Tuesday, May 15, 2007

A Need-to-Know Basis

Just a few minutes ago one of the admins in our office swung by to inform me that she intended to be "out of the office" for six weeks beginning Thursday. I immediately thought to myself; "this can only be one of two things: pregnancy or surgery." Either way it involves a hospital.

All this talk of babies and pregnancy set me thinking: the Bible mentions somewhere that children are a "gift from God." I don't doubt it; but I'd have to want a gift pretty dang bad to be willing to check into a hospital and have a needle stuck in my spine to get it. You know what I mean? My only real issue with the Bible is that I think God tends to gloss over the details a bit in his descriptions. Like with babies - sure, they're a gift - but so is a fruitcake. Details.

Remember that story in the Bible where God made the sun stand still for an entire day so that the Isrealites could put the hammer down on the unfortunate Hamelekites or whoever? The Bible simply says: "and then the sun stood still and the Isrealites slew them all."

HOLY S#$#$@#$&&TTTRRR!!! THE SUN STOOD STILL??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I mean capitalize it or something. C'mon.

I'm sure after that unfortunate run-in the Hamelekites attitude was "hey, thanks. how about not helping out next time, eh?" You know in their historical literature that sun-stood-still stuff came out in bold double-underline.

Anyway, my admin friend was generally non-specific about the nature of what turned out to be a scheduled surgery (not a pregnancy). She mentioned the technical name of her procedure, but all I caught was "-ectomy" on the end; so I let it alone. My experience indicates that if they're slicing something off that you can do without - its generally not something normal like an elbow. I guess I find that I'm better off, in general, not knowing the details.

Now that I think about it - maybe God has the right idea.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

After reading this entry, I was reminded of the time years ago when I happened to be in Macon and you told me you were thinking of joining the world of medicine (orthoped.or thoracic surgery, I think). This was prior to you going to college. I know you are great in your chosen field, but we in the medical arena, are now breathing a sigh of relief knowing that just the trailing term "ectomy" was enough to terminate your interest in the medical procedure of your co-worker. I do realize this was not the point of the blog, but I am glad to say that this does demonstrate the guiding hand of God. He obviously had you in His sights those many years ago, as well as all of the potential patients out there in the evolving world know as "medically needy".

ruth in sc

Anonymous said...

Jimmy, I know I've said this a thousand times, but you are SO CUTE! Your writings are so creative and so funny. You really should be a journalist or stand-up comedian. Thanks for making me laugh today.