The Third Day of Lent

The routine is to have my lab work done two weeks prior to meeting with my oncologist.  That’s what I did this morning, arriving punctually at 8:30 to have a less than enthusiastic phlebotomist draw my blood at 8:50.  I’ve noted some distinct similarities between the Nevada Cancer Institute and mortuaries, most distinctly the syrupy reception followed by abject dispassion.  The majority of those whom I joined in the waiting area were there for chemotherapy, a process I have been mercifully spared by the miracle tablet Gleevec.  Three of us responded to the cattle call, had the tourniquet applied, the needle inserted, and the red fluid drawn from our veins.  Without any fanfare I was released back into public and drove home.  No sooner did I arrive and sit down at the computer than did the phone ring.  It was NVCI asking me to return because my potassium level was critically high.  This was eerily similar to how the whole leukemia thing began: a phone call; an elevated white count that required retesting; the confirmation that it wasn’t just a fluke but CML.  These were some of the thoughts running through my mind as I drove back to where I had just been back when it all seemed so routine.  I’m trying to be faithful to my Lenten commitment to give up those things that get in the way of—that interfere with—my conscious awareness of God, but it is precisely these kinds of distractions that make such a thing difficult if not impossible.  I suppose because my theology doesn’t allow me to “petition the Lord with prayer” (God bless you, Jim Morrison) there was really no sense in asking God to do anything, to change anything, because that’s just not the way it works.  But there was comfort in knowing that God was sharing the experience with me and that I was not alone.  The same cheerless technician perfunctorily asked me for the same identification I had given her less than an hour before and virtually inserted the needle into the same puncture.  I was instructed to remain in the waiting area now filled almost to capacity with kindred souls in various stages of transition until the second set of results was obtained.  Finally, the nurse practitioner declared me viable as she explained that potassium sometimes collects at the point the needle enters and results in a false reading.  So, where was God in all this?  I repeat: where was God not?