"I'm Shocked"

I went to the doctor’s office alone on September 19^th.  As I was sitting in the lobby I texted my family a song that I’ve really loving dancing to at Church services in the past.

I really did have a little feeling inside of me that everything was going to be alright, but at the same time I was still nervous.  A lot of it was from the traumatic experience a month prior when I almost had a panic attack when they started to take off the wrapping.  Still now, a year later, I find myself nervous before doctor’s appointments.

They took me back – as was the custom – and took an x-ray of my foot.  Following that I waited for the doctor to come in.  When he finally did he talked with me about what we had discussed before.  He looked at the skin on my foot and said that it looked good and asked me if I was on antibiotics – I told him I wasn’t.  He always had me go on antibiotics before surgery, so I was expecting to hear him schedule me for the 4^th surgery.  After saying this he started looking at my x-rays and got real quiet.

He was quiet for about 2 minutes – which to me felt like forever – after which he looked up and said that my toe had begun to heal on its own.  He said that he was “shocked” and said that I may not need to have another surgery.  He said that if my healing progressed then I would likely have the pins taken out of my toe during my next visit in a month.

The whole thing happened so fast that I was dumfounded and didn’t know what to say.  It started to hit me when I was paying the co-pay for the visit, but it didn’t really sink in until I called my parents.

I talked to them on the phone and explained what had just been told to me.  At some point when I was explaining this I lost control of my emotions and started weeping on the phone.  I told my mom “They said I was going to lose 3 to 4 toes” and talked about the goodness and faithfulness of God.  My parents were in the room when the ER doctor had spoken those words.  They were there when I prayed the impossible prayer, and they were a great support that night ensuring that nothing would be amputated.

I told my mom how the doctor earlier had told me that this was impossible.  During my third surgery my wife had asked the doctor if there was any type of vitamin I could take that would help my healing.  Should I be drinking protein shakes?  His answer was always the same, “The toe isn’t broken, its obliterated.  It’s in a million pieces.  There’s nothing you can do to help this.”

My mom had actually gone to the doctor’s appointment just before this one and had remembered that he had said that.  She said that this really was a miracle from God.  Below are the text messages in my family’s chat about this.

My mind was blown.  But the pins were still in my foot and things still had to progress to avoid a fourth surgery.  The next appointment was a month away and my heart was still set upon the Lord.

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