In life, we don’t always get a menu. There are things we do get to choose, but there are far more things that we don’t really have a say in. Perhaps I should put it this way. We don’t get to pick what is going to happen to us in life; the best we can do sometimes is to choose how we are going to respond to what does happen.
One morning over twenty years ago as I rose to get ready for work, I knew that something was wrong. I didn’t feel sick, necessarily, but something wasn’t quite right. I felt very weak, dizzy, and nauseated. I attempted to prepare to go to the hospital where I knew that patients and other staff were expecting me, but it did not take me long to realize that it was not going to happen. Feeling guilty about having to do so, I called in sick so that arrangements could be made to replace me. After having called in I went into the bathroom adjoining the master bedroom, and I sat down stark naked (I do not recall why, but, nevertheless, I was naked as the proverbial Jaybird) on the commode. I was not certain whether I was going to throw up or have diarrhea, yet I was expecting one or both. I remember as I sat there my hands began to shake, and I wanted to get up and awaken my wife so that she could see just how weak I obviously was. I recall thinking that if she could just see my hands shaking like that it would justify my having called in sick, and I could be relieved of some of the guilt that I felt for having done so. That was the last conscious thought I had for a while.
When I next opened my eyes I was lying on my back, and apparently I must have looked like I was not sure where I was. “Bill,” my wife said as she quickly leaned over me when she saw me awaken, “you are in the emergency room. You have had a seizure.” That is at least what I recall her saying. From that moment on my life changed. I had no say in what had happened – all I could do was choose how I would respond.
Here is an account of what I am told happened that day. A day that my youngest son (youngest at the time) described as The Day Daddy Crashed On The Potty. My wife apparently heard me crash in the bathroom. I must have slammed into the shower door from the commode where I sat. It was a rental house, and there was a screw sticking out too far from the handle, and apparently that screw gouged a path down my forehead as I scraped against it on my way down to the floor. There was a four inch raised tile ledge at the bottom of the shower, and judging by the lump on my head, I slammed into that as well. My wife, of course, did not witness any of this. She heard the crash and jumped up to see what had happened. My convulsing body was blocking the door, and she could not even force me out of the way to get it open as she watched me in the throes of convulsion. She called EMS. They came, forced their way into the bathroom, and hauled me, still unconscious, to the emergency room. I do not know how long I was unconscious, but when I awakened my life had changed.
It’s an odd thing to simply open your eyes and realize that your life has come to a bend in the road. You would think that you could see these things coming, but, all too often you cannot. Doctors did all the requisite testing, but they never found a cause for the seizure. They did determine that they believed it could happen again, and I was placed on a medication to help that not to happen. It took some time to get that adjusted properly, so I had to go through the adjustment phase with the feel bad stuff – head aches, double or blurred vision, and such as that (and for many years any time the medication got suddenly out of whack the double vision was my first indication – fun, fun). I could not drive for six months or so after that, and one of my best friends, who happened to work at the same hospital as I did in those days, went out of his way every day to give me a ride to work (good friends are priceless at times like that – MasterCard should include that in a commercial). I was kept away from any critical duties with the military for some time, and it also took some time to get back on an even keel with my work in general. One of the things that bothered me the most was the apparent loss of some memory. The neurologist said that did not happen with seizures, yet it did. I remember finding an unlabeled cassette tape sometime later and listening to it. I was thrilled to realize that it was a recording of me playing some of my own songs in a concert I had performed in college, because that was the first realization since my seizure that I had songs I had forgotten about, songs I no longer even knew existed. I was writing a novel at the time, and the seizure put that on hold for an extremely long time. I also had words suddenly drop out of my language in mid sentence. Words such as dustpan, which I would have thought would be a fairly simple word and not all that easy to lose track of. Nevertheless I did lose track of words like this. As I say, my life was changed. I had to make adjustments and my family had to make adjustments.
I do not tell this story to garner sympathy. Obviously, there are countless others with horror stories of things that have happened in their own lives far worse than this. I have read about soldiers in combat who look down and suddenly realize an arm or a leg is missing. I had friends in Iraq who experienced this sort of thing. They found themselves wondering, “What just happened?” Lives can be changed in the blink of an eye, and sometimes you cannot see it coming or stop it. But you can choose how you will respond to the situation.
Working in the medical field, as I do, I have often found my seizure to be a path into conversation with patients of mine, a path that would not have otherwise been available to me had I not something in common with them to open that door of conversation. Granted, what my patients were experiencing was usually far worse than what I had experienced, but it gave me something with which we could both relate. Sometimes we just need to know that somebody else has been there too before we are willing to listen, before we are willing to talk ourselves. I am a Christian now, and I was when I had the seizure. I do not know why I had it, nor do I expect to find out, but I do know that God strengthens me and supports me through both the good times and the bad times, and I thank him for that. I thank him in all things, because I know that he is with me in all things. I know that God will give me strength (with apologies to Isaiah) whether I soar on wings like eagles, whether I run and not grow weary, whether I walk and not grow faint, or whether I crash on the potty.
Romans 8:28
New International Version (NIV)
28 We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:35-39
A Conversational Gospel
What shall we say then? If God is for us, who shall be against us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Neither tribulation, nor distress, nor persecution, nor nakedness, nor famine, nor peril, nor sword? In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who has loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall separate us from the love of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Ephesians 5:20
Common English Bible (CEB)
20 Always give thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Thoughts On A Given Day 
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