Bruised and despondent

Bruised and despondent

It was January first, the first day celebrating the second millennium. A crowned new year, thirty days before I reached my birthday and before I could blow out fiftieth and two years of candles.
It was the day I was taken by sickness and wounded in the flesh and the funny thing I had no clue.
I woke up that morning feeling a violent pain in my extremity. It was my left foot. I attributed that to a tiny scar the size of a dime under the big toe and the new pair of shoes I bought recently, so I figured it wasn’t any thing serious.
I ended up celebrating the New Year with a bottle of wine peeping into the days ahead with great expectations.

Four days went by, the pain got louder and my foot swelled. When I checked the sole of my foot in the mirror, the scar had doubled and spread to a size of a quarter.
The following day was awful, the staggering pain was vexatious and I could not tolerate standing on my left foot for more than minutes. I took action in searching the yellow pages and found a podiatrist close to home. I called and scheduled an appointment.

Two days after, I walked- in dragging my foot, checked at the front desk and filled out the routine medical questionnaires.
The receptionist took a quick look at the information then said,
“Sir what kind of insurance policy do you have?”
“Oh, I don’t have insurance, I’m paying cash”
She scribbled N/A on the form and says,
“Please have a seat”

I looked around for a second and chose to sit next to the table that had all kind of magazines. I picked up a magazine and started to turn the pages browsing, checking the pictures and suddenly saw an article concerning the Y2K millennium bug.
I started reading and through the corner of my eye I sensed that the lady sitting next to me had turned her head fixed looking at the open page I’m reading with a faint smile and I smiled back at her.
She looked around seventy, take a few or add a few years. Her hair frizzled, silver in color with a hinted light blue strikes in between. She had a round pinky face, smooth for her age and no sign of wrinkles and it looked as stretched pizza dough pulled back to her neck.
The eye lids were tight too. Her eye lashes bend up and stroked with black mascara the same color of her eyebrows. Her lips was pasted indigo purple and it seems she missed her target and a thin line covered beyond the border of her upper lip given her a David Niven mustache.
I could tell she’s been under the knife and maybe had a nose job too.
If you ask me to describe her look, I reckon she looked like an over the hill Barbie doll.

Being a sociable fellow I said “Hello” She answered back, “Hi”
Then she spoke,
“You know here we are, all those fools were saying the world was going to come to an end five days ago at the second millennium”
“Oh, yeah who said so” I asked.
“Well my next door neighbor Rosa said it was mentioned in the Bible, she didn’t celebrate the New Year, lit a candle and prayed till half past mid night and nothing happened”
“I read the Bible myself and I have not found such a thing written” I said.
“Well Rosa told me I was an underline message in some verses some were in there” then added,
“That sounds spooky”
“It sure is an unexpected surprise”

I got me thinking what in the world she was referring to. I knew the fear was due the
2 digits 99 of computer shifting on the first of January and it had nothing to do with the bible or Armageddon. I reckon some folks believe in paranormal.

In an instance a doctor assistant called my name and politely asked me to follow her.
I bid Barbie,
“Have a nice day mam”
She waved her hand and said,
"Bye young man it was nice talking with you”

I followed behind the nurse, she pointed to a small room and before seeing the doctor she requested I take off my shoes and socks and instructed me to dip my feet in a stainless steel whirlpool.
Sitting on a chair comfortably with my feet plunged in bubbling water I began to feel relaxed and loose.
What a nice complimentary detail! I felt I was vacationing somewhere in the Caribbean. This is rewarding, letting by hair down, relaxing as if getting a pedicure and all I needed to top this fancy service is a serious frozen colada.
I was still bothered by the pain and this feeling was kind of masking my ignorance.

Be wary what you wish for a fete. Don’t fantasize before you summarize.

