ALL BECOMES CLEAR
ALL BECOMES CLEAR
I awoke at three and couldn’t get back to sleep so I threw on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and went outside to sit on my front porch to relax.
I heard the clicking of nails on pavement and saw a tall dog, no, a coyote round the corner prancing on the sidewalk, not twenty feet away. As it drew parallel to me it slowed just a tad and shot me a brazen, casual glance and then it resumed its journey.
I’d seen the warning signs posted that coyotes were emerging from a nearby park to forage in our neighborhoods and had heard that one had menacingly threatened a woman with her small child before being scared off by a passing car. I never thought I’d see one boldly traipse past in my vicinity.
Still tired and just a little fearful, I got undressed and climbed back into bed. It was Saturday and I didn’t have to go to work.
It was still dark when an explosive pain in my right hip jolted me awake. As I tried to swing my legs off the bed I realized it was a king size charley horse.
I’d had them before but never in this area and not in this magnitude. I tried to massage my muscle but couldn’t lean forward or turn to either side. When I tried to stand the pain intensified and flopped me back onto the bed in agony.
I had awakened my wife and she was groggily at my side offering to help.
“Relax,” she said, and I tried very hard to do just that. The pain would not subside and I realized I was totally immobilized by this whopper of all cramps. Although we’ve been married thirty eight years, I was still embarrassed when my wife had to put on my socks, shoes and pants as I couldn’t bend over to do it myself.
We prayed to God to take away the pain and it helped me relax enough to the pain tolerable – if I didn’t move. Why was this happening to me?
I saw two doctors within the next five days who prescribed heat, massaging and Hydrocodone for the pain. The epicenter of the pain kept rotating between my hip and various parts of my upper thigh and I couldn’t sleep because it was always constant somewhere. I had lost my appetite completely.
Bawling like a baby and more frustrated and helpless than I had ever been before, my wife drove me to our hospital’s emergency room where X-rays and further evaluation by yet another doctor failed to render a diagnosis. This doctor gave me Cortisone and anti-inflammatory injections and prescriptions for Cyclobenzaprine, to relax my muscles, and Prednisone, which is a powerful steroid, which seems to be a physician’s escape hatch when all other medications fail. And he gave me one for Oxycodon, which is dangerously addictive but somewhat effective.
Later that morning I was desperate enough to hobble into the tiny office of a kindly Chinese gentleman who worked on my pain with acupressure and hair thin needle acupuncture. His effort was admirable but he could not relieve the pain.
We returned home and prayed but the pain now seemed permanent, like luggage I would have to carry for the rest of my life.
My right knee had begun to throb from the contorting I was doing to find comfortable positions and by applying firm pressure on points around the pain’s ground zero. My right leg would no longer support my weight when I stood. My wife rummaged through our closets and found an old walking stick.
It was a sturdy oak cane with a handle and a leather wrist strap and looked just like the leg of a deer. Wielding it with my left hand, it helped me relieve the pressure on my right side and allowed me to walk.
It was becoming apparent to me that I was acting like an ogre and made a concerted effort to not inflict my suffering on others around me.
An appointment with an Orthopedic surgeon dismissed the need for surgery but finally yielded results as he prescribed Soma, a maximum strength muscle relaxer, and during the first night my pain was at long last reduced. It had been a twelve day ordeal and might still persist as the once-a-day pill wore off.
I sat on my front porch before dawn, thanking God the pain had diminished and prayed I would soon be able to resume my normal life and eating habits.
My contemplation was interrupted by a loud snort and I looked up to see a coyote, crouched down and facing me from the sidewalk that led up to my house. It was bathed in street lamplight and our eyes met. I sympathized with it briefly as we were kindred spirits, each searching for some comfort, some sustenance we didn’t have but desperately yearned.
Then it sprang and raced toward me, lips parted, teeth bared, a stream of saliva dripping from its maw. Three long strides and it leapt at me as I rose and stepped to the right and with a Babe Ruthian home run clout, struck its forehead with my cane.
I hardly altered the creature’s course but it struck the stone wall behind where I’d been sitting and collapsed, splayed like a Cornish game hen at my feet. I could see the whites of its eyes as it gazed up at me and then they fluttered and closed.
I summoned the police who called in animal control and the coyote began to stir after it was muzzled and had had its legs tied together.
“You don’t know how lucky you are,” said a police officer. “These coyotes are becoming increasingly bold in their search for food and I can see that this one bears the wound that some teenage boy inflicted on it with his skateboard as he was being chased the other day. Your actions may have saved someone from harm, or maybe even someone’s life if this animal had been permitted to continue its aggression.”
“You’re very fortunate you had some sort of weapon,” the animal control officer said while pointing at the cane I was using for support to stand.
As I looked at my wife, our eyes began to well with tears as the truth had revealed itself.
I often sat on my front porch.
I never brandished a weapon. Why would I?
Why did I have the cane with me in the first place?
We suddenly knew why I had been stricken with my illness and I was more thankful to God than before.
Wow!!! What an amazing story! Thank you so much for sharing this as my heart is very very blessed! I have been hearing about these coyotes from my Cali facebook friends lately! I have had a very hard time not being there to help in any way and this just shows me, to once again, TRUST! “Suffering produces perserverance, preserverance character, and character hope. And that hope does not disappoint!” (Romans 5: i think verse 3 or 4).
I came home late from work last night and saw this on the refrigerator and wanted to read it then but was distracted. This morning i saw it and sat down and read it . I was in such aw of the Lords grace i just sat there and cried. I was thinking about Job and all that he went through and how God had greater for him even though the suffering was so great. I am so thankful for your story and how through all this God definetly had greater for you and spaired you.Thank you so much for sharing this if i can figure out how to post this on facebook i will.
Sincerely,
Elaine Stein
Hi Michael,
I enjoyed the story, it had a happy ending and I like happy endings.
Is this a story or did this actually happen to you? I’m terrified just thinking about it. Let me know.
The coyote part was fiction, I read your disclaimer.
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