I don’t like being confused. When something does come along that confuses me my mind kicks into overdrive and starts figuring it out. Confusion only lasts for a moment. Until recently, that is. On April 6^th I had triple bypass surgery. Coming out of surgery, I had no confusion. But then the pain meds started and I felt confusion for about three days until I began to request the pain meds to be taken away. At home, they had prescribed pain meds and for a day and a half they drove me crazy, until I quit them. I was OK. But then I passed out at home. When they brought me around they were preparing to load me into an ambulance to take me to the hospital. That was totally confusing, completely different from the pain pill thing. My blood sugar had dropped below the level that a glucometer can read, causing me to pass out. But, readings that low also scramble your brain. It is like a jigsaw puzzle where a bunch of the pieces are cut in the same pattern and you have to tell where the piece goes by the image on the piece. You can get the puzzle together, but the whole picture can be fouled up.

          That had never been a problem for me before, even though I have had diabetes for a long time. I had gotten low before, but I could tell the symptoms. This was new, though. No idea that it was coming, just ‘BOOM,’ passed out. What caused it was the highly trained endocrinologists at Lutheran Hospital in Ft. Wayne. When I went in for the bypass they determined that I should have more than just oral meds. I should have insulin. I had never had a problem with the oral meds. My diabetes was under control. But, they are the smart ones. I went on insulin and passed out three days after getting home from the hospital.

          A little tweaking here and there, and I was OK, they said. I take my blood sugar three times a day. Sometimes it is really low. I eat a piece of fruit or drink some juice and it runs it back up a little and I back off on the insulin. It is a balancing act. The problem with the insulin, other than the needle, is when it is getting low, I can’t tell like I used to be able to tell. The highly trained endocrinologists at Lutheran tell me that I can tell when it is dropping, but I really cannot tell. But, what do I know?

           On Wednesday of this week my blood sugar in the morning was 170, which is high. I did the insulin, got in the car and headed for McDonalds in North Manchester. (Coffee, for me, has been one of the joys in life. Since my surgery it just hasn’t tasted  good and has left me queasy. McDonalds has always been my favorite, so I am reintroducing myself to it. It is working.) Running to McDonalds is something I do a couple of times a week.

          This where it gets confusing.

          I pulled out of McDonalds onto Rt. 114 and immediately turned left, back toward Urbana, on Rt. 13. My mind was busily going over the things I had to do that day. Everything normal. The next thing I was aware of was lying in the grass with my hands handcuffed behind me and a young man trying to rouse me. There was at least a half dozen police cars around the scene, all with lights flashing. The confusion was total. Had someone run into me? Why did my shoulder hurt so bad? What was going on?

          The story is bizarre and was explained to me at the hospital. Evidently, just after I turned onto Rt. 13, my mind passed out. I say my mind because the body continued to function. I began to drive erratically, but I was keeping the car in the road. Most of you know, Rt. 13 can be quite busy. Some motorist called 911 with the information about me. A sheriff’s deputy caught up with me five miles down the road. He tried to get me to pull over, but I kept driving. I ran five people off the road, but didn’t hit anyone. At one point the officer pulled up next to me and said that I was white knuckle on the steering wheel and staring straight ahead. No acknowledgement that he was next to me or anything. He knew then there was something wrong with me, but, being a cop, he was thinking drugs, even though it was not yet 8 AM. They show, in movies and on TV, the officer using his car to force the other driver off the road, but that is much easier said than done. This officer, a veteran of the force, got back behind me. He told me later that I never exceeded 45 mph, so at least I was under the speed limit. He continued to follow me, praying all the way that I wouldn’t hit someone. I passed through Urbana, which meant that by that time I had driven in a basically unconscious state, for seven miles. On down the road to the curve in front of the drive in, which I negotiated. It was now eleven miles. I drove through the intersection at Rt. 24 and Rt. 13 on the red light. This is, arguably, the busiest intersection in Wabash county. I wasn’t touched. I went another half mile, went off the road, rolled my car multiple times and came up on my wheels. But it doesn’t end there. By this time there is a lot of back up. I am now in the city of Wabash, 12 miles from where I lost consciousness, and I have destroyed my car. The officer, still thinking I have been on drugs, opens the driver’s side door and I, the Rev. Larry Wade, local pastor, hit the officer. He hits me back. I become combative. He draws his taser, still thinking this is a drug thing, and uses it as a stun gun and zaps me in the leg. I become more combative, so he zaps me in the shoulder, which puts me on the ground. There I am handcuffed. As proof that I was out of my mind, I should note that officer Hicks is 6’7”. I am not stupid, normally anyway. I don’t know how much time passed until them EMTs started to bring me around, but I remember them saying that they had been able to finally bring my sugar blood count up to 23. A regular glucometer cannot read below 20. That is getting to the level that the heart stops.

          So, what do we learn from this? That I was extremely lucky? No. What I learned was that the Lord never leaves the believer nor forsakes them. Let’s review. I pass out on a State Highway, one that typically has more semi-trucks than cars, and never hit one head on. I drive 12 miles all over the road and never hit anyone, although I drive 5 cars off the road (one of whom was one of our ladies in the church), but no one is hurt. I make it through a dangerous curve and then cross an intersection that usually features speeding semi-trucks, and I do that by running through a red light. Then, I roll my car multiple times and all that happens to me is two small bruises on my left hand and a fairly nasty bruise just under my right shoulder. There is more to that part of the story. Honda reinforces the window frames on their doors more than other companies. In 2012 a driver went left of center and hit my good, solid American car, totaling it out. I got my insurance settlement and went to get a used car. They had the Honda there. It got 40 mpg, which is needed in the ministry, and I bought it. If I had been driving any other kind of car, I would have been killed Wednesday morning. The roof was caved in except at the window frames. Back to Wednesday, the officer who subdued me was a veteran officer. If he had been a young, nervous and angry officer, who knows what might have happened. Personally, I am grateful that the only thing he did was stun me. Another blessing was that the ambulance crew that responded was the same crew that came to the house when I passed out there. They recognized me and checked my blood sugar. Another crew would have assumed I was out of it because I had been subdued and I probably would have died before I reached the hospital. Seven short weeks ago my chest was cut in half and my ribs broken so they could do the bypass, and nothing that happened damaged the surgical area. And, lastly, the hospitalist at Wabash hospital explained to me how to take the insulin to avoid such an event far better than it was explained to me by the highly trained endocrinologists at Lutheran.

All of that can be called a coincidence. If you believe it to be so, then you are really, really gullible. I am His, and He will take care of me.