April 3 - “Hosanna and a CT”

I got to have a little fun during church yesterday. Noa asked me if I would come into kids’ church and teach them how to make palm crosses. Walt brought over several palm fronds/branches last week, so I had already made fifty or so before we arrived. I got into their room early and placed the full palm branches on the floor. It’s all about shock value to get attention, right?  It did help some, I think. I told the story with an emphasis on learning the word “Hosanna.” We had just sung a song with a lot of those Hosannas in it, so it worked out great. Noa and Miss Helen learned pretty quickly. Ezra gave it a shot, then I helped him make a few. Grayson told us he just wanted to “watch us do all that.”  He was pretty busy whipping us all up some pretend cookies in the little kitchen, which he was quick to share with us all.

 

When the music in Big Church began, we each grabbed a palm frond and a handful of crosses. We marched into the sanctuary waving the fronds and tossing the crosses to the people. Great (and spur-of-the-moment) Palm Sunday fun.

 

After a quick lunch we headed into Texas for yet another medical thing. This time it was for me to have a CT scan on the thoracic region of my back. The neurosurgeon is trying to find out if the disc that is giving me problems has calcified. If it hasn’t, there’s a chance he can operate and relieve the pressure. Otherwise, I’m back to pain doc for another steroid injection.

 

The tech led me into the radiology room and there it was - the CT monster. It looked scarily like the MRI machine, except it wasn’t a tunnel. Just a big open circle. I figured I could handle thirty minutes in that thing. She told me to lie down. So … flat on my back with but a small pillow under my head. Oh, and with both arms held above my head like I was being held up by a bandit. And with my feet hanging off the end of the bed. I made it known that it was going to be painful. That’s when she spoke those wonderful words, “You only have to be on the table for three minutes. Can you do that?”  Wait. Three, and not thirty? Piece of cake. And she was right. About three minutes after she began, I was on my way to the waiting room to get Chris.

 

The results were supposed to take 24 to 48 hours. I actually got an email last night that they were ready.  I checked it out on MyChart.  It pretty much said everything looked normal – for a 69-year-old.  Degenerative stuff and some Schmorl’s nodes.  There’s a new one for you.  We had to look it up. Something about disc protrusions.  No idea if this will be helpful to the surgeon or not.  Guess I’ll find out when we get back from Hawaii.

 

John 12:13 says, “They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, ‘Hosanna!

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the king of Israel!’”

 

Father, please give the surgeon keen eyes and a sharp mind as he looks at the scan. Amen.