A short while after, the nurse walked in with a soft towel and gently began drying my feet, I was humbled by the treatment as she pleasantly uttered,
“Feels good, isn’t?”
“Oh ye, very refreshing”
“Follow me please”
She walked in front of me, pointed to a room from across and directed,
“Have a seat the doctor will see you shortly”
I obliged "Thanks" and sat down as she instructed then she raised the lower end part of the leathery chair that resembles a Lazy Boy and left. I tilted back sinking my shoulders, I felt so relaxed as if I had a steam bath, sitting out on the porch smoking a cigar and blowing circles in the air.
While feeling dodo silly and fictitious, the podiatrist walked in and introduced himself, shook my hand, put on reading glasses, then picked up the clipboard and started to read the information I filled, so far initiated by asking me my reason for the visit before screening my foot.
I described my pain and the evolving scar. Immediately he pulled the short stool and sat decreased in height to the level of my legs.
The instant he looked at the sole of my foot raised an eyebrow delivering,
“It's a foot ulcer” and, “Are you diabetic?”
Ignorantly I mumbled,
“I don’t know, I don’t think so”.
At that instant I remembered twenty years ago when mother said she was diabetic, she innocently thought mental stress was the cause of onset in her condition next to eating sugar loaded food. At that time I didn’t make much of it.
Then I followed the old thought of my mother and corroborated by asking,
“Doc is it from being stressed and eating lots of sugar and sweets?”
He validated it was from lack of insulin and removed the doubt from being stressed or depressed, and described diabetes as a chronic disease that affect the body’s ability to utilize glucose in the blood sustained over time circulating from the food that has been ingested.
Still I did not absorb the facts and my mind was fixed on glucose, isn’t glucose a form of sugar?
Assuming having a sweet tooth and estimating the assorted million stuff from candies, cookies, chocolate fudge cakes, napoleons and éclairs and not skipping ice cream my body consumed thru out my years of living somehow sweets clicked on my mind when the podiatrist confirmed I’m diabetic.

Thinking backward, it is ironic in my case, a sword with double edges, a whipping and candies was a common denominator the way I understood it as a child. Every time I did something wrong, my mother whipped me first and felt guilty afterward. To justify her reprehensible feelings I was rewarded with sweets and candies.

I still remember the day I threw a rock at a passing car in front of our first house in Tripoli. I was no older than three. The driver stopped, enraged, chased after me on foot and caught me by the arm. Immediately out of no where my mom came to my rescue.
The man handled me gently but advised that I be reprimanded as a good way in raising children. My mom agreed and belted me for that incident and gave me candy post delivering the punishment.

To my recollection as a child, I was religiously rewarded again with candies. It was a game to entice my compliance for prayers. I depicted Jesus was the candy man. When I prayed for the handsome fellow in a portrait hanged on the wall, kneeling on my bed with my eyes closed, my father would surprise me after I said my prayers instructing,
“Good boy Johnny, now open your eyes and see the candies Jesus left for you”.
Upon seeing the candies placed in front of me on the bed, on my knees praying, I was exited and happy. My father suggested that I look at the picture of Jesus and thank him for the candies. I closed my hand uttering,
“Thank you, thank you Jesus, I love you Jesus”

Every day at eventide I acted like Fido the pooch, looking out the window waiting for my father to come home from work and pray to Jesus expecting sweet treats.
So foolishly I thought no wonder why I’m diabetic now, I guess too much loving from sweet Jesus is an overdose of glucose.
“Any one in your immediate family is diabetic?” the podiatrist questioned.
“Yes, my mom and younger brother, as a matter of fact, my uncle Michaeel lost both of his legs and died shortly afterward from complication of diabetes”
He asked again,
“When was it the last time you had blood work?”
“let me think”
I poised mill racing my memory and vaguely said,
“I don’t remember”
Accusative discomposed on my part and lacking doc. shook his head in disbelief and uttered,
“total negligence”
Then ordered me to wait as he was leaving the room.
His words indicated the gravity of my ailment and I began feeling a haze of discomfort. Some thing up and not right I told myself.
The nurse came back into the room, pierced my finger, a tiny drop of blood was exposed then she wiped it with a glucose strip and injected it into a blood monitor.
Seconds later the podiatrist was looking at the monitor reading and confirmed I was diabetic.
Lacking in medical vocabulary I asked,
“Doc, what is a foot ulcer?”
Enervated and in a simple phrase he said, “gangrene”.
In disarray I gasped and felt the wind socked out me. Suddenly I felt violated and a voice inside my head whispered,
“Jesus the son of the carpenter, a mortal evil invaded my body, the gremlins at work, gangrene feasting on my flesh”.

In my mind the meaning of the word gangrene was a horrible thing to happen to anyone, kind of a death certificate if overlooked.
On top of feeling confused, the doctor delivered the knock out blow when urgently insisted that I check into a hospital right away and have my foot amputated from under the ankle to stop the infection from spreading or I’m doomed to loose the leg up to the knee.
A picture of uncle’s Boulus father in law woke up my memory. At age ten remembering his younger daughter feeding him carrots. He was diabetic, blind and without legs. It crossed my mind I’m too will be eating carrots for the rest of my life and I’ll turn out to be like a Bugs Bunny in a wheel chair.

