The Retirement Flight

I walked confidently onto the plane – denim jeans, 90s hair, ski boots in hand.  I was traveling internationally for the first time by myself to study abroad my junior year in college.  It was the last leg of my trip taking off from JFK in New York to Geneva, Switzerland.  

I was just settling into the Delta red eye flight when I caught a quick flash of orange out the left side of the window.  That flash quickly became a flame.  All of the passengers gasped in one breath: the left wing was on fire.  Pandemonium broke out and panic swept the cabin as oxygen masks fell from the ceiling and sparks lit up the night sky.   I closed my eyes, braced the arms of the chair, and prayed.  

“This is the day I will die.” I thought.  It’s a strange feeling, not being in control of your life.  One minute you are dreaming of skiing the Swiss Alps, the next you are wondering what your family will do when they find out you are gone.  I was powerless as the aluminum aircraft sputtered and teetered across the sky.  

The captain came over the loudspeaker.  

“I need everyone to calm down, and sit down.” he repeated several times.  

“As you can see, the bad news is our left wing is on fire.  We are doing what we can to minimize the flames.  I know you are all very scared. The good news is this is my retirement flight and I’m the right one to be flying this plane.  We’re going to turn around and attempt an emergency landing at JFK.”  

And that is just what the pilot did.  He used all of his years of skill, expertise, wisdom, self regulation, and experience to do exactly the right maneuvers at just the right time, and he saved hundreds of lives, including mine.  I don’t know who that pilot was, but I desperately wish I could thank him now.  He gave me the gift of my future.

//

Decades later, I find myself in a precarious situation.  I have a knee replacement to fix old collegiate soccer and ski racing injuries that keep coming back to haunt me.  It goes poorly due to unusually severe scar tissue build up and I’m somewhat disabled, unable to bend my knee more than thirty to forty degrees.  It feels like having a wooden leg and starts causing other problems in my back and hips.  I can’t walk or sit normally, put on shoes well, or drive without my other foot helping.  It impacts every single minute of my life.  

I see the top specialist at the Mayo Clinic.  He advises me not to do revision surgery, the risks are too high. But if I choose to do it, he will take on my case.  It feels like a gut punch and I board the plane home with deep discouragement in my heart and his words ringing in my ears.  

I see more specialists.  Get second and third opinions.  Eventually I end up in the office of Dr. Dennis in Denver, Colorado. He’s a handsome, white haired seasoned surgeon in the latter years of a note-worthy career.  He’s old school – in a jacket and tie under his white coat.  A plaque for a US patent for a joint implant invention in Orthopedic Surgery hangs on his wall.  This man has impacted his field in medicine.  All of these things give me confidence.  But more than anything, his eyes are kind and concerned.  

Dr. Dennis keeps me in his clinic for four hours. He lines my scans up on a counter and begins measuring with a ruler and protractor. He’s searching for an answer like a detective decoding a mystery.   I cry.  In all of my visits, no doctor has spent this much time with me or put their best thinking on my behalf like this and it feels like answered prayer.  At the end of the appointment, I look him squarely in the eye and ask him if he were me, what would he do? 

“I’d have the surgery.” He says.  You have a lot of life ahead of you.” 

For the next four days, my husband, Erik, and I head to a Colorado mountain town and attempt to discern my way forward. We listen to all the recordings of the appointments.  We make pros and cons lists.  We research.  

Eventually, we slowly hike to the top of a hill, ski poles supporting my unbalanced body.  I sit on a rock – asking God… no, begging God to show me the way to go.  

“What do you want me to know?” I ask, looking into the mountain sky.  

I stand up after an hour and announce to Erik,  “I’m having surgery and Dr. Dennis is the one doing it.”  

There is clarity on this mountain.  As much as one can get anyway.  

Is there ever real clarity in life?  For big decisions we have to make?  Some things are in our control, others aren’t.  We each seek wisdom and discernment as best as we can. Risk is present, and we have to weigh whether it’s worth it. 

In my high school Lilac Festival Princess speech I quoted Leo Buscaglia saying, “The greatest risk in life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, and becomes nothing.”  

I still believe that.  It’s not me NOT to try,  So I do. 

