excruciating pain for 15 days without even a Tylenol? That’s what happened to Maria de Jesus. Maria fell on some steps and completely broke her right leg between the ankle and the knee. Her family took her to a doctor to have an x-ray but they couldn’t afford treatment or even any pain pills. They live only three blocks from the Food Bank and finally after 13 days some family members came to our clinic looking for help. We told them to bring Maria to the clinic but they said she was in too much pain to come.
So Jim Gallagher went to their home bringing some pain medication. He took the x-rays they had to a doctor friend in El Paso. “He looked at the x-rays and told me to bring Maria to his office right away, that he could help her,” Jim said. “So I got her a special permit to cross into the United States, which took 2 days, and then went to pick her up at her house.” Her family had somehow got a hold of an old wheelchair and had put a rough piece of plywood on it to prop up her leg. It was extremely painful for her to move at all, but she had to get in the car, out again at the bridge to process her permit, back into the car, and out again at the doctor’s office. “Going over every pothole and bump in the roads, especially in Juarez, caused her horrible pain,” Jim related. “She was gripping the seat so hard her hands turned white.”
In the examining room, the doctor cut off the flimsy gauze that had been wrapping her leg. “This is going to be extremely painful,” he explained to her kindly, “but I need you to scoot down to the end of the examining table so we can bend your leg and put a cast on it.” While he supported her ankle and knee, she tried to do what he said. She was terrified and pleaded, “Please don’t let my leg go!” He assured her he wouldn’t. Inch by inch, she edged her way down, praying and grimacing in pain the whole time. Once she was in position and the doctor had carefully bent her leg, the skilled nurses quickly went to work wrapping it with the pre-dampened cast material. Satisfied that all was in place, the doctor left the room for 10 or 15 minutes while the cast hardened. When he came back he asked Maria, “How are you feeling now?” She answered with a bright smile. For the first time in 15 days she was out of pain! He took another x-ray and everything looked great.
Maria and her family are so grateful. She can hobble around on crutches pain free. The whole family has started reading the Bible and praying together. “This has brought us closer to God,” she shared. “I can never thank Him enough for what He has done for me.”
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