Tuesday, December 8, 2025
Update from Tim
Greetings all from Endeavor Edwards Naperville Hospital Critical Neuro Intensive Care Unit Room 6609.
Matthew 11: 2-11, the lectionary text for the 3rd Sunday in Advent.
This week we find our hero, John the Baptist in the lockup (tradition tells us in the fortress at Machaerus) awaiting his fate.
According to Matthew when JTB heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word to Jesus asking, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
Boy can I relate to John’s apparent impatience. He needed answers and none were readily available. Sitting in the same room day after day is wearing.
Of course, I’m not suggesting that the state of the art Endeavor Edwards Naperville Hospital Critical Neuro Intensive Care Unit Room 6609 is anything close to a first century prison cell, but when you are confined to a room, immediate circumstances take on inflated relevance compared to that which transpires beyond. Just like stubbing your toe.
John needed answers. I need answers. Julie needs answers. My clients need answers. All we can do is wait.
Each morning a Transcrainial Doppler Technician comes in and checks the weather inside my skull to make sure I’m not going to have a seizure. So far so good.
One part of the test requires me to bend my chin down to my chest so the technician (Jose or Milton) can get the ultrasound probe squarely in contact with the back of my neck.
I imagine at some point one of John’s jailers gave him a similar instruction right before the sentence was carried out.
Fortunately neither Jose nor Milton have any plans to serve my head up on a silver platter!
My nurse Vanessa informs me that a new MRI and likely Angiogram are scheduled for December 16, 10 days after the original procedure. The idea is to compare the separate test results and get a clearer picture as to what is going on inside my head.
Random bouts of numbness continue in different places on my left side throughout the day. This could just be symptoms of the original injury resolving itself. It’s disconcerting nevertheless.
No one ever says that waiting is easy. But, of course, that’s what Advent is all about. Waiting patiently. I’m doing my best, with no worries about my head being chopped off. I’m also not in any pain. Family and friends continue to visit with words of good cheer. The care team is amazing.
As Jesus eventually responds to John’s anxious inquiry, “..the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”
No offense taken.
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