Watching the podiatrist trimming the dead skin with a surgical knife, with a weary choking voice if swallowed a razor blade I asked if there was a way to salvage my foot, and just what I thought by the grim look he gave me. With a warning he nodded,
“No sir, nothing could be done to stop the infection, you must check into a hospital immediately, I advise you to do so today”.
Timidly I said,
“I have no insurance and little money”.
Noting the sad expression on my face, thought a moment and said,
“Maybe Holly Cross hospital will take you in”
Doc turned around picked up the wall receiver and dialed a number, then proceeded talking and it sounded that the person on the other line was known to him and a figure of authority when he said,
“Hi, this is doctor so and so, I have a gentleman in my office his foot is infected with gangrene and has no insurance coverage”.
Silent for a moment, gasping,
“I see, I see”
Hanged up and said,
“sorry, they will no admit you without insurance”.
I smiled allowing myself to hide my frustration and mumbled,
“I guess I’m one of those dispensable Catholics.”
Doc looked at me then said,
“Did you say something?”
“Never mind I’m talking to myself”
doc shook his head, I reckon he heard me and stepped out of the room. I shouldn’t have opened my mouth and I wasn't being mean and inconsiderate I was only venting out my frustration.

You know, bad luck, isn’t the word catholic means catholicon, cure all, heal and panacea. Did not Jesus says, “The poor shall inherit the kingdom of heaven?”
Well, the least the church could do now is to follow God’s will and grant me an advance.
Don’t they know Jesus had a liaison with the poor, the sick and the beggars, or is it the new time gospel, “What’s in your pocket?”

Then I remembered the words Jesus uttered in Aramaic nailed to the cross,
“Eli, Eli lima sabaktani?” (My god, my god why have you forsaken me?) and
got me thinking for what reason I have to find myself face to face with my God and why he is running away from me in time of sickness and need.
It wasn’t God. It is those fat bellied money mongers who sit and feast on roasted moutons, drinking vintage wine and licking their fingers.
If I was an impoverished Kennedy the Pope might have assigned St. Bernard for a doctor, a wannabe Merlin Monroe nurse to my case and a bishop to pray with me at my bedside. I expected mercy from my religion. At that moment I was upset and in my mind I thought let it go. Why should they extend their hands to reach out and help me while not being a devout worshiper!
I haven’t been actively involved and was not a member of any church since my first communion. I felt disconnected from the assembly of this earthly Christian world and blamed myself for not being a participant.

Still and pensive, Willy Colon song crossed my mind, “la vida te da sorpresa” (life gives you a surprise), I sure had the willies, those words rang in my ears. I was in denial, my mind went blank, I did not feel a thing and without speaking a word it hit me bellow the belt, a low blow in the groin and life is a bitch sucking my breath out of my chest. Boy I admit I was angry, confused and helpless. In an instance I lost my courage and was overtaken by fear. I was physically cut and emotionally in over drive.

Doc came back to the room, wrote a prescription for antibiotics, pain killers and advised me not to stand on my foot and immediately I should check into a hospital.
Right after, I left to the corner pharmacy, had the prescription filled and went back home, watched the tube for a while, exhausted I fell asleep.

When I woke up the following day, my left foot ballooned. I tried to divorce my body from the bed by lowering my leg to stand supported by the ground. I let out a scream as soon my foot touched the floor. The accelerating pain was unbearable, sent shivers into my spine and I felt I was being electrocuted. I crawled back into bed and curled up in distress.
Chemically the more pain I felt the more pills I swallowed. By the third day I even doubled the dosage. A starter for each debilitated moment.

On the morning of the fourth day I woke feeling stagnant and nauseous. I did not eat for three days. Somehow I started thinking about food besides my pain. Slowly I managed and got out of bed standing on my right foot while keeping the left one lifted and not touching the ground.
Hopping on one foot as a wounded flamingo bird, holding on to the wall and grabbing on the furniture to maintain my balance I fell and winded on the floor.
I crawled thrusting forward by my elbows like a soldier in basic training moving under bobbed wires until I reached the kitchen dinette, with both hand I pulled up and landed on the roller legged chair.
Sitting I began moving around pushing myself back and forth while wheeling from the refrigerator to the stove, pulling my neck up so I could see inches above the kitchen counter.
I cooked breakfast, ate heartily and rolled back to the bedroom, picked up the phone and dialed the podiatrist number who treated me and pledged my case with Holly Cross hospital.
When the line opened I asked to speak to doc. The female who answered requested,
“Hold the wire”
a sound of click and I was listening to a soft musical tune.
Click, a voice said,
“May I help you”
“Yes doc, I’m the fellow with the infected foot do you remember me?”
“Yes, yes what can I do for you?”
I proceeded,
“Doc, I don’t know what to do, I’m powerless and I appreciate your concern trying to help me in calling Holly Cross, but is it possible that you could refer me to another hospital that does charity cases, you know I’m penniless, Hello, hello you still there?”
Silent for seconds then,
“Yes, I’m thinking…you could try the Seventh Avenue clinic it’s listed in the phone book”
I thanked him and hanged up. Then I called 411 and got the number. Afterward I called the clinic.
The person I spoke with advised me to come personally and fill out forms for certification and it will take at least a month to be qualified and then, maybe then they will admit me into the county hospital. I uttered,
“Lady, in a month my whole body will be infected”
“Sir, nothing I could do, you must follow procedures, bye”
“Please don’t hang up, hello, hello”
The phone went dead, my body started to shake and my brain was on fire, felt I was being barbecued but what the heck at least a glimmer of hope. I climbed back to my bed feeling sorrow for myself, took a sleeping pill. By nightfall, another sleeping pill. Back to dreamland and no longer attached to my pain and anxiety.

