He left before I woke this morning. I found the note on my chair, the place where I sit, laptop on my knees, for many hours in the day. It was a simple note. ‘Gone to men’s prayer meeting. Back around 9:30. Love you, Spence.’

Yes, it made me smile, made me want to dance, in fact, because my husband has pretty much been totally house-bound for about 5 months. He’s been suffering with what we now know is ulcerative colitis. It took that long to get to a doctor who knows what he’s doing and prescribed the meds. that are working.

My relief when I heard that Dr. say, “we can control this,” made me cry. I could have kissed the man!

I am deeply grateful for the health care system we have but it disturbs me deeply to see that it is failing. When Spence was advised to have a colonoscopy as a routine procedure because of his age, they removed a small polyp which was biopsied. The results, the Dr. said, were of no concern, but he did mention the hemorrhoids. Relief, of course.

But then the bleeding started. He returned to our family Dr. and she referred him to another Dr. who said the bleeding was from the hemorrhoids. He did a procedure to shrink them. But the bleeding continued. Then it got worse. Spence went back to the family Dr. She gave him a list of foods that he should avoid. The bleeding got worse. Spence went to an urgent care facility in a nearby town, where the Dr. agreed that the bleeding was too extreme to be just hemorrhoids. He booked an appointment with a GI specialist but told us it would take months to get in to see him.

The bleeding got worse. A friend suggested we go to the emergency room at a hospital in a nearby city. We drove to the city first thing on that Friday morning. The Dr. he saw was a bit snippy at first. “You’ve been to three doctors and gone to three hospitals and you have an appointment booked. Why are you here now?”

I almost blurted, “Because I don’t want to watch my husband die!” But I said, “Because he needs help. He’s lost 35 pounds in the past 4 months!”

She frowned and said she’d do some tests. His blood work showed significant changes from the last sample so she did a CAT scan. It took a while but when she came back she said his colon was “extremely inflamed.” Yeah, we kinda knew that! Then she told us she had booked an appointment with a GI specialist first thing Monday morning. Relief, again. Finally, some action.

And now he’s on the road to recovery. Praise the Lord! But if Spence had waited months before getting the help he needed, his condition would have likely required surgery that likely would have resulted in more serious consequences.

So now I pray for our health care system. Will you join me?