I’ve often agreed with my friend’s assessment that “I am not afraid of dying so much as the steps it will take to get there.” Most of us have seen relatives or friends lose abilities and skills as they age, and some have tended to parents or partners with dementia, cancer, and any number of worrisome diseases.

What awaits as I get older? There are lots of possibilities: bad knees, loss of balance, nursing homes, wasting away, and worst of all, inability to throw a Frisbee. I appreciate my daughter’s friend Sarah’s approach to such anxieties – “I have enough problems today; those are all Future Sarah’s problems!”

Back in the day when I first was diagnosed with Guillian-Barre syndrome, the doctors described the likely progression of the paralysis: “This is an ascending paralysis so you will lose muscle control in your legs first, then your torso and arms and face. If the paralysis hits your diaphragm, we will put you on a ventilator, and if it reaches your heart, a pacemaker.”

I did not want to go on a ventilator. The idea of not being able to breathe is major scary; don’t talk to me about drowning – Yech! For several days in the hospital, I clung to the hope of getting better before getting ventilated. But then the soup got me.

I choked on a noodle at lunchtime and started coughing, The coughing turned to wheezing, then gasping, then fighting for breath. Diane called the nurses, who called the doctors, who set in motion the dreaded ventilation. The room was cleared and they started a temporary hand-operated bag process. Then everyone stood around for several minutes – something was preventing further action. It turned out they were waiting for the pharmacy guy to bring the cocaine, administered to widen the nasal passage and allow insertion of the tube for the ventilator. (This is the part of the story that listeners appreciate the most – they made me snort cocaine.)

Once the ventilator was attached to that nasal tube, it was doing all the work. But I couldn’t believe it and kept working at breathing and gasping for breath. I have been told that many people explained to me that I could relax, but without any success. I suspect that I would have said, “YOU relax, I’m fighting for breathe here.” But on a ventilator, you can’t talk; evidently I was in no mood to listen, either.

Finally they gave me some additional drug to knock me out. I woke up with the machine doing my breathing, and it kept me alive for the next week. As I began to improve, they “weaned” me from the machine by adjusting the amount of effort I would have to apply to make the machine kick in. I played with it, seeing how little I could do to make it work (not much entertainment in the Intensive Care Unit).

My summary of the ventilator story is worry, worry, worry, then fight it, fight it, fight it. Then the event occurs, you relax and wake up in a much better state. The thing I feared ahead of time was not so bad in hind sight; I could even play games with it. I suspect that failing with age is similar; I may fear it now, but it won’t last too long and heaven awaits.

I certainly have come to appreciate God’s sovereignty and providential care more. Since “not a hair will fall from my head without the will of my Father in Heaven,” I know that I will stay alive until God stops my heart. So I’m in good hands, and hope not to worry and fight but rather relax and arrive in a much better state.