The fifth day at 6 A.M., I requested yellow cab to pick me up to my destination to the Seventh Avenue clinic. I lived on the second floor and made it to street level wheeling myself on the dinette chair through the corridor, got on the elevator and waited for the taxi to arrive downstairs.
Ten minutes later the taxi showed up and the driver helped me into the back seat. Physically I was impaired. Trying to maintain my composure from the arduous pain, clinching my teeth desperately I bit my tongue and that was a pay back compensation for the way I felt the night before, picking up the pace and making my brain race again with desperation.

Five hours after I arrived at the clinic and after I filled out all the necessary forms, waiting for the blood test and x- rays results I was directed to a patient room to discuss and review the result with a physician.
The level of blood glucose was over 500. I was injected with Insulin coverage, sent home with diabetic, blood pressure, antibiotic and pain medications. Plus they provided me a walking cane, a single flip flop for my diseased foot and “will see you in two weeks”.

I was a risk factor and didn’t know I’m diabetic. I had no warning sign of physical discomfort or side effects. It is a pathological process assuming a normal state.

Newly diagnosed I was disadvantaged going through a great deal of emotional turmoil.
Without an indication a thunderbolt struck me at a moment notice. Things were fine and dandy. By now it exploded and the pate hit the fan. Excuse my French!

Day by day the pain got stronger and my foot got bigger and looked it belong to the green giant.
On the tenth day I appeared again at the clinic. I was reminded that I broke the rule and my appointment wasn’t due yet. Anyhow, the nurse injected me with more insulin. The physician noticed my slight accent and when questioned,
“Where are you from?”
“Lebanese”
Then she continued,
“Why don’t you go back to your country and let your family attend to you?”
I smiled and said,
“I’m a legal citizen and America is my country, you expect me to pack my bags and hit the road and if I could fly I would have taking with the winds, but how can one fly with broken wings”
She uttered with a sneer, “A poet, uh.”
I whispered,
“ I’m only inspired by my agony”.
Again before she left the room repined,
“We’ll see you in two weeks and I wish you don’t replicate and show up earlier, give it time to asses the medication reaction, okay?"

As a little obedient kid, I obliged, “o.k”.

By now I’m more fatigued and disoriented. The podiatrist was urging me to have my foot detached, don’t wait and don’t hesitate and the clinic physician calmly insisted hold on and give it time. It sounded as guidelines for negotiation. Which is it? Nip it in the butt or wait till it rust. I went home and had no choice but to wait.

Impecunious and without insurance I felt stranded and irresolute. Day by day and in combination with all the medications I administered the infected area grew close to a size of a half a silver dollar. I began feeling disconcert and flustered.
I started dwelling on negative thoughts and questioned myself “why”, there must be a reason.
Hundred of reason I found, and if I dig deeper more will appear amplified. My brain was stormed with radical chemicals and I even though that I’ve being punished for my sins and mistakes.
Lamenting and wailing I prayed to god and shouted “mayday, mayday”. There was silence from the ruler of life. I prayed a hundred times for each of my sins in his absence and to cover all my mishaps in case I missed some minor one I prayed more, and the more I prayed I felt I was swept by an ice blizzard and couldn’t count all the snow flakes. I even prayed for the little bugs I crushed, the countless cursing words I uttered.
Even I prayed for those bad words previously I fully paid for, that set my lips on fire when my mother rubbed stinging red hot pepper in my mouth.
Yes I prayed consumed in my flaws, I even prayed for the additional modern commandment I broke that didn’t fit the tablets God provided Moses on top of Mount Sinai. Like don’t bluff in poker, don’t chew on coca leafs and don’t fiddle with Mary Jane.
I even prayed for the preaching pulpits with sticky fingers. I guess God dissected the extra commandment for the later human species to adjust to their own penitence.
I prayed for the sick and weary, the children at Saint Jude and last but not least I prayed for me and felt my heart was bleeding from all the prayers I over squeezed in its chambers.

