A Path of Weakness: Detour

01 A Path of Weakness

2008-08-23T12:13:00.001-07:00

As soon as I hit the ground, the sickening realization hit me. --My leg was broken.

It wasn’t the sound of the bone snapping or even the immediate pain that impacted me the most, but rather the realization that I was close to passing out. I knew that if I lost consciousness, there was a very high possibility I could bleed to death, since I was alone and no one was expected to visit the property for a week.

Call it survival, call it instinct, I immediately focused on the need to begin crawling, to make my way out of the compound in which I’d fallen from the rooftop above. The only route available was to drag myself around the entire building, spring the garage door on the other side of the property and then try and hail a taxi or passing car to get me to a hospital.

Praying out loud, I implored the Lord to give me the strength to make it, and to not lose consciousness.

I had glanced down only momentarily at my right foot and could tell from the odd angle that it now protruded from my leg that it was broken. And that focusing on my injury was certainly not going to give me the faith and courage I needed to press onward at all costs.

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80 As Bad As It Gets

2005-11-08T07:32:00.000-08:00

This is not the news I wanted to hear: A second surgeon recommending that I have another surgery, and that as soon as possible, lest I end up crippled or worse.

Because of the non-union of the bones, they want to cut open my leg and insert an internal fixation running the length of the bone, this new chunk of metal replacing the external one.

I am already aware of that I have experienced a compound fracture, where the broken bones perforate the skin, causing a laceration and tissue loss. What’s new is that I hear there are three degrees of compound fractures, and mine is the worse type. The trauma surgeon states that my break is "as bad as it it gets."

I feel very backed into a corner on this, not to speak of musing on the financial question of covering the costs of a second operation and so forth. ...

For the remainder of my story, click:
Greatest Doctor in the Universe

79 Fork in Mashed Potatoes

2005-11-08T07:27:00.000-08:00

The trauma surgeon presented his analysis of my situation after studying my x-rays of the shattered bone above my ankle. He drew specific attention to where the bottom two pins --of the six in my leg-- were attached.

He explained that this portion of my bone was extremely damaged and weak and couldn't take much pressure.

He illustrated his point by likening these two pins in my leg to a "fork stuck in mashed potatoes". --Stressing that the solidity of the pins drilled into the shattered portion of the tibia bone sorely lacked.

Continuing the illustration, he then likened the top 4 pins drilled into the upper part of my shinbone to being "two forks stuck in steak".

He firmly recommended that I lay off strong exercise of my ankle, explaining that while the weak area could perhaps handle the 4 lbs pressure that I'd been putting on it, it wouldn't be able to withstand the 40 lbs pressure that I would need to assert to get my foot and ankle to the point of flexibility that was needed.

This surgeon also warned that the exercising could have already damaged the area around the lower pins, and caused infection. He then momentarily focused on the complications of bone infection.

Further, he stressed that my bone was so fractured that the metal pins could break out of the bone.

I was not much comforted by all this, so I asked him what he would recommend should be done.

He responded, "Well, there is the passive approach --just letting the bone heal, which could leave you crippled.

"Or there is the aggressive approach, operating and inserting an internal metal brace in your lower leg, and removing the external one."

He ended by stressing the need for the second approach, alluding to the possibility of even losing my leg if I didn't!

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78 Visit to Trauma Surgeon

2005-11-08T07:24:00.000-08:00

The first thing the trauma surgeon did when he entered the examining room where I’d been waiting was to zero in on my “drop foot”.

He immediately expressed his concern that I would have trouble walking in the future if something wasn’t done pretty soon.

He went on to explain that the Achilles tendon and muscles have shrunk a lot in my leg and would only continue to get shorter, leaving me with the need to have a separate operation on my Achilles if left too long.

And in case I was not intimidated enough yet, he added, “There’s a possibility of the Achilles snapping in an operation, the longer one waits.”

As he turned to study my x-rays, I explained that I had been exercising my foot with a bicycle tire to get flexibility back into my ankle, and that a fair amount of progress had already been made from my original “drop foot” status when I first got back from Peru.

I added that I had laid off exercising my ankle these last two days, as fluid was leaking from one of my bottom pins and it was inflamed, and I was concerned about infection.

The trauma surgeon confirmed it was good that I pulled back and then went on to present his analysis after studying my x-rays --that is those from Peru, as well as those taken after my return to the States.

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77 No Bone Growth

2005-11-08T07:20:00.000-08:00

On the 3-month anniversary of my accident, my orthopedic surgeon examined my leg again, and there were still no indications of major bone growth taking place.

He suggested that this was perhaps because of the method of how the bones were set in Peru, that is using an external fixator. Though lined up very well and skillfully fixed in place with the various metal pins and screws, perhaps it had had the undesirable effect of tricking my body chemistry.

In other words, my body may have now been wrongly concluding that all was in order, my bones were in place and didn’t need healing, and since the bones have already been fixed there was therefore no need to create more bone tissue!

The doctor decided to counsel with a colleague, a trauma surgeon who has had experience* with this type of metal apparatus, so it was arranged for him to examine me and then they could determine the best course of action at this point.

One of the options was removing the external apparatus that was screwed into my shinbone, and replacing it with a metal brace inside my leg. And then putting a walking cast over the leg, allowing me to put weight on my leg and thus naturally stimulate bone growth.

This, in effect, is the method that the doctors in Peru chose not to do.

All things considered, I wasn’t too excited about having to undergo more surgery, so I clung to the hope that there would be other options.

( *The method used to "bolt my leg together" is not so commonly used in the States.)

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76 In For the Long Haul

2005-11-05T16:34:00.000-08:00

After being back in the States for close to a month, I had my second set of X-rays taken. And it came as a discouragement that there was no cloudy formation showing on the new X-rays, indicating that there was no bone growth happening.

When I had originally inquired in Peru, the doctors estimated my leg would take 3-4 months to heal.

Now the local surgeon told me he’d never seen a break as bad as mine heal in less than 9 months.

That was somewhere between surprising and depressing news. But I concluded that I’d sooner have a realistic appraisal rather than an unrealistic one, the latter only offering the potential to generate disappointment when things don’t happen as fast as you expect.

I adjusted my lifestyle accordingly, and among other things I got fully set up to telecommute, hooked up to my office and server via laptop, and phone etc., so I could work from my bed. --Talk about casual Fridays.

Actually I found that I had fewer distractions this way, and that it was easier to stay focused on priorities. In that sense, I was able to concentrate on the most important aspects of my workload, which put me in a position to realize that others could better carry out many of the things that I was doing in the past.

In fact this whole exercise was a blessing in being able to pull back from my work more, rather than being so embroiled in the details, not to speak of realigning my time with the Lord, so I was very thankful.

And hopefully I'll be able to continue to do so voluntarily after my leg is healed!

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75 Equilibrium

2005-11-05T16:06:00.000-08:00

After being quite satisfied with just lying in bed recuperating for the past two weeks, I told Sharon I was fine with us accepting an invitation for lunch with Sharon’s grandparents.

However, as we set off on the lengthy drive to Los Angeles, I discovered that my equilibrium was way off.

I started feeling queasy in the van when we were just few minutes from our place. Fifteen minutes later I lost my breakfast after a hasty roadside stop.

Usually I’m the one mopping up after one of the kids when one inevitably gets carsick on a long trip. Now they were the ones handing me the Kleenex and bags.

I thought the worst was over, and was really looking forward to lunch.

However in the minutes prior to pulling up to where we’d be meeting our relatives, I felt it coming again.

And just as we came to a stop in front of the restaurant I lost the remainder of whatever was still in my stomach. Thankfully the van door had not been opened, so I was able to tidy up before making a reasonably graceful exit on crutches.

Although the lunch was delicious and we had a great time catching up, the ride home confirmed to me that I should hold off on any but completely necessary drives for a while.

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74 Tripping

2005-11-05T15:59:00.000-08:00

The stabbing pain didn't wake me up at 12:30 am any more, but I still occasionally got these stabbing zingers in the evenings usually, though thankfully it did not last for an extended period.

The fact that they just came out of the blue though, for example when I would be in the middle of a conversation with someone, did require the occasional explanation as to why I had gone into contortions.

Speaking of contortions, at this time I had an interesting experience that I hadn't had since my late teen years.

The instructions on my new painkillers read: Take 1 - 2 every 4 - 6 hours if needed for pain.

So I decided to take two.

Soon, I began feeling very weird. Bad weird, not good weird. My whole body felt prickly, I got all emotional, and I began to voice my worry to my wife that "Maybe they gave me the wrong prescription?"

I looked up at a picture on my wall of the Arc de Triumph, awed by the outstanding colors, and exclaimed "Hey, Paris! I've been there!"

And then I saw another of the Piazza Navona, and was now all excited, "And Rome! Hey, I used to live just a few blocks away from there."

Now these are all pictures that had been hanging on my wall for about 5 years.

Suddenly, I burst out laughing with the realization of what was happening: I was stoned!

So instead of worrying, I decided to just relax and enjoy the ride. After more than occasionally bursting into laughter for extended periods over the next two hours, I mellowed out.

I figured I better cut my dosage to just one tablet every 4 hours, and doing so, I arrived at the operational level that seemed to keep me on an even keel.

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73 Drop Foot

2005-11-05T15:53:00.000-08:00

The good news in being back in the States was that I had access to proper medication, not to speak of loading up on nutrients, and I was not in constant pain, so life was a comparative breeze compared to the month I spent on my back in Peru.

The bad news was that I arrived back to the States with drop foot, a deceptively simple name for a potentially complex problem.

All the muscles and veins, plus my Achilles tendon, were all pretty messed up in the accident, and after the lengthy period of inactivity my right foot hung limp and I had no muscle control to speak of. Wiggling a couple of toes was about the limit of my range of motion.

So at my doctor's instruction, I began doing self-therapy with a bicycle inner tube. I looped a length of inner tube around my foot, and exerted pressure with each hand to budge the top part of my foot around the toes. At the same time I attempted to flex my leg muscles to regain some semblance of muscle coordination.

The exercise hurt, but it was literally a "no pain, no gain" situation.

I resolved to do this every day, with the goal to be able to bend my ankles by my next doctor visit.

It felt good to actually feel my muscles moving again.

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72 Orthopedic Opinion

2005-11-03T21:16:00.000-08:00

My first day home I was surrounded by family and friends.

By mid-afternoon of that first day, I realized that I had just experienced more inspiration and stimulation in those few hours than I’d had in the preceding 30 days. Plus there’s just something about being home.

A couple days after my return, I had an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon. Following are key quotes from this first examination:

Upon entering the examination room and taking his first look at the metal brace attached to my leg, he exclaimed, "Never seen something like this."

(Grant thinking: Hmm, not a good sign.)

After the surgeon took his first glance at the original X-ray of the fracture, he remarked, "Whew, that was one bad break!"

