The "Look"

I was an 18 year old newbie in the ER of my small hometown hospital.  The triage nurse asked me to watch the desk as she stepped out for a minute.  Just then a woman in her 50s walked up to the desk asking to see a doctor.  She had a dull pain in her right arm.  I checked her vital signs (completely normal), hoping the triage nurse would walk back into the small cubicle.  I asked her a few more probing questions regarding her condition that lead to no good explanation of any underlying root cause.

Then I looked closely into her face and my heart began to sink.  I said to her, "I'm not sure what's wrong, but I'm going to take you to a room to make sure nothing serious is going on right now."  Something didn't look right about her, but I couldn't describe it.  I knew I was taking a chance with her, I had only one monitored bed left and that was in our resuscitation bay, I had a full waiting room with many complicated and serious cases, yet I was taking this calm woman with a low level of pain back to a huge treatment room.

Without waiting for her to undress, I stuck three wires on her chest and looked at the monitor. Within seconds I was yelling for a nurse and doctor as I hooked her up to an oxygen mask and other monitoring devices.  My suspicions were confirmed a minute later when I did an EKG: she was having a heart attack.  Thankfully, within a few minutes later she was whisked off to get a few stents placed in her coronary arteries and she lived.

How I knew that she was having a heart attack is still beyond me.  This same experience has happened a few times since then, but I have yet to be able to figure out the heart attack "look" even after discussing it with many of my colleagues who have witnessed the same.

Sometimes we often base the decisions in our lives upon impressions given by things, places, or other people.  But are experiences really true metrics that should guide the decisions we are constantly faced with?  Certainly they play a role, but are they sufficient?  It's not enough to trust the heart attack "look."  You still need the gold standard EKG and you still need the cardiology consult to accurately diagnose a heart attack.  One would think that the Apostle Paul who had a Damascus road experience with the living Christ would have sufficient proof of his calling to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles (Acts 26:14-18).  Yet, when he describes his calling to preach the Gospel in distant lands, he quotes Isaiah to authorize his calling (Romans 15:20-21).  The Apostle Peter (2 Peter 1:16-21) was an eyewitness of the transfiguration of Christ yet he calls the prophecy of Scripture given to us a "word made more sure, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place..."

Let us be encouraged that our salvation and our only hope in life is not based upon experiences but upon the rock solid truth of the word of God.  Our experiences and impressions will waver as we go through life.  Their passion waxes and wanes.  But the time tested truth of the word of God delivered by His Spirit never fails.  For "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17).