I wrote this two days after brain surgery. Unfiltered.
Lance Corporal Jared M. Schmitz. United States Marine Corps. Rifleman, Ghost Company, Second Battalion First Marines. Killed in action, 26 August 2021, Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan. Born February 25, 2001.
February is complicated for me. I was born the 13th. My grandpa Joe, February 3rd. My grandpa Ken died February 2nd. This young man was born twelve days after me. I was twelve days older than him.
I was in combat medic training at Fort Sam when he was killed. I watched his funeral procession on my phone. My parents lined the highway for him. The only thing I wanted to do was go correct that wrong.
I get to my unit five months later — red alert for deployment. Twenty-four hours notice. Plane. Gone. I wanted to go. I felt called. I was also scared. I didn't want war. But I felt the pull.
So I opened my Bible. And I found Isaiah 6:8.
Right now I have medications running through me. I'm shaking. I can't get up to use the bathroom on my own. I struggle to walk. I've got a walker. Ten-day inpatient rehab starts tomorrow.
I've always been the provider. I've always been on the other side of the bed. But now I'm the patient.
Patch Adams — Robin Williams delivers it: "You treat a disease, you win, you lose. You treat a person, I guarantee you win — no matter what the outcome."
Last spring I prayed a simple prayer. I forgot about it until I talked to my buddy Jesse. I prayed for the perspective of a patient. I didn't have it. I didn't know what it meant to be cared for. To have your mom in the room while you're trying to use the bathroom, too drugged to explain what you need, frustrated because nobody understands you.
I didn't know what it felt like to have brain surgery and struggle to rotate your head, and every person stands off to the side of the bed. Come stand in front of me. I want to see your eyes.
7% spoken words. 38% tone of voice. 55% body language. Communication matters. Communicating with patients matters.
Flat in this bed, I'm seeing the failures I had as a provider. I was treating the disease. Not the person. I thought I was doing well. I was losing.
Isaiah 6. God is seated, high and lifted up. The seraphim cry holy, holy, holy. Doorposts shake. Smoke fills the room. Isaiah is wrecked. Woe is me — I am a man of unclean lips. A coal touches his mouth. Atonement. Cleansing. Then God asks: Whom shall I send?
The order matters. Holiness. Conviction. Cleansing. Commission.
Hineni doesn't mean "sure, I'll go." It means: I am fully present. At your disposal. Ready for your command. An oath of enlistment. Command my life. I belong to you.
God doesn't command Isaiah. He asks. Isaiah overhears a divine deliberation — and volunteers. Knowing the mission will be hard. Knowing the people won't listen. Knowing there will be rejection. Not emotional enthusiasm. Informed obedience.
Abraham in Genesis 22. God tells him to offer Isaac — the son he loves. Everything. Abraham rises with no argument, no delay. God will provide. He binds his son. Raises the knife. The angel stops him. A ram is provided.
It was a test. To see if he feared the Lord.
The question is never whether you're ready. It's whether you're willing.
Patch Adams, threatened with expulsion: "You can keep me from the title and the white coat, but you can't control my spirit. You can either have me as a passionate professional colleague, or an outspoken outsider — still adamant. I'm a thorn that will not go away."
The professor says, Is that all? Patch Adams says, I hope not, sir.
Closing the gap between patient and provider isn't easy — especially when so few providers have been patients. The people won't always listen. There will be rejection.
I don't have a college degree. I'm in a hospital bed. But I know I'm being sent. And I know I'm going.
I prayed a prayer last spring. And here I am.
The Lord is directing me back into healthcare. Not with the gap I'm seeing. Not with how few providers have been patients.
Who is this guy? No degree. Just out of a hospital bed.
Easter week. Look at who was in the room.
None of them were sufficient. All of them were used.
I know what column I'm in. Not sufficient. But cleansed. You don't offer yourself to earn cleansing. You offer yourself because you've been cleansed. That's the order.
Julia Cameron: "Pray to catch the bus, then run as fast as you can." I'm praying. And I'm running.
Peck's Mission — stories from patients, caregivers, and providers who take the Osler principle seriously. Treat the person, not the disease.
A podcast. A blog. And something I'm working toward: a guided care journal that keeps your family in the room, even when they can't be.
You enter a diagnosis or procedure. It walks you through logging what's happening — timestamped, in order, as it unfolds. No blank page. It already knows the shape of what you're going through. It asks the right questions at the right moments.
Family follows in real time. Not through a phone call from someone who's also scared and exhausted. Through your own words, as they happen.
Most families aren't in the room. They're in another state, sitting by their phone, waiting. This gives them a window. Not a summary. A window.
Patient. Provider. Story of your own — I'd love to hear from you.
I hope you'll join me.
Here I am. Send me.
Nec temere, nec timide.