(Grant thinking: Yeah I already know that. Tell me something encouraging.)

Thankfully, after studying the X-ray of my leg after it was set, this top orthopedic surgeon concluded: "That surgeon in Peru did a great job of putting this thing back together!"

(Grant: Whew! I needed that.)

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71 Home at Last

2005-11-03T21:15:00.000-08:00

When I awoke three hours later, still in that same awkward slumped position, I felt absolutely reborn. I deemed myself alive again, and excited that I would soon be home.

I took the time to reposition myself more comfortably, this time fully stretched out, with my leg resting on the back of the seat above, and all warmly covered with blankets.

Thus by arrival time, I felt like a new man.

Truly, without that life-restoring period of rest on the plane, I shudder to think of the impact I would have had on the kids and Sharon who were on hand to greet me at the airport.

As we arrived at the terminal and I switched to an awaiting wheelchair, I saw Sharon and the kids in the distance.

They didn’t recognize me until I was just a few feet away. They hadn’t prepared themselves to meet a guy in a wheelchair, sporting a highly unusual metal apparatus protruding out of his leg, plus a beard, the combination of which I think offered sufficient shock value for everyone, amidst the joyous emotion of seeing each other again after 7 weeks.

Courtesy of another sleeping pill, and the wonderful feeling of being home, I slept well my first night home.

++++

As a postscript on sleeping pills, since the Dormonid Midazolam was the only medication that I had found effective in allowing me to sleep through the night I had brought an extra supply home with me. With the switch to a new doctor here in the States, I asked if I could continue on with the same medication, and offered the name. The mention of Dormonid Midazolam didn’t ring a bell with either the doctor or pharmacist.

After a couple pharmacists attempted to look it up on their database, one informed me. “This stuff isn’t allowed to be prescribed in the States!”

When I inquired further, the pharmacist explained that the Peruvian medication was an anesthesia, basically the same thing that is administered in a hospital to knock you out before surgery.

No wonder I slept so well.

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70 Meltdown

2005-11-03T21:14:00.000-08:00

To abbreviate a very long and grueling episode, my departing flight sat on the tarmac for another 45 minutes until we could get take-off clearance.

Then when we were finally about to taxi to the runway, the pilot announced that he had received orders to offload extra fuel and some of the mail being transported, in order to bring us under the limit for liftoff through the ever-mounting winds etc

By the time we finally took off, I was passing in and out of consciousness. I carried on a nebulous conversation with the lady beside me just to be focused on something beside my self.

I had a four-hour flight ahead of me, so popped half of one of my trusty Dormonid Midazolams.

Sometime before take-off, I had pressed the button for a stewardess but the turbulence was so bad that all the cabin staff were ordered by the pilot to remain seated until he advised otherwise.

One valiant steward from First Class, who I had chatted with upon boarding, saw that I was fast becoming a pile of mush and ventured forth to encourage me to deep breathe, and offering me hope that he would return as soon as he could.

As soon as the plane stopped rattling, I watched this steward spring forward and begin approaching a number of people sitting in the rows behind me. I found out he was encouraging passengers to volunteer to shift seats, which freed up a whole empty row.

Thankful, I hobbled to this row, put my leg up on the seat and immediately faded out. (You'll recall I had popped half of one of my sleeping pills.)

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69 Touchdown

2005-11-03T21:13:00.000-08:00

Heading for the end zone of my departure gate, my wheelchair was guided at "high speed" through diplomatic channels and other shortcuts, with baggage checks, body checks, customs etc mercifully reduced to the minimum time required ... and I arrived at the gate as my flight was boarding.

While awaiting the special straight back wheelchair needed to take me right to my seat, I took leave to go to the bathroom, gaining the new experience of using the handicapped facilities, much easier to maneuver than the daunting trip to the toilet while on board.

While being pushed to the plane, I was hit with a rush of freezing air, and we passed actual small snowdrifts that had formulated in the loading chute to the plane.

This time I was not only the first one to the plane, but also the first one on the plane. Safe in a bulkhead seat, I waited for everyone else to load so we could take off for warmer climes.

The wait seems endless, so I fill the time by accumulating and piling on 6 airline blankets around me. Unfortunately I still remained chilled to the bone and feeling more rundown by the minute, not to speak of my back hurting me something terrible.

However, as time passed, the pain in my back took second fiddle to my throbbing leg, as with nothing to rest my leg on, all the blood was collecting in my lower extremity, and the pressure had mounted fiercely.

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68 First and Ten

2005-11-03T21:12:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately a stewardess who, due to “regulation”, blocked the path and stopped us at the entrance to First Class.

An announcement then came from the captain informing us that no one could offload, since the tires of the unloading chute were frozen to the runway.

So at this point, I pulled down the stewardess seat to take a load off my foot.

The first class stewardess automatically barked at me that it was "against regulation" for me to use this seat, but she was met with a very disapproving stare from my Puerto Rican friend, and escorts, and growing support base!

So she meekly responded, "I didn't see this", and retired to the First Class cabin.

I was glad to be sitting, for what turned out to be another 15 minutes.

As soon as we could exit, my Puerto Rican linebacker friend deposited me in the first wheelchair outside the plane, where I explained the situation to an airport worker who put me on an elevator and rushed me toward my departing gate. Meanwhile, someone else checked and the flight I needed to catch was also late, by about 20 minutes.

That flight I needed would be airborne in about 30 minutes, and I had one huge airport to traverse, and customs to clear.

I was not at all in the frame of mind to consider a later flight.

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67 End Sweep

2005-11-03T21:11:00.001-08:00

The passengers around me were all very sympathetic to my situation, and tried to do what they could to help. Unfortunately the seating didn’t allow me to stretch out to full length but at least my leg was relatively high compared to the rest of my body.

The bad news: My back was really sore after sitting in this cramped position for the 7 1/2 hour flight.

So I was looking forward to the stopover in order to stretch the cramped muscles.

My connecting flight was in Newark, New Jersey.

It turned out that it had rained there that morning, followed by a quick freeze when the temperature dropped, which meant that all the runways were sheets of ice.

So we had to circle the airport for 30 minutes, while down below us crews worked on melting the ice on two runways, one for incoming and one for departing planes.

Since I had only had a relatively short time to switch planes in Newark, plus pass through customs, and so forth, I had called over a stewardess and asked her if I could possibly depart before the crowd. She denied me any assistance on some lame excuse.

Well, the weather conditions were cutting my connection time by 30 minutes, so as Plan B, some sympathetic passengers around me helped me hatch a plot!

A lady with a baby momentarily blocked the traffic while a huge and dear Puerto Rican fellow pretty much lifted me up and carried me in an "end sweep" all the way up to first class. Meanwhile another traveler running interference carried my backpack.

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66 Last to Board

2005-11-03T21:11:00.000-08:00

By this time, my foot was throbbing, being in a non-elevated position for so long, and I was nauseous and almost to the point I could feel like I could faint--and still no action.

So I called over a stewardess, looked her straight in the eye and demanded that she give the fellow pushing my wheelchair permission to enter the airplane so that he could help me get to my seat.

Her eyes wide, no doubt wondering if she was making the right decision in these days of post-911 security, the stewardess stood back as I hopped by the gallery on one foot.

My one-legged race to my seat continued through first class, then business class, and all the way to the front row in economy class, all the while leaning one hand on the shoulder of this airport employee who is still wondering, "How did I get myself into this?"

So while I had first class treatment as far as getting to the plane, unfortunately this had derailed to third class treatment from then on and I was the last person to board this very full flight.

Now a bulkhead seat is usually about as good as economy class gets, allowing you to stretch out your legs those few extra inches, quite a treat compared to some seat in the back.

Unfortunately in this case I didn’t have quite enough room to stretch out my leg all the way, being as I needed to keep it extended and elevated for the entire trip.

I explained the situation to the steward who kindly brought me one of the metal containers used to transport food on to the plane, which worked out reasonably well, with a couple pillows on top of it.

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65 First to the Plane

2005-11-03T21:10:00.000-08:00

My departure day had arrived and we drove away from the house at 5:00 a.m., Dr. Arias getting me to the airport in plenty of time.

I inquired at the desk if there was any way for me to get a seating upgrade but the folks at check in weren’t very sympathetic or accommodating.

Nevertheless, being in a wheelchair does have its benefits in that you get to bypass everybody else standing in line.

This preferential treatment allowed me to be the first person to the departure lounge where I claimed a couple of seats to lie down for a nice nap before we were called upon to board. Hey, so far this was better than I had braced myself for.

Again, I received first class treatment, as I was the first passenger called upon and then wheeled right to the entrance of the plane, where I waited. And waited, and waited.

Of course no one was explaining to me why I was waiting, so I asked everybody whom I thought might know, and I eventually found out that a special wheelchair, an aisle chair, was needed at this transfer point so that I could be wheeled down the aisle of the plane to my seat.

Unfortunately it hadn’t arrived by the time the first passengers started showing up.

So I sat helplessly there by the entrance of the plane as a couple hundred people filed by and finally got settled in ahead of me.

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64 Leaning on His Strength

2005-11-03T21:09:00.000-08:00

Only one thing is required of you
Yea, two, descend from Above.

To love God with all your heart
And others to show My love.

Beyond this, I’ve set no standard
To know My love and acceptance.

I do not demand perfection
No other tune by which to dance.

I judge not by what you lack
Nor a set level you missed.

Rather I look on the heart
And long to be hugged and kissed.

So don’t lock into what you don’t do
But rejoice in this simple knowledge of Me.

I see all you do accomplish
And ask that you please see as I see.

For My grace is sufficient for you
A gift received at My expense.

So if I’ve made it so easy
Why would you depart from thence?

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63 A Ticket Home

2005-11-03T21:08:00.000-08:00

When you haven’t slept through a night in over three weeks, and also find it impossible to nap during the day, what’s most on your mind is sleep.

And so the otherwise shocking news that I’d had my leg accidentally drilled through had flowed like water off a duck’s back, relatively speaking.

I was just so thankful and attentive to the fact that this latest prescription, Dormonid Midazolam, was allowing me to sleep anywhere from six to eight hours a night.

Not only did my strength begin to return, but also it was great to be back to the state where I could actually complete my thoughts, not to speak of once again regaining a semblance of clarity and continuity.

I also missed home.

So I went ahead and booked my return ticket.

My choice was either a night flight or a day flight, the latter involving a couple hours longer flying time. I chose the day flight, because nights had the potential to be very rough for me. And I figured, for the sake of the passengers around me, I didn’t want to be moaning and groaning in pain for 10 hours.

I had not a few ruminations on how I would fare on this long international flight.

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62 Choose Suffering?

2005-11-03T21:07:00.000-08:00

If I had had the choice
To allow the suffering in
I wouldn’t have voted for it
No way it would’ve been!