After twenty day, hallucinating from the doubles doses of painkillers and other medication I swallowed. Destitute and deluded, I caved into the darkest though a person could think of.
Dies Irae jammed my mind, judgment day, time to decide my inequity and afflictions.
Then I remembered archaic Barbie and the conversation we had. It must be the end for me and Rosa might’ve been right. I thought of committing suicide.
Cowardly I looked at the sleeping pill bottle on top of the nightstand next to my bed, frightened and reluctant I hesitated reached for only one sleeping pill and swallowed it ousting the devil’s wish.

The next day I lay in bed nauseating and vomiting with fever and burning sensation in my foot. Lucifer was back whispering, “Fait accompli” the impostor treacherously clouded my mind, pressing to moribund my soul. I grabbed the sleeping pill bottle again contemplating suicide.
At that moment the phone rang, hesitant for a minute, picked up the receiver I answered,
“Hello”
the voice belonged to Frances Dance,
“Johnny its Frances, did I wake you up?”
“No Frances, I’m awake”.
She questioned,
“Where have you been, I didn’t hear from you in a month?”
After I explained my situation and my hopelessness, she demanded I call 911 and ask for an ambulance to take me to a hospital’s emergency room.
“But Miss. Frances, I have no insurance”
“By law, no hospital can refuse you, don’t be a fool, call after I hang up”
“Okay. Frances, I will”
Fortunately her voice restored my confidence and prevented me from rendering to the devil.

Frances Dance was 95 years old and blind, she lived alone and from time to time I took her out to lunch. She insisted on paying the check and left a tip that had a ringing sound, loose change and an extra penny for good service. Though she was rich. I always reached for dollar bills from my pocket and compensated the servers without her knowledge.
Frances never touched what she ordered from the menu. Always asked for a doggy bag, took the food home, fed the cats roaming in her backyard and tore the bread in pieces for the birds.
She was happy to hear people and restaurant noises instead of being home alone living in the dark and praised the meal on wheel she received for free. Especially the Swedish meatballs that tasted rubbery.

For a long time I carried the best insurance policies, luckily I never had the chance to use them. Arriving to this stage of my life I was broke and couldn’t afford the premiums.
Go figure, I felt as a fresh flower in a healthy bouquet. Now I’m withering and wilting.
I never had headaches, not even hangovers while I was drunk and useless.

After Frances hanged up, I kind maintained a balancing act, slowly picked my self up hobbling with difficulty I managed to get to my front door and unlocked it, hopped back to my bed and called 911.
Ten minutes have passed and I hear a knock on my door, I knew it was the paramedics.
I shouted loudly from the bedroom,
“Open the door it’s unlocked”
I had to repeat the same words three times, every time they knocked harder I shouted louder.
As soon I hear the front door opened, I screamed,
“I’m in the bedroom”
Three paramedics showed up in my bed room, they lifted me out of bed and I was rested on my back in a stretcher.
“Which hospital you wanna go” said one of them
submissively I replied,
“You pick and choose, I’m in your hand”
Noticing my swelled foot he asked,
“How long you’ve been like this?”
“21days”.
Silent for a moment, I closed my hand together, bowed my head and closed my eyes. Unshaven and looking like a cave man consumed in prayers, probably the paramedic thought out my long days of suffering was an ecstasy in my way to sainthood and not of thorn bushed.
Unfortunately plagued for twenty days, challenged with anguish and suicidal adversity, and in a light of twenty minutes found my way surfacing at the hospital emergency room.
I beleive it was not a coincidence at that precise moment when I thought of ending it. Some kind of supernatural force was acting on my behalf and intervened, triggered a motion to have Frances call seconds before I acted.

The paramedics dropped me at the hospital emergency room and left. I was pushed to the side watching a single doctor with two nurses hustling trying to attend to other more severe patients. Two hours passed and when time came to wait on me the nurse uncovered the sheet and as soon she saw my burgundy swelled infected foot she called the doctor’s attention and he commanded to admit me and right away I was hooked will all kind of apparatuses and rolled into an elevator and to a room.

