I was so desperate for a vacation. I boarded flight 1892 to Honolulu with the hopes that as soon as I sat down, the pressure of the world would melt away with the increase of cabin pressure. A lot of alone time would help. I needed time to reflect on my job and also on my relationships, my commitments and my direction in life. At this point my life seems as about as full as one could get it but I felt so completely empty. My most immediate concern was that whoever sat down beside me would just leave me alone.

I boarded the Boeing 767 and took my window seat with grace. Leaning my head back and on the window, I closed my eyes, thinking that if I appeared to be asleep, the person next to me wouldn’t try to talk to me. As the plane began to take off, I couldn’t help but notice that my seat mate had his keys in his hand. There was a really neat looking gadget attached to the ring but I was unable to determine exactly what it was. I tried my best to get a good glimpse of it without looking as if I was staring at it but it really had me intrigued. What could it be? It has some writing on it but I was too far away and didn’t have my glasses on to see what the lettering was.

The flight settled out at approximately 20,000 feet, and the guy got up and got his computer down from the overhead bin. He saw me staring at his key chain that he had left lying on the seat between us. I briefly glanced at him and then looked away. He had smiled back and said hello. Oh great. Just what I didn’t want to happen, have a conversation. None the less, I was obliged to reply with a cheerful greeting. He then said “I noticed you have been staring at my keys.” I informed him that I was trying to figure out what that gadget was on his key ring. He picked it up and showed me. It was a customized USB flash drive, executive style. The lettering spelled out “The Key to Life”.

I had to ask. “What’s The Key to Life?” He smiled and replied, “I’m glad you asked. Let me show you.” He plugged the USB Flash drive into his computer and uploaded the file. I was instantly captured. It was a presentation on the Wordless Book. It held the answer to my emptiness. Never would I have thought that a simple gadget would rearrange my life to show me a path that gave me the meaning to life. I was instantly changed; transformed into a new person. I had to ask where he had obtained such a life altering gadget. He explained to me that he worked for a mission board and that they had a promotional flash drive company produce in bulk USB flash drives with the Wordless Book preloaded on it. They would be giving these flash drives out to various people with the hopes of transforming lives just like mine was.

“Do you have anymore? I would love to have one to take with me.” He smiled and handed me a handful of them out of his briefcase. “Give them out and fulfill your commission.”

It’s not one of those things you discuss at the dinner table, necessarily, but amputations, replacement organs, and other surgical implants are a fact of life for some people. For some people, implants may be “elective,” but for many others, they are life saving or, at the very least, life enhancing.

Modern medicine has come a long way. At many of the living history museums and encampments, school children learn about the primitive medical procedures used during the early American wars. Who of us, that had the opportunity to visit such places on grade school, junior high school, and senior high school field trips, doesn’t remember the all-too-graphic demonstration of the tools our ancestors, apparently, used? The tour guides always seemed to enjoy that part of the demonstration a little too much, for my taste, with my already overactive imagination. They would explain how the doctors or people filling in for them would be all set up in the tents, with their saws, bone-strippers, and all kinds of other implements that still set my teeth on edge and my skin crawling, at just the memory. In those days, especially in the middle of battle, there wasn’t time or in-depth knowledge to consider the possibility of “replacement parts.”

Thankfully, in this wonderful era, when we can be washing dishes, washing laundry, drying laundry, cleaning the stove, cooking dinner, talking to friends across the country, and brewing coffee, all while watching a live broadcast from the other side of the world, there is such a thing as a replacement liver, and the little boy who was so seriously injured in that car accident just may be able to walk again, even though he lost both of his legs. Right along with all these possibilities, discovered almost as quickly as the possibilities, comes the necessity for a whole new level of sterilization. Bits of bone, tissue, and muscle that are going to go into someone’s body require a special level of cleanliness, and custom metal baskets for cleaning surgical implants are critical to reaching that end. The human body is “fearfully and wonderfully made,” and it has a built-in automatic system perfectly designed to resist the introduction of any foreign material. To counteract that system without shutting it down and endangering the body at large, great care must be taken in preparing the “foreign material” to be introduced.

Among those preparations are the cleaning processes, and as thoroughly as this cleaning must be done, the implant has to be treated gently enough to not damage it. The processes, of course, vary depending on the nature of the implant, but everything must be sterilized so no uninvited foreign materials go along for the ride. For this, there are specially-designed custom wire baskets, with the mesh size, surface finish, and core material all chosen for this specific application.

Nobody wants to think about needing surgical implants for any reason, but it’s reassuring to know that there are people thinking through the details, designing the specialty wire baskets for preparing the implants and doing the necessary research to be sure that, if we do need them, the implants will be as safe as possible for us.