Tag: clinic

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Next stop. San Antonio

I nudged the clinic door. It opened and I inched toward a desk behind which sat a dark-haired middle-aged lady. The receptionist. A pain shot through my back at the waist line. My knees buckled but I caught myself, barely dodging a crash to the hardwood floor.

“Óh, sir!” Her concern was genuine. She indicated a chair. “Here. Right here.” I eased into it, contorting my limbs and back in a few deft maneuvers.

“The doctor will see you in just a minute. Another slow turn and I was seated, a trace of perspiration beading my eyebrows. Thanking her with a silent nod, I began filling the first-visit patient form. After a couple entries, I had relaxed enough to reflect on the event sixteen hours that brought me now to this house-turned-clinic.

A wry smile momentarily hijacked my features. If Francis could see me now.

Shortly before our San Antonio move, my co-worker at Tulsa’s North American Aviation had asked what job awaited me in the Alamo City. Now, between winces, I imagined his I-told-you-so if he could meet up with me today in this bone-cruncher establishment (the average chiropractor of the era hoped to see his specialty one day rise above the “snake-oil peddler” status it was often relegated to).

Well, Francis, it’s like this. Down at the corner of Caldera and Bandera there’s this Phillips 66 station. . .

Midafternoon yesterday I had grabbed two car tires, each of them encircling its own heavy rim. Lifting a heavy load while swiveling to another direction defied sound judgment. This insight was shouted to me from that waist line point along my spinal column.

But fifty minutes from entering Dr. Brown’s clinic I left convinced a miracle-worker had signaled magic to my miserable frame. Unlike at my entry, I exited the premises without a whimper. The bone-cruncher enterprise had won my vote.

This early encounter into our South Texas move served as a kind of preview for my wife Ann and me. Twists and turns of our movements ahead would usher in adventure, discovery. Pain would play its role.

How do you turn a Pentecostal into a Baptist, then to something other, and still retain qualities of each.

A fellow with the middle name of Worthy crossed my path. I was never the same.
©2017 Jerry Lout

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The Swarm

Wheeling the car onto the dusty grounds of Kehancha Clinic with my latest patient on board I took in a distressing sight. A little girl not yet two, crying pitifully as the mother on whose lap she sat, labored in vain to console her.

These and others made up a gathering line of ill and injured awaiting their turn to be seen. The group, most strangers to one another, sat on a shallow wooden bench butted against the clinic’s outside wall. Bare spots in the building’s whitewashed veneer marked areas where chunks of plaster had at some point released their hold.

My attention kept returning to the small child, her eyes clamped as if glued shut,  her face ballooned out, a tormented ball of puff.

I never learned the child’s fate, just the tale of what brought her to the clinic – a swarm of bees descending without warning from upper branches of a tree. Her older siblings, seconds earlier happily playing beneath the tree’s limbs, had fled in a panic, leaving the little one the bee’s lone target.

Killer Bees. A term suited to theatre marquees promoting the latest horror film. Some years after the distressing scene at the village clinic, a ferocious swarm nearly cost a friend of mine his life.

“Ray, what’s going on with the dogs. . . sounds like they’ve gone crazy.” The missionary couple moved to a window to see their two beloved German Shepherds taken in a wild frenzy, crying, barking. Without pausing, Ray rushed outside. Margaret watched as he raced across the big open farm yard. Then looked on in horror as she witnessed the stinging bees blanket her husband as well.

As Ray flailed at the dive-bombing attackers with one hand he worked frantically to free the dogs of their long running-leashes. “Come Princess!”

But the beautiful animal lay motionless, heavy against Ray’s hard tugging, already a casualty to the angry swarm.

The battle had only begun.

©2018 Jerry Lout

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Unrelenting

Ray was nonstop shouting as he rushed back in to the sanctuary of his house, “Marge, grab cushions, a pillow! Beat me. Knock the bees off me!” Ray was a tall man, athletic with a strong competitive streak. The Africa bees had attacked his six-foot, seven-inch frame with a frenzy exceeding his best moves against his fiercest opponent on the local Squash Court.

Slamming shut the front door behind her husband, Margaret pounded a pillow against him again and again. Buzzing attackers dropped to the floor while others clung to his arms, his neck and face. The Kenya climate called for dressing extra light during one’s leisure time at home. Ray wore cut-offs and scores of bees now darkened his bared legs. Still others moved about his hair and clothing.

Ray had been carrying a yelping bundle of fur when he raced through the doorway – their third canine, small and lovable. The missionary had snatched her up on his desperate rescue dash about the yard. Water had been drawn into a tub by Margaret and the insect-covered pup was thrown into it. Bees fell away and the poor, drenched animal – though crying, whimpering – seemed likely to have been saved.

With a strange wooziness now overtaking her husband, Margaret labored to get him past a second outer doorway and into their dusty-white Peugeot station wagon.

Ray sat half-slumped in the passenger seat as the car raced along the winding driveway and onto the Nakuru highway, anxious and prayerful Margaret at the wheel. They were ten kilometers from the nearest reliable clinic and, even with her gas pedal a bare inch off the floorboard, the racecourse speed of the station wagon felt slow-motion.

At last.

Gravel flew and the Peugeot halted amid a swirl of dust.

“We’re here, Ray.” Margaret had braked the car to a hard stop not far from the clinic’s entrance.

Ray was weakening with each passing second. Deadly toxins mingled in his bloodstream and Margaret knew he was fading. Laboring to escort him toward the clinic door, she whispered,

Jesus, let there be time. Please Jesus.

©2018 Jerry Lout

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Tired Pain

I nudged the clinic door. Inside I inched toward a desk. The dark-haired receptionist looked up just as another sharp pain shot across my back at the waist line. Knees buckling, I caught myself, barely dodging a crash to the hardwood floor.

“Óh, sir!” the lady quickly called out while indicating a chair. “Here, right over here. That’s right, slowly there. . .” Contorting my limbs and back in a couple odd maneuvers my bottom found a resting place.

 “The doctor will see you in just a minute. Here, I’ll get your paperwork” 

Another slow turn in the chair and fresh beads of sweat sprang to my forehead. I nodded a silent thank you and took the ‘first-time-visit’ patient form and ballpoint the receptionist offered. After a couple entriesI paused a moment and recounted the happenings of past hours and the tire-shop mishap that brought me here.

If Francis could see me now. I managed a twisted grin. 

Before our Texas move, my co-worker at the Tulsa Aviation plant had pressed me about the job he figured surely awaited me on arrival to the Alamo City. Between winces now, I could almost hear his “I-told-you-so” if Francis should see me today, here in this bone-cruncher clinic. . .

“Well, Francis, it’s like this, I landed a job down at the corner of Caldera and Bandera, at this Phillips 66 station. . .”

Why did I have to get in such a hurry?

 Twenty hours ago I had grabbed two car tires still encircling their heavy rims. Swiveling around while taking a step another direction was a move that shot a serious stab through my lower back. I reflected further.

Well, I started out lame – a polio baby, back in California. Then the limping picked up again when the same virus came to our Oklahoma hills. I should probably, here in Texas, be used to these kinds of hobblings by now. . .

“Alright, sir, the doctor can see you now. Just this way. Careful there, move slowly.”

Lessons on limping followed.

©2018 Jerry Lout