I did not ride a horse on Palm Sunday
28th May 2014 · 0 Comments
By Fr. Jerome LeDoux
Contributing Columnist
Palm Sunday was just over a week away when the conversation turned to my annual horse ride around the block with church members in procession singing, “Ride on, King Jesus!” “No horse ride this year!” said Delores “D” Newton with a sternness and dryness that left no room for doubt. I looked up, shrugged my shoulders and acquiesced without a whimper. After all, my back and hip were on the mend but were at best marginal for a bumpety-bump ride.
The genesis of that conversation began months before when biting ice storms, snow and sleet from the far North had made their way down to Fort Worth, Texas so that by Saturday, December 7 past there was ice everywhere. With great difficulty, I got to the sacristy about noon to elevate the heat thermostat. Slipping and sliding, then clinging to the icy railing, I barely made it up the iced steps of the sacristy.
Returning from the sacristy was worse. I could hardly hold the icy railing. In order to avoid the exposed, sheer ice on the sidewalk, I stepped gingerly to the right where there was less ice exposed. That was a mistake! The nearby outside heating unit had somewhat melted the snow which later refroze. Thus the snow was almost as slick as the ice.
Slipping and sliding, I inched along with supreme caution. Nevertheless, not even my big shoes with decent sole traction could prevent my feet from shooting from under me, sending me down on my right hip. Fortunately, two friars from the next-door friary came along at that moment and helped me to my feet, greatly facilitating my elevating on the tricky ice.
Since the front steps are much more difficult to negotiate than the back steps of the church and were loaded with even more ice and snow, a worst-case scenario would have church members slip on those front steps and fall on the iced concrete. Furthermore, the exposed ice on the Terrell avenue paved area in front of the church was 16 feet wide and even more treacherous than the back area. Although getting here by car would be a challenge, far worse would be the near impossible footwork required even to stay upright, let alone move forward.
The die was cast. Without hesitation I went online, “Get the word out! No Saturday 5:00 p.m. mass! The ice is incredibly bad!” Shortly afterwards, I made the call for the Sunday morning Masses as well. Some of the folks were saying that they could not safely negotiate their own porch, steps, sidewalk and yard! The main preoccupation was safety/injury. Little did I know that my tumble would seriously weaken my right hip for the next four weeks.
Favoring that right hip seems to have set up the left hip for what followed after a lull of about six weeks. On February 21 — five days before my 84th birthday — I did what I had been doing for 30-plus years without ever injuring my back. Going under the armpits from behind, I lifted someone to stretch the vertebrae, thereby relieving sinusitis, headache and general pain.
There was a slight pop in the person’s back, but this time I heard a dull “thoomp” sound in my own back midway between the tailbone and middle back. I knew I was in trouble, but I hoped and prayed that it was not a ruptured or herniated disc that was signaled by the sound.
An MRI of my back ordered by Dr. Rowena Maclin showed that my lifting had caused a compression fracture of lumbar 3. I was not interested in pain pills, but the doctor produced a box of Salonpas pain relief patches and later two boxes of Bioflex (chondroiton/glucosamine) pills for healing the left hip that had quietly begun to give me considerable grief.
For three weeks, the back was so tender that I could get into bed but could not get out of bed without 15 minutes or so of skittish, concerted effort. Then, as suddenly as the tenderness had appeared, the vertebra fracture had knit and the skittishness and tenderness disappeared. But my amazing relief was tempered by the tender left hip that had me limping and moving slowly.
Inexorably, another four weeks had to pass before I could lift my left leg without wanting to shout “Halleluia!” Once more, as suddenly as it had begun, the mystery condition made its unceremonious exit, greatly assisted by Texas Health Centers neighbors of Dr. Maclin, physical therapy clinician Dorothy “Peaches” Sanders and Dr. Stacy Harris, the handy chiropractor.
When people warn me about lifting people, I quickly rejoin that the first thing that came to mind when I heard the dull “thoomp” was, “I guess at four score and four it is time to decide that my people-lifting days are over!” Only in an obvious emergency would I lift anyone.
Ever since 1982 when St. Martin de Porres parishioner Charles Kmiec provided me with a donkey in Prairie View, Texas, I have ridden on Palm Sunday with only four exceptions. This year was one of those exceptions when Mother Nature actually made the final call. It rained.
It is wonderful to feel well, good, pain-free and completely mobile again! Yes, you don’t miss your water till your well runs dry. As we age, we must read our body ever more intently and listen to it as it speaks to us. As the ancient Latin sage said, we want “A sound mind in a sound body.” “I came that they might have life and have it to the full,” Jesus says in John 10:10.
This article originally published in the May 26, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