My room was on the fifth floor by the window. George, the other patient who shared the room with me was 91 years old pleading to his son who came to visit and happened to be a doctor, supplicating,
“Just give two more years”.
Both of his legs infected with gangrene and were ready to be chopped off.
I reckon he didn’t want that to happen. All he wanted two free years and a carte Blanche with full legs. The son tapped George on the shoulders with a simple, “okay”
Twenty minutes in the room, a nurse’s aid brought 2 trays of food. Doc lifted the cover and cheered,
“Chicken steak, mash potatoes and look here some apple pie!”
George lifted his head and got ready in attention if it was his last meal and gobbled the whole course in seconds. Doc smiled and was eased by the old man love of appetite.Left and forbade us good night.
A nurse aid came into the room and when she asked me if I wasn't hungry when she noticed that I didn't touch the food I told her I wasn't hungry and right there George asked if he could have my dinner and I asked the woman to give it to him.

After George had his dinner and mine the nurse’s aid came into our room, lifted George out of bed with a mechanical crane hooked to his bed. He was suspended in the air to change the sheets from under him.
An hour later George rang the bell for more Graham crackers and when the girl brought the crackers George said he was hungry and we talked for a while. He asked me what was wrong with me and I only said, "diabetic". With full breath and feeling at ease whispered,
“You’ll learn it is not a big deal”
George dosed off, flattened by his dreams into the abyss, searching for more.
I looked at the sky out the window searching too. I prayed and prayed and just prayed till the sun rose and penetrated the room.

When the morning came, the silence was broken from the laze of the night. The hospital started bustling with the day crew. One after the other, the three doctors who came to my room and checked my stigmatized foot. All concluded to surgically amputate my foot up to the ankle. My emotions swelled and I withdrew into a loathsome somberness. I was ready for stress management.
The night drew closer, it’s my second night in the hospital and my eyes were weary and heavy. I resumed my prayers. I stayed awake the whole night in delirium waiting for a revelation, wondering what might become of me if I loose my foot, by then sleep overtook me and I transited to dreamland.
I was under a surprising chock, but my mind held me in check and thought of it as a transition.
The next morning a new doctor walked in my room, and introduced himself as Doctor Muhammad Abdullah. After he diagnosed my infected foot I asked if he spoke Arabic, he replied “yes”. Then I got to the bottom of my inquest if amputation was the last resort.
When he noticed my sad and broken spirit, gently he assured me that he will try to salvage my foot, by surgically removing my toes first and will see what happens next.
And if the operation was successful I will be able to stand and walk as a normal person. Tears gushed out of my eyes, at last I felt relieved and Dr. Abdullah was heaven sent. Before he left the room uttered,
“Hang on and pray, it’ll do you good.”
I assured him I’ve been praying and told him,
“I guess the almighty had listen, and the sign was sending you to operate with healing hands”
and I meant it from the bottom of my heart.
I remembered my mother words from the past,
“Son I wish God turn sand into gold in your hand”
and I wished Dr. Abdullah the same, he smiled and left the room.

I think God was concerned in finding out exposing me to identify his existence.
When a person is tested it is not different than being judged and when you’re judged either you’re condemned or saved.
My trial was in the hand of my God and he saved me for my pure heart even I was a sinner.
One cannot escape or avoid destiny, it’s beyond human limits it acts to our side and against us. It is an agent force from heaven executing and transforming a sequence of life. It wasn’t by accident. I believe god used Frances and Dr. Abdullah as my vessel to salvation in a mysterious way. Suddenly it hit me, a slap in my face and I remembered the verse from the bible,
“Oh ye of little faith, don’t I feed and shelter the birds”.

A surge of courage started to build in me. God stood up intensely for my own justice, curing was coming and a force of healing working on my behalf powered my faith while having butterflies.
I followed where medicine was taking me. I have faith in the knowledge of medicine. It’s all about cure, survival and hope, the ageless question in the power of the spirit to survive and endure.

Fourteen days passed and after I was under the knife for three operations, I came out missing two digits with two big chunks on both sides on my left foot. The cardiovascular surgeons performed an excellent vascular transformation grafting a femoral pop.Four days after the last operation I was sent to a nursing home on my way to rehab and recovery.

That day changed the course of my life. The day destiny unleashed what it desired of me and alarmed its rude awakening with a strange drummer. No second coming for me, this is it, the last chance until the day I die and before my name is carved in stone I will be holding the chisel, and I who decide it to be a funeral or a parade.
What the music to be played, I leave the choice to my god who orchestrate the band, the infallible Maestro.

