.
Dr. P (let's stick to initials since I didn't get her permission to blog about this, but you'll see why I just can't not share) first returned my call at 7:20. She consulted with the lead physician who had seen me earlier, and promptly called me back. She said it was "critical" that I start the medication last night. She would prescribe an alternative to the notoriously unavailable first choice. She promised to call back as soon as the script was in. When she called back it was to tell me that she had discovered that none of the local pharmacies carry the alternative. She said she had reached out to 2 or 3 of her colleagues and they were all working to find any medicine - first choice, second choice, even a sample - to get me through the night. Half an hour later she rang back to say that they had located one bottle of medicine, she was picking it up (in NW Portland, far from where she lives in SW Portland) and she was driving it out to me (in NoPo) since my eye was swollen shut. It was after 9:00 PM when we finally met face to face for the first time. Dr. P had paid for the prescription (which was very spendy) out of her own pocket. She allowed me to repay her with a personal check, although she doesn't know me from Adam's housecat. She seemed far more concerned that I start the medicine than that she get paid for it.
Is that not overwhelming? It hurt to cry last night because of how swollen my eye was, but there was no getting around it. I was absolutely undone by God's grace poured out through Dr. P who went to such lengths to get me the medicine, through her colleagues who had collaborated with her after hours in finding it in the first place, through my friend who had driven me to the appointment and helped me run down numbers for all the pharmacies we could think of in the area and kept me laughing as much as possible in the meantime, through my family doctor who had checked in with me on how things were going to offer encouragement along the way, and through every single person praying me through the afternoon and evening.
Now, if I'm honest, my preference yesterday in the moment would have been for the first pharmacy my friend and I stopped at on the way home to have handed me the prescription and sent me off on a nice, quiet evening full of rest. If that had happened there would have been no anxiety, no excruciatingly fervent prayers for help and patience and trust in the turmoil. And the experience of God's loving presence and lavish provision - or, more correctly, my perception of those things - would have been wildly diminished.
But God loves us enough to make sure we can't miss it. When we let God love us the way He wants to love us there can be no doubt. He doesn't leave room for it. It may not come in the way we would prefer to receive it, but it is utterly unmistakable for anything else. And 10 times out of 10, though it isn't in the way we would have chosen it to be it is so much more than our limited hearts and minds could have imagined otherwise.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow
Praise Him all creatures here below
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
Amen!
And I'm typing this with two eyes open, by the way =)....
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