But thank God it was served me
On a platter hard and cold,
For without this special time
I would never be so bold.

As to proclaim in belief and might
That in His wisdom and foresight
He knows best what we need,
And so we should just accept His lead.

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61 The Drill That Got Away

2005-11-03T21:06:00.000-08:00

During a doctor visit, I was asked to describe the type of pain that I felt. Although I felt like I’d pretty much achieved a Master’s Degree in pain, I still wasn’t able to quite put into words the extremely sharp pain that I experienced above my ankle.

The surgeon prompted me, “Well, is it like a knife being jabbed into your ankle?” To which I answered, “No, it’s more like a screwdriver. A screwdriver that is plunged into my ankle, and then twisted and twisted.”

At this, the doctors sheepishly looked at each other and all-too-casually remarked, “Oh, that’s probably because during surgery we accidentally drilled through your leg!” They pointed out the still-healing scar above my heel, the exit point of the drill bit, adding, “Yeah, we drilled right through your Achilles tendon, but that should be pretty much healed by now.”

I was flabbergasted. Close to a month after my operation and I was just now finding out about this! I couldn’t find words to express to do the subject justice. So I did something that I rarely do. I just shut up. It was going to take me some time to absorb this.

[If you double-click the photo, it gives you greater detail, specifically the scab above my heel showing the exit point of the drill, when the first hole was drilled.]

I later found out that the density of my tibia bone, which was quite badly shattered, was different than what the doctors had anticipated. So when they were drilling the first hole into my shin, the drill had kind of gotten away from them and continued right through my leg, passing through the Achilles tendon above my ankle and exiting on the opposite side of my leg.

I always try to identify the “good news” within the “bad news”. About all I could come up with on the spot was, “Well, thank God the drill didn’t go right through my ankle bone!”

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60 Sleep Records Broken

2005-11-03T21:05:00.000-08:00

My only time off the property was when I agreed to Berta’s offer to push me around the neighborhood in a wheelchair.

While I quite enjoyed the opportunity to get out, it was far from a smooth ride. Even though this was a reasonably affluent area of Lima, the roads were pocked with potholes and speed bumps, the latter being so high in places that my wheelchair got hung on them.

By the time the ride was over, I was thoroughly exhausted and so longing to be back in my comfortable bed.

Unexpectedly, after a rough night in which I didn’t sleep one wink, the next morning I dropped off to sleep at 7:00 a.m. and slept all the way through till 10:30. It was incredible how strong I felt after that three and half hour straight sleep, the longest I’d had in seventeen days.

Unfortunately this was followed by a stretch of forty-six straight hours in which I did not sleep a wink.

A few days later, Dr. Arias brought home yet another medication that he thought would possibly provide me with some sleep.

Unbelievably, that night I slept straight through the night, seven-and-a-half hours glorious hours! I was dumbfounded to awake to sunshine, gratefully surprised to see from my watch that it was 7:00 a.m.

My first full night’s sleep in twenty-three days! Not only that, but after my morning wash I then dozed off for a further two hours of sleep.

Wow! This stuff was really working; I had to remember the name of it--Dormonid Midazolam.

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59 Greater Blessings to Bear

2005-11-03T21:04:00.000-08:00

When everything seems contrary,
And God withholds sweet rest,
Promises appear unfulfilled
Your faith is put to the test.

So what if everything is wrong?
Is God not answering prayer?
Or is He just offering
Greater blessings to bear.

Usual faith is fine
For usual circumstance
But when it’s the unusual
What should be our stance?

Well, if it seems all’s failed
Or He has left us, alone.
If it’s bread He has offered
He’ll not give us a stone.

So hold fast to your faith,
In fact, witness it grow.
For out of dark experiences
The Lord you’ll better know.

And you can say like Job,
When you feel quite out on a limb,
“Though God may slay me,
“Yet will I trust in Him!”

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58 Dawn’s Hue of Hope

2005-11-03T21:03:00.001-08:00

When I think back, it amazes me how little outside stimuli I had during that three or four week period of lying in bed.

The majority of the day I was pretty much alone in my room. I had very little English reading material, and for that matter, the less and less sleep I got the less and less I was even able concentrate on reading.

I first borrowed a little tape recorder and had a few music cassettes.

I was overjoyed when Dr. Arias’ brother brought over an extra TV and VCR that he had. During my daily mini-excursions around the house in my wheelchair I was able to rustle up a couple English-language videos to watch in my room.

I had come to expect that I was going to be awake the majority of the night and in pain, so I incorporated watching a video into my nightly schedule, beginning about 1 a.m.

Since I didn’t have a great deal of variety available, especially at first, there were times when I watched the same movie twice during the course of the night, just to keep my mind elsewhere than on the pain.

There was something about the dawn that brought with it a hue of hope, an upbeat feeling that things were bearable once the sun was up.

The dawn also brought with it the anticipation of what was going to be for breakfast and lunch. And the stimulating thought of my daily morning wash up lent me a new lease on life.

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57 Homeopathic Homily

2005-11-03T21:03:00.000-08:00

By this time the ongoing lack of sleep had taken its toll.

My sleep pattern consisted of me occasionally dozing off for 5 minutes, only to be awoken by pain.

This fresh wave of pain seemed to roll in about every twenty minutes, decimating my 5-minute nap.

I was often semi-delirious, moaning and praying, and then would doze off for another five minutes only to be woken up with intense pain. And so the cycle continued.

About this time Dr. Arias began giving me a homeopathic medicine, St. John’s Wort, which did seem to have a calming effect on my otherwise shot nerves.

Homeopathy, from what I learned, is based on nature's Law of Cure, and uses remedies prepared from natural substances to stimulate the body's own healing power. And unlike antibiotics and other such medicines, homeopathic pills do not hamper digestion, or lower body's resistance.

My basic philosophy is to use all available resources to properly take care of myself, be it proper nutrition, alternative medicines or doctor's care or traditional medicines, where appropriate. I have found some things that have helped and some that have not.

It’s still a case of having to use your best judgment, a mix of good old common sense and prayer.

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56 Father’s Love

2005-11-03T21:02:00.000-08:00

First place is reserved
For God’s loving heart
That thought paramount
First place is His part.

At the end of my days
I long to hear Him say,
“Well done, faithful servant,
“Enter My joy to stay.”

Still, not far behind this
Another love I entertain
A father’s love for his children,
And his bride does not wane.

Is this a contradiction?
A comparison not to be made?
Two separate thoughts
Not to be conveyed?

Or is this very Father’s love
For His children and His bride,
Indeed the greatest love story
And one told far and wide.

And like He loves each of us
So my dear ones I love you.
And now I better understand
This wondrous fact so true.

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55 In My Darkest Hour

2005-11-03T21:01:00.000-08:00

When I lost sight of His face
In that one night season
Then other faces appeared
And provided the only reason.

Smiling faces – a snapshot of you
Offering flicker of hope.
So instead of letting go
I clung to that rope.

I was so close to departing
Just giving up the fight
But I couldn’t fail you
That thought became my life.

I thought God had deserted me
That he didn’t answer prayer
Then He used my love for you
To reaffirm His loving care.

I was barely hanging on
To a thread, wet with tears,
When my eyes met yours, and
Vanquished all my fears.

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54 New Sleeping Pills

2005-11-03T21:00:00.000-08:00

A colleague of mine who works with another humanitarian agency called to let me know that she was going to be in Lima on business, and offered to drop by.

I welcomed the visit, even if I wasn’t exactly in top shape at playing the congenial host. If anything, I was pretty much at my worst, as by this time I had gone for two straight weeks with only a couple of hours of sleep a night, and my nerves were shot from the recurring pain.

On the anticipated day Catherine arrived and we ended up talking for five straight hours.

Somewhere during the course of our conversation, I explained to Catherine that neither the local painkillers nor sleeping pills I’d tried had worked, so she offered me some that she always carried with her in her travels.

That night I went to sleep with great expectation, at about 11:00 p.m.

I just knew that these sleeping pills from the States were going to be just what I needed to experience a full night’s sleep.

When a sharp pain awoke me, I noticed that it was still dark. Was it almost dawn? --Or had the pills worked so well that I’d not only slept straight through the night but the entire next day, and it was now dusk?

Looking at my watch, I was momentarily befuddled, “11:30?”

Suddenly it dawned on me, “No, I hadn’t slept through the night, let alone the next day. I’d only slept for half an hour!”

My last hopes were dashed, my frame of reference shot and I was so mentally and physically exhausted and fed up with life that I cried and cried.

This was my darkest hour.

Through my depression and tears, I glanced over at a photo of my wife and kids leaning against my bedside lamp.

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53 Half-Hour at a Time

2005-11-03T20:59:00.000-08:00

Something that helped get me through all this was adopting a philosophy that I recalled from the movie Touching The Void.

Rather than distressing if I could make it another day, let alone another week, I broke my day down into half-hour segments. In my mind, I just clocked off a half hour at a time and refused to think beyond that.

Of course, this otherwise sound approach of living a half-hour at a time did have its drawbacks.

One day I had this nagging feeling that I had should pull out my passport to check my entry stamp to Peru. I had been told that you get an automatic three months’ stay upon entry, but I now noticed that the stamp only authorized thirty days, and that thirty days was up tomorrow.

When I explained the situation to Mrs. Arias, she offered to take my passport in to the immigration office the next day, and thankfully she was able to get my visa extended for another thirty days.

I mention this incident simply to illustrate that my days were so redundant that I was hardly even aware of what the date was anymore.

This incident with my visa did cause me to deliberate on related decisions ahead of me, such as making a decision on when I could travel, and rebooking my flight.

Exerting the smallest amount of energy was still pretty overwhelming for me. Hobbling 30 or 40 feet on crutches was about my maximum, as my foot would become a dark throbbing purple where all the blood collected, since the damage caused by my accident had thwarted my body’s ability to pass blood through my leg.

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52 Million-to-One Odds Beaten

2005-11-03T20:58:00.000-08:00

The next morning, my father-in-law called me in tears letting me know that God had answered prayer.

My sister-in-law, for whom we’d all been praying, had pulled out of her coma.

And most amazing, she came out of it without any physical complications. Needless to say, she was absolutely delighted to see her five-day-old baby awaiting her!

As we laughed and cried together on the phone, he related the medical fact that both mother and baby making it through unscathed was literally a million-to-one odds. Not surprisingly, it was the main topic of conversation amongst every doctor, nurse and patient and visitor to the hospital.

Before hanging up the phone, my father-in-law thanked me again for praying.

I responded that it had probably done me as much good as it had her.

My father-in-law concurred with my statement, ending with, “We here feel like new creatures too, having spent the last 2 days on our knees. We will never be the same again. Lord, help me to never forget His love for me, in giving me back my daughter and grandson.”

