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Sometimes you gotta see it. Sometimes you gotta be there: Exposure is an experience that is the best teacher.
If you haven’t seen an anomaly or difference, how do you know it’s different and NOT defective?
A new “coworker” and nurse clutched her invisible pearls as she collapsed onto the padded seat next to me. We are at the back of our church sanctuary in a designated row of seats reserved for the Health Awareness ministry. We are the health professionals serving our Lord by being the first response to a stroke, a glycemic emergency, or overexcitement from the Holy Spirit.
Her hazelnut skin glistened under the ambient lighting of the sanctuary. Her misting of sweat was accompanied by her quiet heaving.
“My son had a headache this morning and my other son ‘felt funny,’” she pushed out after catching her breath. You see, hypertension plagues her family as it does mine and many others, but the high blood pressure interrupted her sons’ childhood. They were preteens and teenagers. One was an athlete and in constant fear of not being able to play his sport. The other is an athlete of a different sport. These were healthy, robust black boys whose health was plotting against them. Her worry and stream of consciousness poured out of her mouth, relieving her anxious worry. “They also thought my eldest had leukemia, “she grumbled. Her son’s blood work looked abnormal when compared to the “normal”. The physician dismissed the result, noting that the normal baseline result is based on white men…