Christian Short Stories

Web writes: "I am a former soldier, mill worker and newspaper reporter finds himself on the edge."

I'm kneeling at the fount.

Except there is no fount.  It's just an awkward position.

Well, at least it's awkward looking. My wife thinks I fell, or perhaps that I might be praying. Either one would be logical.

But No; unfortunately, that isn't the case.  It's just about the only position in which my back pain has subsided to where I feel reasonably comfortable. So don't bother me.

Nevertheless, a couple of things do bother me, though.

What if the telephone rings?  --  the cell on the table.  What if someone comes to the door?  Or what if I have to go to the bathroom? Any one of the three means I would have to get up carefully and fly/stumble  to the table or the wall. The pain has been, and would be, excruciating and I have been experiencing dizziness when I first get up.  A lousy situation.
 
Let the wife get it?  No.  She's gone out the door to visit her brother up the street. Poor Norma: She's had to put up with so much since this happened. So I'll just have to stay put and ignore things.

When she returns perhaps this time she won't screech. I'll probably try to get up to greet her, but... arghh.

She'll say something like, "Poor hubby."

Well she finally said one morning, "We need to go back to Portland.  So we can connect with the family doctor (one very good one, Dr. Gordon Canzler), get a referral to a specialist (in  this case a neurosurgeon), schedule surgery, and get that darn thing taken care of."
 
Well, we did that.  And the Arizona nurse practitioner (or was she a doctor?), had given me some dynamite pills (super drugs, with strict orders to keep taking the junk.)  I knew when I would try to come off them I would be like an addict trying to kick this new habit cold turkey.

Well, the day we came home to Portland Norma was able to arrange it, but we had to go on separate flights, with hers arriving a half hour before mine.  We had arranged to meet near the security section.

When I disembarked, I found myself with a heavy bag at the far end of the airport.

I began walking toward the main corridor (the security section). The horizontal escalators I was looking forward to using, were not operating because crews were working on them.  "Please forgive our inconvenience," signs said.

"Oh yeah," I said, "First chance I get."

Not only was my walk painful, but I was super dizzy. Finally, I got to the main concourse, I saw Norma and staggered over to hand her my bag.

I was so dizzy -- I tended to lurch forward and down to the left -- that when I went to hand Norma my bag, I just kept going forward, tripped over the bag and knocked her down and I tried (I guess) to topple the man standing next to her.

Norma and I both crashed to the floor. I banged my head and she fell onto her shoulder. Everybody came running, saying "ooooh."  Embarrassing.

Norma said, "No strike... you left the 7 pin standing."

Somebody ran and got a wheel chair and they wheeled me over to the airport elevator down to the light rail station.

When we got home we called the doctor, got the referral, and proceeded to have an MRI, but had to wait a week so see the specialist.

So there I was again -- kneeling at the fount (using the bed, or my favorite living room chair), in the same awkward position.

I thought I was a gonner. The pain became awful even in that awkward contortion. I said some prayers as I would anyway. And my whole life began to pass before me: my military days; all my jobs; my grade school days, and even when I was a toddler.

God has a way of reminding us of all the not-so-good stuff that we do.

So, the day before the scheduled surgery, I told my wife, "Say goodbye to all my friends ashore...  this tub (my body such as it is) is sinking."

Well, the surgery was a month ago. I feel like a human being again. God is forgiving. But He sure let me know that all has not been tickety boo.

Now if I can just come down off these darn pain-killing meds...

(© 2014 Web Ruble – All rights reserved. Written material may not be duplicated without permission.)