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51 Sharon’s Back Goes Out

2005-11-03T20:56:00.000-08:00

When Sharon had called the day before with the wonderful news that our nephew was born whole and healthy, defying the odds of being stillborn, she casually referred to the fact that she was lying down.

Sharon went on to explain that her back had, unexpectedly and for no apparent reason, just gone out! She said she felt like someone had come up behind her and pushed her over, and when she tried to get up she was overcome with pain.

So she’d had to just remain lying there on the floor for the several hours, asking the kids to bring her a couple pillows.

Thankfully by the time she was on the phone with me, she had been helped into bed where she was resting.

Whew! Things seemed to be coming at us from every side.

I was at the point that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to answer the phone when it rang. What would be next?

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50 Success or Significance?

2005-11-01T22:30:00.000-08:00

When you stop to think about it, so much of life is geared to fulfilling some physical challenge, whether it be buying a new house or saving to put your kids through college, or simply putting food on the table.

During times of personal upheaval, our world of physical pursuit is often confronted with a spiritual realization: Our lives here on earth are just temporary.

It’s at times of illness, accident or natural disaster that the things that really matter come to the fore of our consciousness.

Sad to say, so many of us put almost all our efforts into embracing the physical world, while failing to enhance our spiritual lives, which includes investing as much time and effort into nurturing relationships with our loved ones.

At these times, we can’t help but ask ourselves questions like: “If I was going to lose everything, what would really matter to me?”

Troubled times also offer the opportunity to evaluate how we interpret the term “success” in our personal lives. For example, “Even if I am judged successful in the eyes of others, is that what life is all about? Or should I seek to move from success to significance?”

In any case, sickness, suffering, and trauma usually bring with them changes to our lives that re-define and mould our characters.

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49 Shadow of Death

2005-11-01T22:29:00.000-08:00

My wife Sharon called with shocking news about her sister.

My sister-in-law, pregnant with her first child, had unexpectedly gone into a coma and was diagnosed with toxemia. Sharon tearfully told me that the chances were very high that both her sister and the child would die.

I had had an all-night prayer vigil for her and the baby, and continued off and on throughout the day following.

Later that following day, Sharon called back with the news that the doctors had gone ahead and performed a caesarian and the little baby boy was born whole and healthy, defying all sorts of odds that he would be still-born.

My sister-in-law was still in a coma, oblivious to the fact she’d even given birth, and so the following night I spent my waking hours in prayer for her life.

While I sometimes lacked faith for my own healing, I somehow had full faith the Lord was going to bring them both through.

Whether significant or not, a large tremor shook all of Lima, rattling all the windows and doors of the house.

Among other things it reinforced to me how vulnerable human life is.

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48 The 2x4 Approach

2005-11-01T22:27:00.000-08:00

Friends describe me as a person with a lot of drive, but I have come to realize that this otherwise positive quality can too easily switch to overdrive.

And even if I am aware that this has begun happening, which is often not the case, I subconsciously attempt to justify my dogged determination and actions.

However, my conscience cannot deny the fact that when I overextend myself that certain undesirable qualities come to the fore. And the very inner quality that gives me stability and conviction in my life becomes dangerously strained, and I all too easily become a brusque, driven man.

So now when this happens, I have come to recognize the taming hand of the Lord. I refer to it as the 2x4 approach.

We had a ram that we raised from a lamb. When he grew to full adulthood, he still wanted to play and would charge us. If you were unlucky enough to be in the path of this 200-pound juggernaut, oftentimes the only way to slow him down was with a long 2x4 aimed at his rigid forehead.

When the Lord knows it’s time for a spiritual realignment in my life, He sometimes uses the 2x4 approach. It was all too obvious to me that this is what was happening. He was allowing circumstances to slow me down, rerouting my own plans and programs.

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47 Boredom Sets In

2005-11-01T22:26:00.000-08:00

After a week of only sleeping a couple of hours each twenty-four, I began having periods of feeling very down and discouraged. And bored.

I didn’t have a TV or CD player or even a tape recorder in my room, and the more tired I became the more difficult it was to concentrate on reading.

Among my pastimes, I would watch a tortoise crawl by my window, probably the antithesis of watching extreme sports.

I also devised a game of dropping my souvenir metal links, courtesy of the bolt cutter, through the aluminum tube running the length of my shin.

During each of my very rough nights, I would so look forward to my morning wash-up and shampoo, and a change of clothes, in order to regain some vestige of humanity.

Phone calls from my family were the highlight of my day.

I also stayed in touch with my office back home. I felt the most "human” in early afternoon, for an hour or so, and then the downward cycle began again. So I had scheduled a call each day from my assistant at 2 pm, basically an update with work-related questions.

During this time of recuperation, I channeled my mind to supercede my direct circumstances in order to focus on the fact that Someone was slowing me down.

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46 Faith to Endure

2005-11-01T22:24:00.000-08:00

Why did God say “endure”
If it wasn’t going to be hard?
So when that’s the hand He deals us
We just have to play that card.

When the storm clouds have gathered
And it storms down on you
Remember, your faith was given
To endure the storm too.

For fair weather faith’s okay,
When the going is good indeed,
But that’s not the real stuff
Upon which we’ve built our creed.

It’s when we’re sorely tested
That we have the chance to win
These times test the metal
And refine the gold within.

But with much fine preaching
I am not able to boast,
The reason I’m still here today
Is only because of our Host!

For I was tempted to quit
As the final hour approached
In the darkness before the dawn
This lofty subject broached.

Then He quickened to me
This verse when I was down
“It’s he who endures to the end
“Whose promise is the crown.”

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45 A Fog of Pain

2005-11-01T22:23:00.000-08:00

After I stopped taking my prescribed painkillers, supposedly the strongest on the Peruvian market, Dr. Arias experimented with different types of homeopathic remedies, but nothing seemed to address the stabbing pain that greeted me every morning at 12:30 a.m.

Meanwhile I was only averaging anywhere between 1 to 4 hours sleep per twenty-four, and those in precious installments.

One evening, the Arias’ had a number of guests over, and getting caught up chatting with different ones, I made the mistake of over-extending my time sitting in the wheelchair.

I awoke at 12:30 a.m. with the now-anticipated stabbing pain in my ankle but what was different was this was only a portion of an all-encompassing fog of pain. I couldn’t even isolate or identify which part of my body was hurting. Everything hurt.

Awaking, it literally took fifteen minutes just to gain my bearings, and then isolate and identify individual pains in my stomach, my ankle, my back, and so forth, not to speak of finally realizing the fact that I also needed to go to the bathroom.

I’d never experienced anything like this before where all of these pains and feelings and sensations were bundled into one giant pain, which lasted through to daybreak.

The following full day I suffered an overwhelming pain in my back, centering on the area where I happen to have a herniated disk.

This coupled with gas pains traversing my whole central area made even my simple daily wash-up an excruciating experience.

To date this had been one of my toughest stretches.

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44 Not in Despair

2005-11-01T22:22:00.000-08:00

I was cast down
Yet not destroyed.
Perplexed, asking “Why?”
But not in despair.

Sawn asunder, then
Laid to rest.
Pain and anguish
My nightly fare.

Troubled on many sides
Yet not distressed.
Sleep eluded me,
Did God care?

--Oh yes, He cares
Never doubt this fact.
And He will never
Leave us in despair.

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43 Mean Streamlined Machine

2005-11-01T22:21:00.000-08:00

I was grateful that my wound didn’t show any signs of infection. Plus I no longer had to wear a bandage, which was much more comfortable in this warm clime.

A second ray of light came the day after, when my surgeon and another doctor showed up from the hospital with the "special machine" that was to be used to cut down the metal rods sticking out of my leg to a more manageable size.

As it turned out, this special machine was a standard issue bolt cutter that any plumbing shop would use. One doctor grabbed these and immediately snapped off one of the twelve-inch posts sticking out of my leg, the metal rod zinging past me.

Happy as I was to see these things getting cut down to size, I suggested that we go at it a little slower so that someone didn’t end up with a bolt in their head. (Granted, this statement may have been a little self-serving since I was the one whose head was at bolt level.)

Soon all six bolts were cut down to size. And so, as soon as the doctors left, I was thrilled to be able to discard the lunghi and pull on a regular pair of cotton shorts. Oh, the simple joys of life.

A couple days later, the gardener helped Dr. Arias complete the trimming of my external fixator, using a hacksaw.

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42 Antibiotic Anecdote

2005-11-01T22:19:00.000-08:00

Good news, as Dr. Arias removed my bandages with the announcement that I did not have any infection.

In addition to his years of formal training, I learned that Dr. Arias had more recently been studying homeopathic medicine.

He suggested that since I was now past the point that my surgical wound was prone to infection that I might as well stop taking antibiotics. He explained that after antibiotics have done their work that it’s actually counterproductive to continue taking them, as it will only weaken your system.

When they are doing their work, antibiotics inhibit bacterial growth thereby giving your immune defenses a chance to outflank the bugs, by interfering with the production of new bacterial cells.

Unfortunately, antibiotics kill the beneficial bacteria along with the harmful bacteria. So the longer you use antibiotics, the more beneficial bacteria are destroyed in the process, which weakens your immune system. (Not to speak of the harmful bacteria eventually growing resistant to the antibiotic.)

I have never been much on prescription medicines, except when absolutely necessary, so Dr. Arias’ counsel resonated with me.

Later I did some casual research on the subject. A couple points of interest:

Jonas Salk, who developed the polio vaccine, believed that to heal a sick person it is necessary to stimulate the person's own immune and defense system to enable the body to heal itself.

Louis Pasteur wrote that germs may not be the cause of disease after all, but may simply be a symptom of disease. He apparently came to realize that germs lead to illness primarily when the person's immune and defense system (what biologists call "host resistance") is not strong enough to combat them.

Alexander Fleming, the scientist who discovered penicillin, cautioned against the overuse of antibiotics.

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41 Faith Borne From Suffering

2005-11-01T22:18:00.000-08:00

A faith borne from suffering
Only comes one way.
And while we wish it easier,
At this cross we must lay.

So when the Master beckons
Us to assume this role,
Accept it for what it is:
Time to cleanse the soul.

And as hard as it may
Seem to ever bear,
Accept it for what it is:
A reward of His loving care.

For if we do not suffer
Groaning from within,
And accept it for what it is,
The battles we’ll never win.

For so Christ himself suffered
Suspended from the limb,
All part of God’s plan
All ordained for Him.

And only as we suffer
Do we prepare to reign with Him.
Closer to the heart of God
Likewise destiny, prepared by Him.

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40 Waxing Poetic

2005-11-01T22:16:00.000-08:00

As a break to my monologue, allow me to wax poetic for a moment. --I’ve decided to include a couple poems that I wrote during my convalescence.

Many poems start with a flare and then fizzle out. I find most of mine don’t even start with a flare.

