Bonus Time, the Broken Road, and a Map Home

I didn’t go into surgery thinking I would die. Maybe that was stubbornness, or maybe it was a quiet grace I didn’t recognize yet. Years later, sitting in another fluorescent‐lit waiting room at Shands Hospital, a genetic counselor casually noted the gene tied to aortic dissection—medical shorthand for “your main highway can rip without warning.” I nodded like I was hearing a weather report. What I didn’t say out loud was the part of my story she wouldn’t find in a chart: I had already ridden the cliff’s edge and lived to tell it. For over a week, I was on ECMO—life support that loaned me a heartbeat and lungs while mine rested. In that enforced stillness, I sensed God whisper, I’m not finished with you yet.