There were some experimental procedures being done in several parts of the world and arrangements were made for me to visit doctors in London, Italy and Spain. All of them said the same thing; the procedure is too risky for you. It is likely that the procedure would cause you to die sooner and be completely unable to move from the neck down.

The idea of the procedure was to break the spinal cord over and put a shunt or tubing inside the center of the spine slowing the rate of erosion in the cyst. My cyst went from C1 to T5 and was affecting most day to day functions. I went back to college at this point and learned to make jewelry. It was in college that I met a friend named Wanda, and she would become important in finding the girl of my dreams.

After college I tried to hold life together but ended up losing my family friends and all that I owned except for a little truck and a few belongings like my clothes and my bible. Everything that was left in my life fit in a small tool box in the back of a small Toyota pickup. At this point I left the state and went and lived in a pasture that belonged to my Brother in Alexandria La.

At my brother’s I was allowed to bathe from time to time but at his insistence, “I couldn’t disrupt his family’s life” so I was forced to sleep and live inside my truck. In order to obtain money I would go to the VA clinic in Alex. Here they would pay me 20 dollars a week gas money for coming in. The rest of the time I spent feeling sorry for myself and living in kind of a fog in my truck. I would ask God to kill me, I would ask God why I was where I was, and all the time I knew the answer. I had been running from God’s call on my life since the age of 15 and my choices had left me here where I found myself these many years later. Kind of like the prodigal son, I was in the pig pen almost literally. I heard God tell me two things every moment of everyday. Keep praying to me and stay in my word.

Every moment I prayed and it felt as though my prayers stopped at the roof of my truck. However I remained faithful and I read his word and prayed.

There were times in my reading that I would be crying so hard and looking through a fog so thick that I wouldn’t be able to read but one or two words over and over again. God would again tell me stay in my word and pray without ceasing. I did as he commanded because quite literally there was nothing else to do, but die. The Alex VA finally decided they had reached their limit with me, and so 6 months into my homelessness I would be sent to the Spinal clinic at the Houston V.A. Hospital. I hoped for great miracles in this move but they didn’t come as I would have expected. Remember the girl I went to college with, Wanda? I knew she lived around Houston although I didn’t know where. I called her and asked if she could possibly return a debt from where I had once let her park her camper in my driveway while we went to school. She eagerly agreed as we were good friends and it was later through her match making skills I would find the flesh of my flesh and the bone of my bones. My friend lived in the neighborhood of her family. Her house was in between a sister’s house on one side and her Mother’s house on the other. Here I lived in my truck in the driveway because she already had some house guests that were crashing on her couch. I tried to stay out of the way and offer help when I could. I had tried to be helpful; although I am sure most people didn’t really know what to do with me. Everyone was nice but what do you do with a homeless person that lives in his truck in your driveway? Continued next week…