If I were to define my style, in simple terms it’s pretty much the regular kind of poem in which I attempt to convey a thought and convert prose into poetry by rhyming whatever words happen to come along.

If I were to intellectualize my style, I might describe the poetry I’ve written as syntactical distortions resorted to in order to meet the demands of meter and rhyme, mixed with some free verse that lurches from time to time into iambics, coupled with strained metaphors that dispute to the reader, “No, believe me, I really am a poem!”

But since I much prefer clear-cut language and delivery, let me just say that these poems, however imperfect, are simply meant to convey heart-felt experience.

Those of you who know me know that my faith means a lot to me. While I’m not much of a churchgoer, and may not be mainstream enough for some folks, I certainly do call on my faith to see me through times like this.

Let me end with this plea: Judge my attempt at poetry mercifully.

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39 Dud Painkillers

2005-11-01T22:15:00.000-08:00

Upon leaving the hospital, I had been given a prescription for painkillers.

I was to find out they were duds. How did I come to this knowledge?

Well, in Peru, instead of getting a 30-day supply, prescriptions are filled on just a four or five day basis.

And after three nights of taking these painkillers I had recognized a pattern. At about 12:30 a.m. every night I was awoken with intense pain shooting through my ankle, extreme enough to keep me awake for the next several hours.

Since I only had two days of pills left, I had given Berta, the maid, my prescription, and asked if she would go out and buy me the next installment. Unfortunately the first day she forgot. The second day something else came up.

That night I went to bed wondering, “Oh man, what’s the pain going to be like tonight, when it’s already so bad with painkillers?!”

Well, like clockwork, at 12:30 a.m. a stabbing pain in my ankle awoke me.

The only difference was that I woke up so much more clear-headed and without the chemical headache byproduct that prescriptions often provide.

I decided to give it another day, and held off pestering Berta to get my prescription filled.

I woke up in pain at the customary 12:30 a.m., again clear headed and without a headache.

So as far as I was concerned, that was the end of those painkillers.

Much later, a medication specialist told me, “Those weren’t post-procedure pain killers. That’s something that would be prescribed for a bad headache!”

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38 Pain and %$#@* Pain

2005-11-01T22:14:00.000-08:00

Before this accident, pain was a pretty one-dimensional term to me.

Through this experience, the word pain not only took on multi-dimensional meaning but I personally identified about a dozen different types of pain.

Take for example the pain that enveloped me that second night home, a delirious pain. Even though the pain in my leg was sharp, I was in a delirious state of pain for hours, hung between two worlds. My being was haunted by weird dreams even though I was not even really asleep.

I was only able to sleep about one to two hours a night for the next five nights. Nor could I nap more than ten minutes during the course of the day.

Even though I would attempt to go to sleep at ten or eleven at night, even if I successfully dozed off. I would wake up screaming with intense pain at 12:30 a.m., like clockwork.

Of course this woke up my hosts who would come in and try to offer some comfort. Dr. Arias administered different shots to try to calm the pain and get me back to sleep, but it seemed that nothing he experimented with worked.

One morning before he left for work, he came in to tell me that the night before he and his wife had heard me repeating a phrase in Italian over and over again for several straight hours. The phrase was, “Non existe questo dolare!” which basically means, “This pain doesn’t exist!”

Apparently by saying this over and over again, in a kind of delirious state, I was attempting to rebuke both the physical and spiritual and emotional pain that was bombarding me.

I’ve heard it said, “There's pain, and then there's %$#@* pain!”

I think I’ve experienced the latter.

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37 Nothing Accomplished by Agonizing

2005-11-01T22:12:00.000-08:00

Recuperating at the Arias’ house meant I was on my own a lot and had a lot of time to think.

The doctor left early each morning and returned late at night, and his wife was often gone at least half the day.

This left me in the care of their maid, Berta, a dear Peruvian lady who had had some experience as a caregiver. Other than bringing me meals and bathing me, our communication was short and sweet.

This meant that I had an awful lot of time on my hands each day, and without access to English reading material or a tape recorder or a TV at first, I had a lot of time to think. Too much.

How many times I played the events over in mind: The door slamming shut, leaving me stranded on the street. Climbing to the roof. Stepping on the clay tiles. These tiles suddenly crumbling. Me catapulting to the ground.

”Should I have even gone on the roof? Would it have been better to …?” This scenario played out in my mind time and time again, as the introspection continued.

It finally dawned on me that I would accomplish nothing by this “What if” agonizing, let alone attempting to analyze why this had happened. It had. That’s all that really mattered at this point.

I just had to trust that somehow this was all part of God’s greater plan, and that there was a reason for it, and good would come from this situation.

Having to deal with very long days soon dragged into also having to deal with very long nights. My second night home, the phone had rang about 11:30 at night and unfortunately after that I wasn’t able to get to sleep.

This coupled with the fact that I got hit with extreme pain at 12:30 a.m., resulted in me being in agony the whole night and much of the next 24 hours, a long, painful, sleepless period.

It was the first of many to come.

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36 The Lockout

2005-11-01T22:11:00.000-08:00

So what does that last joke have to do with my situation?

Nothing really. Other than sometimes I guess it does takes awhile for the penny to drop, to get a full understanding of why certain things happen to us.

In any case, here’s how I flew off a roof.

Anticipating the arrival of a taxi to take me to the airport the fateful morning that I broke my leg, I had stuck my head out the portal of the garage. When I thought I saw the taxi pulling up, I stepped out to the street to confirm he had the right place and that I’d be ready in a minute.

Literally, as my suitcase was packed, waiting just inside the gate.

Without warning, a sudden gust of wind blew the door shut! There I was standing on the street, with no cell phone, no ID or passport, no airline ticket, no money. Nada.

All these valuables were “safely stowed away” in my travel bag, on the other side of the now barricaded garage door. --Before Dr. Aria had departed for his vacation with his family that morning, he had fortified every door and window on his property, leaving me to just close the remaining door behind me on the way out.

After scouting out my options at ground level, I then climbed the heavy metal grill covering one of the house’s main windows and reached the roof.

I walked around the flat portion of the roof, concluding that there was no way to climb into the courtyard below. After all, the house was designed to be burglar proof.

To benefit from another angle, I then ventured out on a slanted part of the roof, built with barrel tiles. --Clay tiles that crumbled as I stepped on them, which threw me off balance and heading straight down to the hewn rock patio below.

In that split second I spotted a patch of grass to the side of the stone patio, and attempted to throw myself in that direction, in an attempt to cushion my landing.

The good news is that I did land on the softer grass.

The bad news I've covered in the story I've related.

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35 Broken Leg Joke

2005-11-01T22:10:00.000-08:00

You’ll recall that falling off a roof is what landed me on this path of weakness. And you may have wondered what I was doing up on that roof in the first place.

I heard a joke the other day about someone falling off a roof.

A guy breaks his leg from falling off a roof. "How did it happen?” the doctor asks the middle-aged farmhand as he sets the man's broken leg.

"Well, doc, 25 years ago ..." he begins.

"Never mind the past. Tell me about this morning, how you broke your leg this morning."

"Like I was saying...25 years ago, when I first started working for this farmer, the first night, right after I'd gone to bed, the farmer's beautiful daughter came into my room and sat on my bed. She asked me if there was anything I wanted.” I said, “No, every thing’s fine.”

"Are you sure?" she asked. "I'm sure”, I said.

"Come on, isn't there anything I can do for you?" she wanted to know. "I reckon not. No, can’t think of anything." I replied.

"Excuse me," said the doctor, "But what does this story have to do with your leg?"

"Well, it took until this morning to finally dawn on me what she meant," the farmhand explained, "and when I realized, I fell off the roof!"

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34 Emotional Roller Coaster

2005-11-01T22:09:00.000-08:00

In my line of work, when I arrive in a new place, I tend to hit the ground running, as the expression goes. In this case I hit the ground rolling, quickly adapting to getting around in a wheelchair.

Upon arrival from the hospital, I proceeded to finish up a report, and then followed this up by having a phone conference with my office back in the States, before retiring for the evening.

For a variety of reasons, I somehow felt I could push myself again. I was wrong.

I had arrived home with my system loaded with enough morphine that the pain wasn’t an issue that first afternoon or evening.

Upon departure from the hospital, I had been given a prescription for painkillers that I began taking the first full day back in Dr. Arias’ home.

Whether it was the change in medication or other reasons, I suddenly found myself on an emotional roller-coaster, and one which plunged at the most unexpected times. I began feeling extreme emotions of loneliness and irritability. At other times, I would uncharacteristically break down crying.

Dr. Arias later explained that it’s not uncommon for those who have had a traumatic accident like I did to experience a phenomena where men go through the equivalent feelings and emotions that a woman does after childbirth, including depression, outbursts of crying, and so forth for no apparent reason.

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33 Lunghis and 12-inch Nails

2005-11-01T22:07:00.000-08:00

An acquaintance of my wife had come to visit me on my last morning in the hospital, and unexpectedly offered the use of a wheelchair should I need it. It was suggested I just pass by and pick it up since the location was on the route to Dr. Arias’ home from the hospital.

A phone call and the arrangements were made.

As we pulled up in front of the house where we were to pick up the wheelchair, a couple emerged with a wheelchair in tow.

Whether or not it had been explained to them that the guy in the back seat would be wearing nothing but a tissue box, to their credit they seemed to take it all in stride.

I should add that although I had only just met Dr. Arias within the past two weeks, we had become fast friends. This friendship initiated before my accident over discussions on the possibility of my organization helping him expand his capacity to help the poor of Lima with free medical services.

Now, in addition to visiting me in the hospital, he and his wife had invited me to recuperate at their house for the next few weeks until I was strong enough to travel.

As we pulled up to Dr. Arias’ home, his wife, who had been forewarned to bring along a cotton wrap, met us in the driveway. So began my week-long stint of wearing cotton wraps, or lunghies as they’re called in India, as my main garb.

My wardrobe choice related directly to the fact a “special machine” that I had been told about in the hospital could not be found. Each day of my hospital stay, I had been assured me that someone was going to bring by a “special machine” to cut the unnecessary length off of the metal pins protruding out of my shin.

Unfortunately, despite my numerous requests about the same, I had this remaining attachment to these 12-inch nails.

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32 Hospital Gown Humiliation

2005-11-01T22:05:00.000-08:00

When you’re in the hospital, you quickly realize that the designer of hospital gowns created them with the express purpose for humiliating patients.

Not that I had any wardrobe alternatives, as my bloodstained slacks had been discarded a couple days prior. Furthermore, my boxer shorts were cut off my body to remove them, since the metal pegs protruding out of my leg were too high for them to be pulled over.

It was now an hour before I was to be discharged from hospital, and still stuck with these foot-long spikes, the question lingered of what I could wear for the ride home. After a quick huddle, the nurses announced that I could borrow the hospital gown.

