The Power of the Third Rail: A Testimony of Life and Hope in Suffering and Ministry

By Jim Shaw

Growing up in Richmond, Virginia, I was surrounded by family. My grandmother, several aunts, and an uncle lived on both sides of our house. The eldest of two sons, I had an idyllic childhood; my parents and younger brother were loving, and I was blessed with good health, high academic performance, and athletic abilities that allowed me to excel in high school football and track.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543440058

Jim Shaw

Jim Shaw's active imagination likely takes root in a place called Hell Hole Swamp. (Look it up, it's a real place.) The rural countryside and the unique cultural experiences of his youth were just as colorful as the name of the swamp where he grew up. His love for being outdoors and communing with nature no doubt stem from his persistent forays into the ancient wilderness he called home. Time has a way of disappearing and memories fade. But there are some things in a person's life that are ingrained into their soul and can never be forgotten. Jim's unique foundation was naturally shaped by the good people and clannish social construct found in that swamp. It is this simple country perspective and colorful legacy that comes through in the stories of this book. A legacy he is proud to own and share with you.

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Copyright © 2017 by Jim Shaw MD.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2017911682

ISBN:               Hardcover               978-1-5434-4007-2

                          Softcover                 978-1-5434-4006-5

                          eBook                      978-1-5434-4005-8

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without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

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Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 09/13/2017

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CONTENTS

News Of The Fire Ahead

Preface

God And A Model Train Track

A Skeptic Finds Faith

The Left Rail: Providence

The Right Rail: Greatest Battle Of My Life

The Unit

No Remission, No Immunity

The Middle Or Third Rail: The Power Of God

About The Author

Appendix

Scriptures For Comfort During Trials

Bibliography

The Last Word

Memorable Photos

Scriptures quoted are from

Today’s New International Version

unless otherwise noted

NEWS OF THE FIRE AHEAD

"When you walk through the fire

you will not be burned." ~ Isa. 43:2b

We have a problem here. We have a real problem here . . .

These were the words I heard from the radiologist as he met me coming out of the MRI scanner at Riverside Hospital on July 12, 1997.

Although I had been having neck pain for several months, my wife and I had been working on our plans for a medical Missions trip to Zimbabwe with Medical Missions International. However, as the pain was progressively getting worse, I began thinking that I had a ruptured disc or a bad arthritic neck, so I called one of my neurosurgeon friends and he ordered an MRI scan.

However when I came out of the scanner, what the radiologist showed me as he put the films up on the light box, almost caused me to faint. My knees weakened and my heart knotted up into my throat. There on the film was a large tumor that had replaced half of the vertebral body at the base of my neck. This tumor was growing out of the bone into the adjacent soft tissue—a very ugly picture if you are a doctor and know something about what you are viewing.

My first thought was, You’re a dead man, Shaw.

This is my testimony of how God used His Power to connect and bless the two tracks in my life over the last eighteen years—our development of the Lackey Free Clinic, a ministry to indigent, uninsured residents of the Virginia Peninsula and my battle with multiple myeloma, a bone marrow cancer,

PREFACE

Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace. ~ 1 Pet. 4:10

Growing up in Richmond, Virginia, I was surrounded by family. My grandmother, several aunts, and an uncle lived on both sides of our house. The eldest of two sons, I had an idyllic childhood; my parents and younger brother were loving and I was blessed with good health, high academic performance, and athletic abilities that allowed me to excel in high school football and track.

I met Cooka, a beautiful girl with blond hair, at a sleigh riding party when I was in the eighth grade. I was smitten— I think it was love at first sight. We dated throughout high school and especially enjoyed spending summer weekends together at her family’s house on the Rappahannock River, where fishing, waterskiing and smooching were favorite activities. As seniors in 1962, I was co-captain of the football team and she was a homecoming queen and cheerleader, a person of buoyant spirit- a trait that would become essential to our surviving the health storms that were to come.

After our high school graduation, Cooka began nursing school in Richmond, and I enrolled in a pre-med curriculum at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia; a mere thirty minutes from the nursing school. I was so in love that I could not imagine attending a college farther away from her. I was also hoping to play college football and had a better chance of being able to play at a small school like Randolph-Macon than at a larger university.

We were married after her graduation from nursing school when she had gotten a job at a local hospital. She could now support us during my med school years. We exchanged vows on July 10, one of the hottest days of 1965.

We spent my senior year of college living in an off campus shack—an old, porous, and poorly insulated rental house with an oil circulator furnace that only heated two out of the four rooms. It was a time for memories to be made. Most winter nights, she had to prepare dinner in an unheated kitchen, wearing a heavy winter coat and wool hat! Still, to her it was a castle, and we were happy to be together in a place we called our home.

Following college, I attended medical school at the Medical College of Virginia (MCV; now the Virginia Commonwealth University). It was an exciting and enriching time for me—I was able to live out my passion to be a doctor, while digesting the myriad of facts and facets of medical science.

In July 1969, the summer of my last year of medical school, we were blessed by the birth of our son, Travis. Our little family had begun to grow.

I had set a personal goal of obtaining the best training possible to become a pulmonary physician. Securing that training meant moving out of Richmond and away from the family and friends with whom we had spent the last twenty-six years of our lives. This was a daunting and sad prospect, particularly for Cooka, who was by then pregnant with our second child and wanted desperately to have the support of our families.

We had reservations and anxieties about the separation, but I felt sure that I had to put my training and career above family at that time. With the benefit of hindsight, I can now see that this was not the best choice. Looking back on what has transpired in my professional career, I now believe that I could have stayed in Virginia and honored my wife’s wishes without damaging my career. There are still times when I wrestle with regret over this decision—I would have liked my children to have enjoyed the benefits of growing up with their grandparents close by.

We continued moving over the next twelve years for various training and medical school faculty positions. Our first stop was New Haven, Connecticut at Yale University for an Internal Medicine Residency.

Our daughter, Ashley, was born three weeks following this move, delivered by an obstetrician that Cooka had never met. I was working every second or third night, so we were grateful my mom