Everything that happened to me afterward is being born again in the spirit was riding on that day. The day of my redemption and I am not referring to Christianity, Islam, Judea or Buddhism or What ever you call him Allah, Elijah, or the samurai of heaven, he is the one and the only one for me my beloved maker.
A fresh cut flower placed in a vase, survives longer standing in water and that is the hope from the hand that picked it. I guess God was testing me for he cut me first then placed me in a vase and let me be.
Outside on the side porch I sit now and watched the cactus flower blooms before dawn, flagging the purity of its white leaflets, it is a sign from him for peace of life.


Now I’m in uncharted territory, driving with my hands the wheel chair through out the corridor of the nursing home.
The food was gluten and starchy, Oat bran, pasta and eggs. The nurses were overworked and underpaid, and some of the patients were very sick, others naughty.
For three months I shared my room with two other men. The first was a Haitian citizen, left to hospices at age eighty some. Never spoke or twitched, laid on his back waiting for the moment to expire.
His grandson I spoke with, when visited twice a week, said the hospital doctors couldn’t do a thing to keep the old man alive, for he was dying.
He never ate or drank. The food was taken away untouched for no one fed him. One morning he spoke looking at the ceiling and I couldn’t understand what he was saying in a low tone.
I got closer to his bed and bent my ear, he whispered in French,
“Monsieur du l’eau” (mister, some water)
he was thirsty and he sipped some from the straw I put in his mouth from a glass of water.
A week later a Haitian young priest dressed in street cloth came to the room sat by his bed side with the bible open, and read versus, in the mean time asking the old citizen to repeat after him.
The priest was reading from a French bible and mentioned (Jayzu) in Creole several time, meaning Jesus, the sick man was uttering with halfway open eyes “oui, oui” in French and the impression on his face was serene and calm. He knew that his moment is near to be with his maker.
The Haitian citizen died and they transported his body to the Funeral home on a stretcher. His grandson shook my hand while they took him out of the room and thanked me for attending to him.
He was a total stranger who crossed my path on his last journey and all he asked was a drop of water for he thirsts and that was a sign of his last holding wishes, plain offering from nature and heaven!

A week later Mr. Black became my new roommate, he said he was from West Virginia, and a piano player.
He fought with the nurses and wouldn’t budge for a drop of blood to measure his glucose. He complained to the nurses, that perking his finger for a sample of blood was painful and harmful to his career.
He insisted it was to protect his fingers from being damaged and pierced, for he was suppose to do a concert and was going to perform a musical opera in front of his enchanting audience. He says.
Musician he was and I testify to that. His three sons came to visit him on a daily bases the first two weeks. One flew from the service from California and the other two from the Bahamas. All three acted civilized and gentlemanly.
Mr. Black was up in age and had advanced Dementia symptoms, while we talked, he implied,
“My sons are trying to take control of my money and I bet you their wives are opening the drawers in my condo taking my stuff”
He hinted they all wanted his money.
One day out in the yard I spoke to his younger son and I found out that Mrs. Black was in the hospital and Mr. could not be left alone on his own so they decided to enroll him in the nursing home plus he needed three times a week to be hooked to a dialysis machine to cleanse his blood.
Unless left alone at his condo and that might be impossible since no one of his sons live near, they had to fly back to their wives and kids in different places.
Mr. Black kept bugging his sons, he wanted to go home and was assuring that he will cook and take care of his wife. He begged and begged like a little kid in a toy store.
But he was not capable of doing so, and he didn’t know that his wife was fighting for her life in some hospital.

One day Mr. Black went to the rest room that we shared in our room and closed the door. Half an hour later I had to go. In a ten minutes cession I knocked three times and he didn't answer. I started thinking maybe he fell down or something happened to him. When I pulled the door slightly to check on him Mr. Black was lounging, sitting on the toilet seat looking dazed. his reading glasses fallen beyond his nose checking his fingers, talking to himself and lost in orbit. A little bit chocking how the mind strip a person from control of time and reality.
I asked him several times how he felt and somehow he could not understand how I had to repeat myself as an idiot standing in front a lost person.
So I invented the story that I saw a snake in the bathroom, and in a split second he got up holding his pants halfway to his knees, and fearfully said,
“Where is that reptile?”
and stormed out of the bathroom.
After that incident he kindly asked me to check if I had seen the snake in the bathroom and I urged him to be quick when he needed to take his constitutional right and I meant no prejudice.
I was in a wheel chair with all my senses in tact except I couldn’t control my physical urges while he made the situation leaky for me

Mr. Black drifted in his talk and one the nurse explained to me his condition, she said Mr. Black was confused and lost, he has progressed into dementia. They send brain picker doctors to the room twice, and I hear how they asked him questions. The nurses filled a complaint that he was stubborn and uneasy while they attended to him. Some days he refused to take his medication, asking all kind of questions to why they given him that stuff, thinking the nurses are out to get him.

