Surrounded!

October 10th, 2020| Topic: RaMbLeS | 2

During these days of COVID-19, I’ve had to hold televisits with patients who did not want to come in to the office. And in those visits from afar, I’ve found my patients inside the house, outside it, in their cars (parked on the side of the road, thankfully), and so on. One couple even had a quarrel while I was online with them!

But it’s hard to beat the experience of Gregory A. Hood, MD, an internist in Lexington, Kentucky, as he reported in MedScape the other day:

I was looking forward to a televisit with a patient I’d been treating for 16 years. He lives in a beautiful, mountainous area of rural Kentucky and wanted to hold the virtual visit from his backyard. My patient had had one leg amputated above the knee. His wife was setting up his chair for the visit. Suddenly she began screaming and looked down: A copperhead snake that had been sunning itself in their garden had wrapped itself around her leg, struck, and sank its fangs into her ankle.”

Yikes!

The good lady screamed and kicked the snake off. The patient, her husband, followed the beast and verified its species—yup, copperhead. (Even its technical name sounds horrid: Agkistrodon contortrix! This creeping thing accounts for most of the venomous snake bites in North America. Though its venom isn’t usually fatal to humans, the bite can be quite painful.)

Dr. Hood:

My office staff members had been on the phone with the wife and jumped into action. My nurse told her how to look for the fang entry marks, clean the wound, and wrap the bite in bandages—don’t put a tourniquet on it—and then get to the emergency medical center immediately. That’s what she did.”

And, thankfully, she was fine, though shaken.

She does have ongoing burning pain in the leg, however, which often can last up to 4 weeks. We have rescheduled my patient’s telemedicine visit, with plans that next time they will broadcast from inside their den.”

All kinds of dangerous creatures surround us. And I’m not talking of animals. Evil influences galore, both from within us and without us.

Many bulls have surrounded me; Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me.
For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me.
Psalm 22:12, 16

For they have opened the wicked and deceitful mouth against me.
They have spoken against me with a lying tongue.
They have also surrounded me with words of hatred,
And fought against me without cause.
Psalm 109:2–3

Indeed, in one psalm, the poet writes of being “surrounded” by death itself.

The ropes of Sheol surrounded me; The snares of death confronted me.
Psalm 18:5

But he found hope:

In my distress I called upon Yahweh, And to my God I cried for help.
He heard my voice from His temple, and my cry for help before Him came to His ears.
Psalm 18:6

And deliverance:

He brought me forth also into a broad place; He saved me, because He delighted in me.
Psalm 18:19

Yes, God is the one who delivers, our refuge.

You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble; You surround me with songs of deliverance.
Psalm 32:7

The wicked may surround the believer …

… the one who trusts in the LORD, lovingkindness shall surround him.
Psalm 32:10b

And so …

Why should I fear in days of adversity when the iniquity of my foes surrounds me?
Psalm 49:5

For …

… God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol, For He will receive me.
Psalm 49:15

SOURCE:
MedScape