The Time I Nearly Passed Out

I tend to think of myself as fairly self sufficient. I have been in a few dangerous situations that have led me to think I can handle myself pretty well but apparently my mind can take me out in a flash if I am not careful. It was roughly this time last year. A friend from church needed a minor back operation. He needed someone to take him to it, wait on him, and then take him back home. Being just a few minutes from one of my favorite disc golf courses I didn’t mind the wait. I got back to the clinic about the time was coming out of anesthesia. The nurse needed someone to be there who was coherent enough to understand the precautions that needed to be taken for him to leave the medical clinic. She led down a hallway full of other people coming out of anesthesia who were all moaning and groaning in pain. That didn’t make me feel too comfortable. She took me to his room and I remember thinking to myself, I need to really be here for him so that he will know someone is here who cares about him. As she read through what happened with the procedure, my mind got really vivid all of a sudden. I began imagining an incision and blood and things of that sort. All of a sudden the nurse who was all of three feet away from me began sounding like she was all the way across a football field. As her voice faded away I knew something bad was about to happen. So I told her, “hold on, hold on, I don’t feel so good!” She looked at me and said, “You don’t look so good either.” I had turned really pale. She led me out of the room and I weakly said to my friend, “I will be right back.” The nurse took me to a lazy boy recliner and sat me in it. She handed me a glass of OJ and told me to rest for a while. I felt like such a wimp. Here he was operated on and in tremendous pain and agony and here I was sitting across a large room from him in a Lazy Boy with some OJ! What a lesson in humility.