That fine Wednesday morning, I was wheeled down to Dr. Arias’ SUV, parked by the front entrance of the hospital.

Getting in a SUV with one good leg can be challenging at the best of times, and all the more so having a foot of metal protruding out in all directions from your bad leg. Well, try doing so while also scrambling to hold the back flaps of your hospital gown closed.

To add insult to injury, the medical personnel then clarified that I was going to have to return the hospital gown. --Right then!

When they had realized my earlier predicament, I had only assumed that that meant I could wear it home and then return it.

Not so. I was to return the hospital gown before leaving hospital property.

So after the feat of graciously climbing into the back door of the SUV with my “back door” open to all the medical personnel and passing curious bystanders, I then had to figure out what to drape over as much of me as possible.

Unfortunately the only available option was a box of tissues, which I deftly, and as synchronized as possible, placed on my lap at the same time my robe was handed out the window to the waiting crowd.

Thank God Dr. Arias worked with me in my dilemma. As I handed off the robe in a slick lateral move, we roared off in his SUV. And thankfully the SUV rode higher than most other vehicles on the road. Of course my liberal nature did prove to be of interest to the passengers on various city buses, especially when stopped at red lights on the way home.

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31 Paparazzi and Papagayo

2005-11-01T15:57:00.000-08:00

In an American hospital, I would have been just another patient. Here, in a Peruvian hospital I was somewhere between a novelty and a celebrity.

I had no shortage of nurses coming by at all hours of the day. They often flocked into my room in groups, one scheduled nurse accompanied by 4-6 others curious to see this gringo first-hand. (It later dawned on me that this might in part have been due to the fact that I was not wearing a wedding band, which had been removed during my initial tests.)

One particularly amusing conversation, which I became known for, involved me trying to figure out the local term for pee-can! For anyone who’s ever been bedridden, you know that a pee-can is an essential item.

I learned that the local bedpan for men is a metal canister called a papagayo, or “parrot”. Why parrot? The design of this indispensable container has a beak protruding from one side at the top, the balance of the parrot shaped by a slice out of the bottom, ingeniously designed to sit at an angle.

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30 Hospital Stay

2005-11-01T15:56:00.000-08:00

The next three days in the hospital involved the usual series of check ups by various doctors, nurses and a nutritionist.

Concerning the latter, I must say that my first “meal” -- Jell-O -- tasted absolutely sumptuous after not having eaten in 24 hours. And following on the heels of that, each and every meal was great, challenging the stereotype that hospital food is so bad. Now that was certainly one benefit of my accident having taken place in Peru, and not the States.

I was on an IV morphine drip, so for the most part the pain was tolerable. When it wasn’t – and I remember Dr. Arias’ counsel, “Don’t try to be a martyr!” -- I had the option to ring for a nurse to administer a direct shot of morphine.

My bandages were being changed a couple times a day. And each morning the thoroughly soaked pillow propping up my foot was discarded. Thankfully, I never did require a blood transfusion.

I now had an English-language book, and could watch CNN news and the occasional movie in English. Life was good.

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29 X-Men Mutant?

2005-11-01T15:55:00.000-08:00

When first observing this bizarre metal contraption growing out of my leg, the recall of a movie scene began to formulate in my mind’s eye. I struggled to place it. Oh yeah, one of the mutants from the movie X-Men. Logan has metal claws imbedded in his body, which at choice times spring forth out of his hands when he becomes Wolverine.

Of course, this contraption protruding out of my leg looked a lot more Home Depot than Hollywood.

The other disquieting sensation, or rather lack of it, was the fact that I couldn’t so much as move a toe on either my right or left leg, being that the effects of the anesthetic had not yet worn off.

I also noticed I had a separate bandage just above my right heel.

The doctors were all very upbeat and relaxed and reassured me that the operation had been very successful. I was then wheeled back upstairs to my hospital bedroom where I slept for the remaining few hours of the night.

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28 Heavy Metal

2005-11-01T15:53:00.000-08:00

What surprised me most when the curtain was removed was the shocking display of metal running the length of my shin, complete with six long metal stakes protruding upwards, perpendicular from my leg.

Wow! I wasn’t expecting this!

I saw that a series of foot-long “pins” had been screwed into the main bone of my right leg, in addition to a screw inserted internally.

Since this is a little hard to verbalize, I am including a photo of the X-ray that was taken at the time, which at least shows part of how this looks internally.

Double-clicking the photo at the right offers a closer look at the various breaks on my tibia (or shin bone) and fibula (skinnier bone shown below the tibia), plus shattered portions of the bone.

Hmm, so the “reoccurring dream” I’d imagined wasn’t necessarily a dream at all, as the doctors had indeed been doing a lot of drilling.

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27 The Drill

2005-10-31T10:46:00.000-08:00

Next I heard the sound of an electric drill, not necessarily a high-tech device one might anticipate seeing in a surgical theater but more like a cordless model you’d see on display your neighborhood hardware store.

I guess by the time the drilling began into my leg, the medical team decided I’d probably watched enough and put up a little curtain, cutting off my view.

Since it had been quite a full day and over twelve hours since my accident, and now past my normal bedtime, I said a prayer and determined to fall asleep, which I did.

During a series of naps, I kept hearing ongoing drilling but subconsciously reassured myself that this was probably a re-occurring dream rather than a reality.

When I later awoke at the end of the operation, I found out that the ongoing drilling was a reality.

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26 Watching My Operation

2005-10-31T10:45:00.001-08:00

Shortly after the operation began, I realized that by craning my neck upwards, I could watch my own operation.

The first thing my eyes were drawn to was the big gap in my leg just above the ankle. Then, squinting closer, I was greeted by my leg bone. An inch or so away was a slab of my flesh lying in the surgeon’s hand.

Meanwhile the nurses were squirting on this chunk of tissue a steady dose of brown liquid, which I assumed to be antiseptic, from plastic mustard-like-containers. The surgeon appeared to be rather routinely flipping this hamburger-looking substance around in his hands.

The next step was putting this hunk of flesh back into the cavity on my leg, after which they stitched it up with precisely sixteen stitches.

Now, usually I’m not much for blood and gore, nor do I enjoy hearing about people’s operations, but in this case I observed the procedure as long as I could, since I felt I had a quite a vested interest.

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25 A Latin Procedure

2005-10-31T10:45:00.000-08:00

As I was wheeled into the relatively Spartan operating theater, I was pleasantly surprised to hear lively Latin music pervading the atmosphere.

While still in the hallway, I’d had the chance to speak at length with the orthopedic surgeon who was going to be operating on me, as well as his attendants. A couple nurses joined in the conversation, which ended up ranging from the tattoo on my arm (a rash decision taken in teen hood) to religion and politics, and somewhere in there I was canvassed as to my opinion on how Peruvian girls rate on a worldwide beauty scale.

This casual exchange continued on into the operating theater, the Latin music adding to the very laid back environment, with the doctors and nurses all laughing and joking and as relaxed as if they were family attending a Sunday get together.

I will leave it up to the reader to judge if this is preferable as compared to a more formal staid environment one might expect in an operating theater in the States.

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24 Latin Call to Surgery

2005-10-31T10:44:00.000-08:00

At 5 p.m., I was told that my surgery was scheduled for 6 p.m.

In true Latin American fashion, 6 p.m. came and passed, so I asked again and was told that surgery was shifted to 7 p.m. This happened again at 8 p.m.

I decided to relax, and consciously lower my expectations.

At 11:30 that night, I was finally wheeled down to surgery, which lasted about two hours.

When I awoke from surgery, and looked down at my leg, I was shocked.

Furthermore, I had no feeling whatsoever from the waist down, my body paralyzed without even so much as the ability to wiggle a toe.

But I have gotten ahead of myself here.

Undergoing surgery in a Latin American country is an experience. Among other things, I had to be willing to lay aside a number of mindsets of how this would be handled in my home country, let alone attempting to compare the two.

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23 Homey, Private Quarters

2005-10-31T10:43:00.000-08:00

From X-Ray, I was transferred to the examining room where a series of tests were done on me over the next hour or so. Not having much else to do, I pondered the fact that virtually every part of both pant legs of my khakis were now a dark, dried-blood-brown, so only a section of my slacks under my waist remained the original color. All from one open wound above my right ankle.

It was now time for me to be wheeled up to a room on the fourth floor. I got in on the negotiations between nurses from different floors, putting in my plug not to be transferred to a regular hospital bed just yet, since it was just a matter of hours before I would again need to be reassigned to a movable bed and wheeled down to the operating theater. Thankfully the nurses were open to my pragmatism, and their humane cooperation cut out a couple of bed transfers, a subject that I touched on earlier, and still dear to my heart.

I relaxed on my bed in a semi-private room, made private by the fact that I was the only patient. A morphine drip mercifully addressed the pain that had racked my leg since morning. And now, the added boost of luxury to just lay back and watch CNN—in English.

My accident had occurred just before 11 a.m., I’d gotten to the first clinic about 2 p.m., the second medical facility about 2:30, and at 5 p.m. I was now finally relaxing in my designated home-away-from-home for the next couple days.

I made a call to my wife, explaining that I’d had an accident but I was okay, and so not only had my flight plans changed, but in a few hours I was going to be having surgery on a broken leg.

(Above: Cover of a Get Well card I received, that gave me a good laugh.)

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22 The X-Ray Experience

2005-10-31T10:42:00.000-08:00

From the basic communications between the young x-ray technician and myself, I was prepared for the fact that they were going to unzip and remove the zipped-up plastic cover from the bottom half of my right leg. I tried to prepare myself for the anticipated pain as the uniform pressure was removed.

The pain hit with a vengeance. And at this weakest moment, as the saying goes “adding insult to injury”, the dear x-ray technician timidly explained that I would have to balance the metal plate with my one good foot. He had to maneuver the x-ray equipment so as to get a shot of my injured leg, and since the old model machine couldn’t come to me, I had to go to it. Of course, any movement from twinges of pain would result in having to take yet another xray.

Obviously, this was not the modern x-ray equipment that we’re used to in North America, with its relative flexibility and maneuverability, allowing a technician to take x-rays of the necessary body part regardless of the angle that body part is laying on the table. In this case I had to move the body part—an extremely painful process—due to the limited non-flexibility of this mammoth equipment towering over me.

I was ever so thankful when the x-rays were completed and the plastic casing zipped up back over my foot and air pumped backed into it. As I heaved a sigh of relief, I felt like I’d just run my second marathon of the day.

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21 Arrival at St. Luke’s Hospital

2005-10-31T10:41:00.000-08:00

As the ambulance pulled up in front of St. Luke’s Hospital, I was then shifted to a movable stretcher, this being one of about half a dozen such maneuvers that I would experience in as many hours. Hence I made a mental note that if there isn’t already one on the market, that someone ought to come up with a better way to do this.

