MICHAEL & HEATHER COLLETTO

Late Wednesday night, I woke up with lower back pain that was strong enough to make me cry.  (Studies show that it doesn’t take much to make Heather cry.) I didn’t sleep much the rest of the night, and when I got out of bed on Thursday, I was convinced the sharpness of the pain was telling me that I just really, really needed to pop my back.

I twisted and turned at the hips like a warm-up stretch, thinking that would help.  The next thing I knew, Mike was dragging me to bed because I had blacked out from the pain.

I laid in bed with ice for a few hours, reading and hoping it would go away.  I had a work meeting a few minutes down the road, so I somehow got myself onto my bike, kick-started it (still not sure how I managed that), and was dismayed in my meeting to realize that I could not feel my right leg at all.  When I got home, I collapsed onto my bed and did what any civilized person would do:  I called my Mom and Dad.

Our dear friend (and nurse!) Lynette came over with some anti-inflammatory pills and muscle relaxers (and books!), which helped with the pain.  For the next few days, with Lynette and Dr. Dad’s help, I stayed in bed with my medicine.  We don’t have internet at our house, so I read a lot.

Unfortunately, our visas required us to check-in at the nearest Thai/Burmese border on Monday.  We had made plans to take the one-hour bus ride to Mae Sai earlier in the week, but decided at the last minute to go on Friday instead, when we would have more time to shop in the border town.  When I remember ourselves literally standing at the bus doors with its engine running, I want to yell, “Just get on the stupid bus!”  The trip to Mae Sai–motorbike, bus, tuk tuk, and back–was not possible, nor was paying $30 in fines every extra day we delayed.

We took Kevin up on his very kind offer to drive us, since I had to remain on my stomach or back.  He rented a car, I laid down in the back, and Mike practically carried me over the Burmese border.  I must have looked like the most suspicious farang ever.  When they asked me to sit down for my photo, my knuckles were white and I was shaking and sweating.  Clearly, I had a backpack full of drugs.  But we made it without any problems.

That afternoon, “by chance,” a church group from Hawaii visited SOLD’s Resource Center in the afternoon to learn about our work.  Rachel or Mike told them about my injury, and a few of them insisted on praying over me.  God will not leave me alone in this country.  Before I knew it, in the middle of Buddhist Thailand and acres of rice fields, there were half-a-dozen followers of Jesus laying hands on me and praying for me in my own bedroom.  God is pretty ridiculous like that.

By the time Tuesday morning rolled around, I hadn’t been able to feel much in my right leg for four days.  Lynette and Dad kept wanting me to go to the hospital, but there wasn’t really a way to get me there, since riding a motorbike was out of the question and I couldn’t exactly lay down in the back of a pick-up truck.  So, Lynette and Blah called me and said they had borrowed a car, they were on their way, and there was nothing I could do about it.  The next thing I knew, I was on a stretcher at a private hospital in downtown Chiang Rai, telling Lynette and Blah that I would probably thank them eventually, but that I was really mad at them for the moment.

Posted by: collettostories Category: Thailand Tags: back pain, Burma, Chiang Rai, Heather, hospital, injury, prayer, visas