//

It’s my fourth day post surgery today and things aren’t going well, surgery excluded.  The surgery, in fact, was flawless.  Dr. Dennis arranged for his fellow, Dr. Barton, another accomplished board certified Orthopedic Surgeon, to assist him that day and it went much better than they anticipated.  

By the end of the surgery I had 123 degrees of flexion on the operating room table.  He bent my knee for the first time in almost three years.  

In the routine recovery process, hospital physical therapists picked me up to walk around the halls and remind me how to go up and down stairs to prevent injury.  On our way back to my room, I got a sudden tight pain in my chest and felt like I couldn’t breathe.  They had to sit me down on a chair in the middle of the hall.  A quick check with a monitor showed I was not getting enough oxygen. Erik, a doctor himself, insisted I get a scan.

After a contrast CT, it was confirmed, I had pulmonary embolism to both lungs.  Of all of the things you don’t want to get post-surgery, this is at the top of the list.  It’s the kind of situation that can kill you in an instant if the clot is large enough or keeps breaking loose, and my oxygen was already low.

They immediately put me on high powered blood thinners and oxygen, and hoped my levels would start to improve as the medicine began breaking up the lung clots.  Praise God, within hours, it did. I was going to live another day.

The bleeding risk into the surgical site then became elevated once on the blood thinners, and I am now obsessively watching my leg every hour to see if it’s happening.  Couple that with high dose steroids that are causing heart tachycardia, tremors, and swinging emotions and this feels like a very wild ride.  

It’s very rare for clots to lungs to show up right away in the hospital.  The hospitalist working with us told us he’s only seen it five times in all his years of practice.  After an ultrasound, it was confirmed; The clots came from deep veins behind my knee in the previously immobile leg.  Mystery solved.  

It turns out, what doesn’t move or grow does not stay static, it grows stagnant. It begins producing harmful things that may eventually be dislodged into a person’s very bloodstream, and if ignored, can be dangerous to life itself.    

On that mountain, God was giving me spiritual eyes to see what was invisible to my human eyes.  I had a sickness in my body due to lack of movement and He was about to make hidden things revealed.  Those leg clots could have dislodged at any time and caused a sudden death without warning.  

Instead, they were revealed in a hospital setting, where I was already checked in and had access to immediate scans, strong medicine, and excellent care.  With a situation like this, the clock is ticking. God was arranging my own personal miracle and I didn’t even know it.

I felt nudged to write a hope declaration before the surgery. I had no idea how much I would need it in these days:

“I WILL RESTORE YOU”

God, you are RESTORER.  

You make my life complete when I place all the pieces before you (Psalm 18).

You fight for me, therefore I am not afraid (Deuteronomy 3:22).  

Light fills my body as I open to wonder and belief (Matt 6:23).  

Joy wins and leads the way (Joshua 6:1-20).   

You will heal my wounds and restore my health (Jeremiah 30:17).

An abundance of security and prosperity is my future (Jer.33:6).

I am putting on my helmet – guarding my mind, steeling my resolve.

I am ready for battle, anticipating your healing and victory (Eph. 6:17).

Fear does not write the story of my life – courage does.

I will not faint in the day of adversity or falter in the day of trouble (Proverbs 24:10).  

You re-write the text of my life when I open the book of my heart to your eyes (Psalm 18: 22-24).

I carry:

The heart of David.

The wisdom of Joseph.

The strength and courage of Joshua.

Love is my anchor.

Hope is my song.

GOD IS MY VICTORY.

I don’t know yet how this story will end. As of this morning I’m recovering from a night of the most excruciating “pain storm” I’ve ever experienced, I’m still on oxygen when I sleep, we’re still working on how to dose the steroids, and bleeding can still occur.

I once again find myself sputtering and teetering through this life, powerless to control how my body will respond to what is at hand. It feels like we are on the descent and I have no idea if the plane is going to fully land.  But Dr. Dennis is not new to this game.  This is one of his retirement flights, and God knew I would need every ounce of his wisdom, experience, expertise, compassion, and faith.  

He’s the right one to be flying this plane. 

And no matter what happens from here, this truth I know with all my heart: love is my anchor, hope is my song, and God is my victory.