Being hoisted from a stretcher to a bed, and back again, in this case numerous times, has got to be one painful procedure, assuming the patient usually already has enormous aches and pains to begin with, given the reason that they are laying there on their back. For those of you who haven’t had the firsthand experience, the movement isn’t always as coordinated and fluid as you see in movies.

I was wheeled into the basement where x-rays were to be taken of my leg. I again found myself on my own, as Soledad and Dr. Arias took care of signing me in and other such logistics.

I lay on my back, studying the rather depressing gray-green-colored room, my mind’s eye tracing the sewer pipes along the full length of the ceiling, and then the very well worn and antiquated x-ray equipment above me.

The organization I work for has helped upgrade the medical equipment in many South American hospitals, hospitals just like this, to the tune of many millions of dollars of aid. Somehow this fact took on greater personal significance for me than ever before.

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20 All We Take for Granted

2005-10-31T10:40:00.000-08:00

I was really feeling good about how things were falling into place. And as another of those pieces of good fortune fell into its divine slot, I heard that I would be transported between hospitals in an actual ambulance.

Now an ambulance is something most of us would take for granted. But did you know that a lot of hospitals throughout South America, and dozens of other countries worldwide, don’t even have one ambulance? People routinely arrive at hospitals, hemorrhaging, in taxis or private vehicles.

Why do I highlight this fact? Well, to illustrate something that we North Americans often find revelatory when we travel abroad—the lack of basic necessities available in other countries--things that we tend to just take for granted.

My vocation has offered me the opportunity to travel to over 50 countries, and I have lived in over a dozen outside North America for extended periods, so what I mention above is something I’ve known for years now from first-hand experience. Nevertheless each new experience reinforces to me: How very well taken care of we are in North America. And by contrast, how much the dear citizens of the majority of countries in the world have to cope with in their day-to-day existence.

In fact, that’s one of the very reasons that I do what I do, and the reason I have chosen my line of work, with Family Care Foundation. But that’s another story.

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19 St. Luke’s

2005-10-31T10:39:00.000-08:00

Minutes later, Doctor Arias returned with the good news that he had been able to locate his orthopedic surgeon friend, who indeed was on duty in another Lima hospital, one of three locations where he performed surgeries.

Furthermore, this surgeon was prepared to admit me and personally handle the operation that evening.

Additionally, this man offered to reduce his own costs, and through various other budgeting angles the estimated cost of the surgery and hospital stay at St. Luke’s would come to a price one fifth of what the surgeon in this facility had quoted!

Not only was it encouraging to hear Dr. Arias’ very positive evaluation of this surgeon’s skills and experience, but the icing on the cake was when he asked me, “And do you know which hospital you’ll be getting admitted to?” He paused for emphasis, “St. Luke’s!”

I took this as the final confirmation that the Lord had prepared the way for me to be in the right hospital with the right doctor at the right time.

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18 “Luke”

2005-10-31T10:38:00.000-08:00

Dr. Arias returned to the room with firsthand feedback on what the operation would involve here at San Paolo. The price seemed high, but was I in a position to argue?

At this point, I asked my two comrades to join me in prayer, as I felt I really needed the Lord’s direction in making these decisions I was faced with. Above all, I really wanted to get it right as far as being in the right hospital with the right doctor at the right time, as the reality of me needing both an emergency operation, followed by a time of convalescence here in Peru, had now dawned as my next reality.

Shortly after closing my eyes in prayer, the word “Luke” immediately came to mind. Now what did that mean?

Doctor Arias, also a believer, explained that he felt that the Lord was moving him to try and contact a medical colleague who is an orthopedic surgeon. While he verbally questioned if he’d be able to locate him, or that he’d be working on a Sunday, he nevertheless began making calls.

Having stopped to get quiet before the Lord, and to ask for His leading in this decision, I now felt a profound peace come over me, and a fresh confidence that everything was going to work out just fine.

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17 My Story Verified

2005-10-31T10:37:00.000-08:00

To open a sidebar, Dr. Arias’ arrival reinforced the story that I had told the head of the association, several times in fact.

This fellow, who had been sitting on a bed in the examining room, then proceeded to explain how he, knowing I was a good friend of Dr. Arias, had felt compelled to escort me to the hospital, as he had been determined to stay by my side until the doctor arrived. (Right!)

At least he was now willing to return my passport, which the hospital administrators then decided should instead be in their possession, as an insurance that I was going to pay my hospital bill.

I asked my friend Dr. Arias to please locate and speak with the surgeon who had attended me and discuss with him what his prescribed plan of attack would be if he operated on me. Furthermore, I wanted a ballpark figure as to how much the operation would cost, since I would need to cover it, or at least a down payment, with a credit card, in order to get my passport back.

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16 Dr. Arias Arrives

2005-10-31T10:34:00.000-08:00

Having my leg back in a more natural position and under controlled pressure reduced the strain and tenseness immensely, allowing me the opportunity to think clearly for an extended period. Using Soledad to translate, I committed to having everything re-explained to me from square one, including gaining a better understanding of the options available to me as far as surgery.

More good news, as I looked up to see the concerned face of my good friend, Dr. Arias, on whose property the accident had occurred. Dr. Arias had been reached on his cell phone after having driven about an hour and a half drive outside of Lima, en route to a holiday destination with his family.

Dr. Arias, with his medical background, and likewise bilingual, proved to be a key component and Godsend, stepping in to take charge, talking to the surgeon who’d examined me, and otherwise being available to help me make the necessary decisions facing me at this juncture in time.

This is when I also found out, to my relief, that my leg was not “infected”, but that “contaminated” is a medical term indicating that there is a high risk of infection due to the fact that the wound was open. And in my case, the bones protruding out of the skin had more or less acted as a plough, dragging up dirt and all sorts of foreign elements during the course of my hundred yard pilgrimage over grass, concrete and pavement.

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15 Soledad

2005-10-30T13:07:00.000-08:00

About this time, I looked up to see Soledad, the wife of an acquaintance, enter my examining room. I happily realized that one of the phone numbers I’d handed out had indeed resulted in Soledad getting a call about my situation. She explained that she had had to call around to a number of hospitals searching for “a gringo with the broken leg” and thankfully this being a rare occurrence in Lima on a Sunday morning, she was able to locate me at San Paulo.

I was thankful that someone I knew was at my side, especially someone with bilingual abilities. The latter allowed me the opportunity to get a better grasp on the medical decisions I was facing. However, I didn’t have too much time to get into that.

A couple nurses gathered, and the surgeon returned and told me to brace myself. He then grabbed my misdirected right foot in a firm grip, and literally yanked it, repositioning it in a more natural alignment, so that the broken bones protruding out of the side of my leg were no more.

The incredible rush of pain was mercifully followed by the doctor slipping a plastic zip-up bag over my foot and calf, and then air was pumped into the sealed bag. This procedure created a sustained steady pressure on my wound, which reduced the pain to the most bearable state of the last one and a half hour period. Ah, sweet relief!

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14 “Contaminado”

2005-10-30T13:06:00.000-08:00

I was then wheeled up the ramp of San Paolo Hospital, and a surgeon, after a quick examination, explained in Spanish that it was a bad break and needed to be operated on as soon as possible, adding that it was “contaminado”.

Now with my less-than-perfect knowledge of the Spanish language, I interpreted this term “contaminado” as “infected”, a word that has the power to conjure up frightening thoughts of gangrene, losing a leg and all sorts of other unpleasant images.

Meanwhile, I inquired of the doctor as to what was the maximum amount of time before we’d have to go ahead with surgery. Since I also had no health insurance in Peru, and figured that the amount of money that I could produce for an operation would be the maximum limit on my credit card, I tried to find out information as to how much this operation was going to cost me in this facility.

Now while I may be describing my thought process here as a relatively clear and methodical one, the reality is that at the time I was still fading in and out of consciousness and in so much pain when I was conscious that my ability to think clearly was questionable. Nevertheless, during my more lucid and comprehensive moments, I did try to reflect on the pragmatic.

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13 Arrival at San Paolo Hospital

2005-10-30T13:04:00.000-08:00

So we pulled away from the local clinic, and continued the bouncing and lurching expedition to another city hospital that the clinic workers recommended. I was thankful that I was at least in the hands of people who were doing their best to get me medical attention.

I realized that I had lost a fair amount of blood by this time. So between burst of pain, I prayed that I wouldn’t have to get a blood transfusion, as I figured that was one more thing that could go wrong in this environment.

As we pulled up to San Paolo hospital, I was relieved to look up and see a modern facility. Obviously trained medical staff transferred me from the fiberglass stretcher to a regular stretcher, and then to a hospital bed for observation. I was gratefully aware that this was all done rather professionally and therefore without too much pain.

I bid farewell to my guardians-now-become-friends, the firemen, one of whom I had found spoke a little English, a very kind fellow indeed, sympathizing with me in my pain and trying to offer some words of comfort.

This was in stark contrast to the head of the association, who had also climbed in the back of the truck to accompany me to the hospital, still clutching my passport as collateral.

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12 Things Could Be Worse

2005-10-30T13:02:00.000-08:00

There’s a Bible verse where the Lord promises “ALL things work together for GOOD for them who love God, those called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

When I accept this, it makes it much easier to accept that God is aware of whatever happens to me, and that it will somehow work together for good. Focusing on this simple fact reassures me that God loves me, and that there is a plan when things don’t go the way I expect or want.

Taking this from another angle, I always try to focus on the fact that things could be worse, much worse. For example, just a few days back, as part of my work, I “toured” reputedly the largest garbage dump in South America, which is just north of Trujillo Peru. Acres of garbage rotting in the hot sun teem with thousands of poor people-- men, women and children--scouring the garbage for remnants to gather and sell in order to eke out a basic existence.

I remembered one particular little 5-year-old boy, the same age as my daughter. This little fellow was gathering cardboard, and each day can trade in a kilo (2.2 lbs.) of his find for one sol (equivalent to 3 cents U.S.), sufficient to buy a loaf of white bread.

So in applying this Romans 8:28 / “It Could be Worse” principle:
My fall, if just a few days earlier, could have taken place there, where there is no medical attention whatsoever, let alone doctors or hospitals. For that matter, pure destiny, such as where my children or I were born, could have placed me amongst those pitiful families foraging a sub-existent life style.

You get the picture. Always remember, things could be worse.

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11 Trip to the Clinic

2005-10-29T12:43:00.000-07:00

I was loaded into the back of a small truck, the back covered by a fiberglass shell. We then proceeded to lurch over the regularly spaced speed bumps, and seemingly hit every pothole in between. Only later did I realize that the driver, a Mario Andretti wannabe, was the same fellow who had reassured me he wouldn’t bang my foot.

