Honduras
I’m not trying to be drama king.
This was some of the most pain that I have had in the last ten years.
90% of the day involved calling out to Jesus.
10% of the day involved failing at trying not to swear.
Thank the Lord for Tracy Hagar.
On this team Tracy has been a constant sense of peace, protection, and safety.
I felt very fought for by Tracy, Nidia, and the two teams in Honduras this day.
Woke up at two in the morn with pain in my stomach. I’ll spare you the details but bodily fluids flew for the next five hours. Lot’s of F’s in that sentence. Pun intended. It started getting worse in the morning. I began batting around the idea of going to the hospital for fluids. Our main contact had left the house by the time I stumbled down the hall to tell Tracy we needed to go. Aches and cramps were the most significant symptom. I had emptied my body the night before to the point that my legs began cramping.
I started crying even before we left. I’m thinking. Salley don’t be a pansy. You’re with the girl’s team this month. You’re crying over some aches and cramps. I couldn’t help it.
Tracy found our contact’s wife, Nidia (who is wonderful), still at the house to call a taxi. Tegucigalpa is thirty to forty minutes away and the pain was edging on 8 out of 10. I couldn’t help but think back to a similar experience back in 2006. Fear was setting in. Tracy guided me out of the ranch. Multiple times I went down on all fours attempting to walk the 100 yards from the ranch onto the dirt road to meet the taxi.
I asked Tracy for a pen and pad in the taxi to write down a few things: the meds I’m on, any major drug allergies, the fact I have no spleen, and to show her where my medic alert card was just in case. We decided the hospital in the city was too far away with me in this much pain. We settled on a private hospital with good care and a potential for English speaking doctors maybe twenty minutes away. I must have been hyperventilating cause my extremities became difficult to move during the car ride.
All the meanwhile, Tracy and Nidia interceded on my behalf.
I think the Spirit was interceding for me too.
Romans 8:26
“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.�
We make it there. I find a gurney and begin yelling for narcotics. Doesn’t really matter what it is at this point, just something strong, and something IV.
Tracy’s Spanish is average at best and Nidia’s English is good, but translating medical terms would be hard for any translator. That is until the Lord began showing me his providence. I mean, I knew He was with me. But this next part was wild looking back on it. My pain is 9 out of 10. If the pain had been momentary I probably wouldn’t say it was that high. But it has been 5 hours now since the pain began getting worse and I can’t take much more.
At first the doctors thought Tracy was my wife…well Tracy’s a babe so I went with it, plus I thought that would allow her to stay in the room but for some reason Tracy and Nidia weren’t allowed in the room. Before they left I started telling Tracy what to tell the doctors that I needed. Out of nowhere she begins translating my words in Spanish. I don’t know how she did it other than the Lord. Like I said, her Spanish is average at best but it seemed to flow in that moment. Tracy kept trying to come back to the open room I was in, and continued to get ushered away by the staff. The nurses hated her persistence of trying to stay with me.
Mom you would be proud.
Sidenote: My dad’s good buddy Chris Spano went to Dairy Queen with us one night shortly after my transplant. It had been three years battling cancer up to this point. He said something very simple and often used in cliché’s but I have always remembered it. He said, “this too shall pass.� I felt it to be true in that moment after three years of illness as much as I did in my current moment of deep pain screaming out for Jesus.
Back to the story.
My weakness this day was the result of a bacterial stomach infection. Something so small caused so much pain. So far on the race I’ve managed colds, infections, ameba’s, malaria, anemia, and healing for everyone single one. I guess this is what I’ve learned. Nearly half my life I’ve battled illness. Maybe this isn’t an imperfection of my body. Maybe it’s so Christ’s power can be made perfect in my weakness, so that Christ power may rest on me. I’m not really sure how Paul delighted in weakness but its something I’d like to shoot for.
I think there is something beautiful in our imperfections in that a perfect God chose to love us in, and through, our weaknesses.
