12/16/2024
Sometimes we don’t realize that an individual is inspiring us until long after the fact, and this picture was taken the day I realized that Tim Tebow is one such person for me.
This photo was taken 13 years after my third, and hopefully last, heart attack. That was the day I realized that Tim Tebow had been an inspiration to me during my recovery. In the season following these emergencies, I felt as if my best years were behind me. After all, how does a forty-something-year-old mother recast her life goals after three years of creeping back from almost dead?
During this season, I lost track of how many times my husband took me to the Emergency Room due to near-continuous chest pain. We were living at high altitude, and the thinner atmosphere comes with reduced oxygen. This factor made recovery more difficult. The one thing that helped was the oxygen they administered in the hospital. The ER must have become weary with my frequent-flier status because they began to refuse to administer oxygen.
Out of desperation, I sought out hyperbaric treatments that were available elsewhere. During that process, I found a company that sold non-prescription mild hyperbaric oxygen chambers. I bought a unit.
During delivery, the installer remarked that he had assembled a similar unit for Tim Tebow. The technician described how kind Mr. Tebow was and how he offered to help, as the units are cumbersome.
I gave the story little thought. Who even knew if the Tebow story was true? I started using the unit. Over the ensuing season, I’d enter the chamber whenever I felt the familiar pain and fatigue. While in the chamber, I would sleep or pray or read. Occasionally, I would think about Tim, and how even a champion sometimes needs extra help. It seemed to me that if elite athletes take unconventional measures to heal after the bone-jarring injuries that they experience, perhaps I could get better too.
And so it went: chest pain, chamber, improve, repeat. Each time, I’d emerge from the unit a bit stronger and better equipped for another day of mommying hard. Surviving to see our daughter complete elementary school was my primary goal. Just prior to her college graduation, she told me that she’d see me enter the unit looking “like death” and emerge looking healthy. That is certainly what it felt like.
It was not until the day this picture was taken at a conference, that I realized how inspiring it had been to believe that Tim Tebow had used a unit similar to mine. (I have never verified the use of this unit with Tebow or his people. If this is not accurate, my apologies. The inspiration my belief yielded was still part of my healing process.)
Sooo, I hope you enjoyed my story, and on the long chance that Tim Tebow ever reads this scribble, my message him is a heart-felt, “Thanks.”