The trip continued with a series of brutally long turns, hard stops, followed by relentless acceleration and braking in the ensuing trip to the local clinic. The pain and agony I felt during that trip way surpassed the pain I had felt up to that point.

As we pulled up to the clinic, I heaved a sigh of relief, thankful that the ride was over.

I was therefore dismayed when the doctors came out to the truck in which I was sprawled, took a look at my pulsating and bleeding leg, and explained that they just didn’t have the practical know-how or facilities to handle a break of this type.

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10 The Firemen Arrive

2005-10-29T12:42:00.001-07:00

Right about this time, a compact truck pulled up and out jumped two men in orange overalls, who announced themselves as firemen. In Latin countries, the equivalent of 911 emergency services are firemen, who tend to show up more on their schedule than yours.

From the questions one firemen was asking me, I was somewhat reassured that he at least knew the basics of CPR and first aid. Shortly thereafter, I was shifted onto a narrow fiberglass stretcher, which they lifted, and then began moving me through the garage portal.

At that point, I pleaded with the fireman carrying the bottom end of my stretcher to please be very careful in passing through the narrow doorway, pointing out that my right foot was sticking out in an unnatural angle and therefore very prone to be bumped.

Moments after receiving assurances that they’d be very careful, they bumped my foot right into the door jam, which brought with it a renewed wave of pain and nausea. This proved to be just a foretaste of my trip to the clinic.

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09 Open Compound Fracture

2005-10-29T12:42:00.000-07:00

When I came to, I noticed that the two women kneeling down by my damaged right leg had lifted up my pant leg and cut my shoe off, and were proceeding to slit my pant leg, in order to wrap something around my wound.

Staring down, I was somewhat taken back to see the angle of my right foot in relationship to my leg. Instead of my foot being perpendicular to my leg, it was winging off in an unnatural sideways angle.

The reality of my injury also included the rather surrealistic view of two jagged bones sticking through the skin on the opposite side of my leg, from the six-inch rupture above my ankle. I was later to find out that this was not just a broken leg, but an open compound fracture.

Focusing my attention elsewhere, I glanced over to notice that the “in my face” association watchdog had managed to get a hold of my passport which he then pocketed, presumably as reassurance that my story was true, and to protect his own job if I wasn’t being truthful.

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08 The Manana Approach

2005-10-29T12:41:00.000-07:00

By this time, I had been laying in this same position, bleeding on the pavement, for half an hour. And I was without a doubt impatient with this “manana” approach, and general lack of activity. So I called out to the two uniformed security men to come over and give me a hand, which they did.

At my instruction, each security guard grabbed me under one arm and hoisted me upright to my one good foot. My intention was to head straight to that taxi that I saw still parked nearby, and to demand the driver take me to the closest hospital. I was more than willing to pay for the cost to shampoo his upholstery should I lose any blood en route.

However as soon as I was vertical, I looked down to see a pool of blood that began seeping out of my right leg. This realization, coupled with a fresh wave of nausea, quickly convinced me that this was a very bad idea.

I asked the guards to lay me back down and I thereby again passed out.

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07 In My Face

2005-10-29T12:40:00.000-07:00

As I regained consciousness, I was startled to see a man’s face about a foot away, his eyes peering intently into mine. He introduced himself in Spanish as the head of the association of this gated community.

Rather than extending too much in the way of courtesy or concern, he began interrogating me as why I was in this house, and so forth, inferring that I was a burglar or up to no good.

I explained that the house was owned by a doctor friend of mine, Dr. Arias, who had just departed that morning with his wife and children on a vacation, leaving me to lock up his house and then head off to the airport to catch my flight.

The fellow did not seem to buy my explanation. As he persisted with similar, rote questioning, I was left with an indelible impression of where the popular term “getting in your face” comes from.

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06 In and Out of Consciousness

2005-10-29T12:39:00.000-07:00

When I regained consciousness, and came to my senses, which occurred as two separate incidences, I saw that an array of people had now gathered around. Among them was a neighbor, a couple maids who worked in this affluent Lima suburb, uniformed security men whose job it was to guard various nearby residences, and others who were merely curious. Unfortunately, no one spoke English.

I grabbed my agenda and wrote down phone numbers of acquaintances in Lima, tore these from my notebook and handed these out to different ones who had cell phones. I pleaded with them in my basic Spanish if they would please call these numbers and explain to whoever answered that I had been hurt, and asking if they could meet me at the hospital.

During this whole time I felt very faint, and was basically passing in and out of consciousness. It seemed each time I opened my eyes anew that a new person had arrived on the scene, howbeit not a doctor or medical personnel.

My tedious hundred-yard journey, 3600 inches, had probably required just about that many individual thrusts forward to cover the distance. And I felt it.

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05 Fresh Breeze

2005-10-29T12:38:00.000-07:00

I crawled right up flush to the garage door, and threw my shoulder up as high as I could in order to grasp the handle, and attempted to open it.

As the door swung open. I was greeted by the most cool, refreshing breeze imaginable, which seemed to herald my upbeat victory of having successfully crawled a hundred yards, inch by inch. The journey began in the courtyard that I had fallen into, took me around the outside perimeter of the property, and now I just yards away from the road where I hoped I’d be able to beckon help from a friendly passer-by or taxi.

I looked up, thrilled to see the driver of the private taxi firm that I had called earlier in the morning to arrange for a pick-up to take me to the airport. With pretty much my last breath and surge of energy, I called out to him in Spanish that I’d been hurt and to please summon a doctor.

Recognizing from the emotion expressed in his eyes that he had understood my communication, I then confidently and immediately passed out. The top half of my body was sprawled outside the garage door, while my legs lay behind me inside the compound.

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04 Busy Phone Lines

2005-10-29T12:37:00.000-07:00

By this time I had painfully wiggled the phone off the wall, pulled out my address book and then attempted to phone the three or four numbers that I had of acquaintances here in the capital. Unfortunately after each attempt I only met with a busy signal, not the friendly voice I sought for.

By the time I had tried 4 different numbers a couple of times each, I had lost my forward momentum and was now feeling very weak and tired. It was indeed quite an effort get crawling again, not to speak of having to first drag the lower half of my body around a full 180 degrees in the narrow hallway where the phone was located.

My slow crawl continued back through the kitchen, down the step on to the driveway, the last twenty-five feet of my trek to the outside world.

Passing my packed and ready-to-go carry-on suitcase, I unzipped the outside pocket and dug out my passport, my airline ticket, my credit cards and my wallet which I then crammed into the pockets of my khakis, and then continued the crawl to the garage door.

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03 Trail of Blood

2005-10-29T12:35:00.000-07:00

Inching toward the garage door, and specifically the doorway cut into it, I silently gauged if I had enough energy for a detour. While still twenty feet away, I made the decision to do so.

So I refocused my direction and entered the house by way of the open kitchen door, with the intent of pulling the phone off the wall and trying to contact the handful of people I knew in the city of Lima.

This planned detour was not without some additional pain, as I had to first drag my broken leg up over the kitchen step. I got to the phone and this was the first time I noticed that I was leaving behind a trail of blood everywhere I had crawled.

Up to this point, I had focused all my energies on crawling. I had purposely attempted to put out of my mind any circumstances that would thwart my effort of making it to my destination. --But the trail of blood I now noticed behind me did act as a reality check to me that I shouldn’t push the limits too far.

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02 Touching The Void

2005-10-29T12:33:00.000-07:00

Several months before, I had gone to see a movie with my wife, Touching The Void, a true story of two British mountain climbers who had both suffered serious injuries while scaling the heights in Peru. Images from that movie and the recall of their determination to make it despite the circumstances came to mind, which I clung to and tried to focus my full energy on.

Ironically, here I was in Peru, and had just sustained a broken leg from a fall. However in my case, the fall was not from Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes, but from the roof of a house in Lima!

My work had brought me to Peru 10 days earlier, and I had just finished site visits to humanitarian programs that the organization that I work for funds. Peru was my last stop, after having visited Mexico and Chile. Today I was meant to fly back to the States. In fact, I had just been minutes away from getting in a taxi to take me to the airport, my job now completed.

Praying out loud for God’s support, and trying to keep my mind off of my broken leg trailing behind me, I crawled inch by painful inch, using my forearms to move me forward, first across the ornamental pavement, up the stairs to the outdoor dining area, and then through the grassy backyard where days before I had studied a large tortoise slowly maneuvering along.

Now traveling at a speed slower than that tortoise, I knew I had to press on. I fought to stay conscious as I continued on my protracted path through the back garden. When I eventually reached the maid’s quarters, I glanced down the long driveway leading to the garage door. That was my projected portal to the outside world, and the possibility of finding someone to rush me to the nearest hospital for medical attention.

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A Path of Weakness: Detour

01 A Path of Weakness

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80 As Bad As It Gets

79 Fork in Mashed Potatoes

78 Visit to Trauma Surgeon

77 No Bone Growth

76 In For the Long Haul

75 Equilibrium

74 Tripping

73 Drop Foot

72 Orthopedic Opinion

71 Home at Last

70 Meltdown

69 Touchdown

68 First and Ten

67 End Sweep

66 Last to Board

65 First to the Plane

64 Leaning on His Strength

63 A Ticket Home

62 Choose Suffering?

61 The Drill That Got Away

60 Sleep Records Broken

59 Greater Blessings to Bear

58 Dawn’s Hue of Hope

57 Homeopathic Homily

56 Father’s Love

55 In My Darkest Hour

54 New Sleeping Pills

53 Half-Hour at a Time

52 Million-to-One Odds Beaten

51 Sharon’s Back Goes Out

50 Success or Significance?

49 Shadow of Death

48 The 2x4 Approach

47 Boredom Sets In

46 Faith to Endure

45 A Fog of Pain

44 Not in Despair

43 Mean Streamlined Machine

42 Antibiotic Anecdote

41 Faith Borne From Suffering

40 Waxing Poetic

39 Dud Painkillers

38 Pain and %$#@* Pain

37 Nothing Accomplished by Agonizing

36 The Lockout

35 Broken Leg Joke

34 Emotional Roller Coaster

33 Lunghis and 12-inch Nails

32 Hospital Gown Humiliation

31 Paparazzi and Papagayo

30 Hospital Stay

29 X-Men Mutant?

28 Heavy Metal

27 The Drill

26 Watching My Operation

25 A Latin Procedure

24 Latin Call to Surgery

23 Homey, Private Quarters

22 The X-Ray Experience

21 Arrival at St. Luke’s Hospital

20 All We Take for Granted

19 St. Luke’s

18 “Luke”

17 My Story Verified

16 Dr. Arias Arrives

15 Soledad

14 “Contaminado”

13 Arrival at San Paolo Hospital

12 Things Could Be Worse

11 Trip to the Clinic

10 The Firemen Arrive

09 Open Compound Fracture

08 The Manana Approach