Chapter Ten - Part Three
At the Unitarian Church I became friendly with Jennifer Wade, a short Indian-born woman, whose struggles on behalf of the downtrodden spanned at least three continents. Her courage sometimes amazed me. Yet in the end her conservative stands on some topics ended our friendship.
I also realized that I knew very little about many things compared to some Unitarians. "I never knew professionals until I came to this church," a very active member of the church once told me.
"I didn't know muac about many subjects," I replied. In the late 1990's I started to study on my own sociology, mathematics, biology, economics, geography and other introductory college courses. If I had problems with the subjects I was studying I just brought the problesms to the church on a Sunday morning. Here, I usually found someone who taught the subject I was studying at a community college or a university.
Soon I enlarged my knowledge of the world quite a lot.
Yet then my body woke me up again and told me to take care of myself.
It started in the late summer of 1996. I hobbled down a hill with a small pack on my back. I felt a twinge in my right knee. Then over the next month or so, the twinge morphed into a brutal pain that ran up the length of my right leg and lodged itself ever so painfully into my right hip.The pain was so great at times that I thought of killing myself. What did I have, I wondered.
"I think it soundsd like sciatica," one nurse told me. Yet the new doctor I had just switched to, kept telling me, "There's nothing wrong with you. Just ignore the pain and you'll get better." Alas, the pain just got even worse. I was soon confined to a wheelchair writhing in pain, especially a night times.I needed a rescuer ands once again someone came to my rescue. Once more I realized that I was a lucky man.
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