Uncle Lynn the bionic man

Tuesday, March 27 we had my Uncle Lynn (my mom’s brother) and Aunt Sarah, my cousin Lisa and her husband Don, their daughter Amanda and her daughter Sarahlynn, over for dessert and a visit. Lynn commented that he wasn’t feeling quite right and wanted to go see a specialist in Salt Lake City after they returned home to Richfield that weekend.

Then, Thursday evening we got a call from my cousin, Steve, that earlier that morning Sarah had discovered Lynn unconscious on the floor in the bedroom. Amanda ran next door to their neighbor, a highway patrolman, who helped Amanda’s husband, Ariel, attend to Lynn while the paramedics were in route. Luckily Lynn began breathing on his own once they moved his body, positioning him for emergency breathing.

The ambulance took him to the hospital where he spent several days enduring all kinds of tests. They identified clogged heart arteries and determined open heart surgery was in order. That’s when I placed a call to our church friend, Rick Martin, a skilled heart surgeon. He reviewed my Uncle Lynn’s tests and together they determined a quadruple bypass was necessary. Amazingly, Dr. Martin was able to scheduled the surgery for the next day.

The doctors were concerned that the best outcome may be they fix his heart and he suffer kidney failure, ending up on dialysis the rest of his life.

Lynn was transferred to a newer hospital for the surgery, the same hospital Dominic was born in. Lynn received a priesthood blessing from his son, Steve, and me before being prepped for surgery on Tuesday.

The blessings promised have come true and Lynn’s life has been preserved. His kidney function, down to just 25% of normal, has remained steady since the surgery. That’s a huge blessing.

There are so many working parts to this story. There are so many ways things could have gone awry, leaving the family to plan a funeral instead of open heart surgery.

Lynn could have suffered the heart attack in Richfield. It could have taken hours to discover him unconscious, then more hours transferring him to a metropolitan area like Provo or Salt Lake City. He was fortunate to be among family with plenty of people to assist when the emergency struck, and in a large city with competent physicians to tend to his needs. His surgery was fast-tracked by Dr. Martin and occurred less than 24 hours after Dr. Martin first met with him.

Can you see providence in all of this? I’m convinced my uncle’s life has been prolonged because of these seemingly quirky circumstances. I’m also convinced it’s not circumstance at all, rather the hand of the Lord at work in Lynn’s life and the lives of family members.

Lynn has had many body parts replaced since breaking his leg in a riding lawn mower accident a couple years ago. That’s why we affectionately now call Lynn, my mom’s oldest living brother, the bionic man.

Over the past week we have visited him in the intensive care unit at the hospital as often as possible. Vickey was there yesterday checking in on him. He’s still working through the effects of surgery as his recovery progresses.

Our thoughts and prayers remain with him and his family.