One day Mr. Black requested a piano to be delivered to our room so he could let his fingers roll, for that was his bread and butter, singing lyrics while the piano keys rightly pressed.
His younger son brought an electric mini lap top piano to the room and Mr. Black was a true musician as he boasted, played the impossible dream and sang while the nurse applauded him and I followed. Mr. Black took it to the house!
He had mastered the piano and his fingers knew the right notes and I knew I was in the presence of a cultured African American fellow with an artistic quality.

Couple of times I unplugged the electrical cord, for Mr. Black was inspired after mid night and played his music but I had to sleep and I explained to him that the nurses want it him to rest and conserve his energy, because the main event is approaching and I’m delighted to attend the concert the day of his performance due.
At that time he switched on me and even remembered my name and allowed me the benefit of the doubt and said,
“Johnny you’re a slick guy”, laughed and said “good night”
I wished him pleasant dreams and both we turned off the light and went to sleep.

One morning when I got up Mr. Black had dismantled the cover from the wall air conditioner unit. He said he was cold. All he had to do is turn off the unit or unplug it!
He was trying to stop it by taken it apart. It is how his mind works poor fellow was loosing it.

The nursing home was home to the broken, the sick and the addict, generally two third of the population were advanced in their geriatric disease acceleration. Some were on fixed minimum income, alone in the word and some have taken comfort to furnish and pep up their rooms.
The patient in room 308 had gray white hair and very old in a coma. Every single night a group from his family showed up and stayed by his bed reading the bible to him, he was breathing and don’t want to let go, always asleep. His room was the quietest. Three month later I left and the poor man was still hanging on.

One week in the nursing home I was kind of locked in a room on my back. A nurse aid brought a wheel chair and asked me if I like to go outside on the patio to get some fresh air as she bragged it was a beautiful night.
Since my ordeal started at home, at the hospital and now in the nursing home for a month and a half, this is the first day I was going to breathe fresh outdoor air while I had cabin fever and I do remember that night.
She rolled me out to the patio and left. I was all alone, it was pass mid night. I checked the sky it was clear as a mirror and glittered with stars. This was almost the end of February then I was checking the surrounding and there I saw a large tree leafless and dry and looked sickly. I looked up to the sky and I started thanking god and you might not beleive me when I say I felt his presence.

The following morning I was out in the patio early after breakfast was served. I looked at the tree that was leafless the night before, now it was full of leaves in foliage emerald color. I don’t know how it blossomed!
I realized it was during the after mid night hour somehow the tree was alive and full of life
I took that as a message from god that I too will be given the chance to prosper and flourish into health and recovery, and green is the color of living and rebirth.
I went back to my room, took a pen and wrote three words (God was here) went back to the patio and stuck the paper in a hole in the tree.
That day I came to reckon god was always around listening to my prayers from the get go, I thought the all mighty had a deaf ear, but I reckon one must wait and hope and believe and if you do those things you will be dancing in the rain.
Three months later and after such ordeal, I walked out of rehab pushing a walker. I was learning how to walk again. What an exhausting transitional period.

How shallow I am to be with my desires, my heart is stampede with charms and the feeling of fire burns in my soul. I am satisfied my lord for the flame you induced in my life, to shined my way, melting the frost I endured in my winter days.
I declare and consider your reverence. Without reproach, I must proclaim before I vanish.

If indeed God created the universe, it is chimerical. If indeed God created men, it is the gift of life. If indeed I am a part of God’s conceptual make up, I am a believer.
If indeed I am a believer then I must be a mindless volunteer of faith and a prisoner of hope.
Whatever happens in God’s domain only God knows, but what happened in my heart I know when my mind declared his presence, and my soul felt the impact.

Looking at God’s face is like an early wakening in match with dawn, the earliest hour in the morning when the sun is soft and the sky serene. As far the melody you hear, a little bird is singing, hiding in a tree and happy to be alive. If you are hurt, seek God’s face for a treat of relief. That upside down feeling that crept on you will fade away and while he is embracing the earth you fall under his shield and spell.
Yes, God is there if you allow him to enter your soul. God is bliss in mishaps, a rush of wanting from under the currents while being swept away in messy ocean. Still he might not have saved you, he forsake you to save yourself, maybe because you’re not anxious enough for his appeal.
God is real if you allow him to be.
Dash across his path and you will be on the right track. He will find you and guide you.
You never know when you wake up and what the day brings. It is paradox when you do not perceive a course. Every second is his events and everything correlates to his adjustments.