Chapter Thirty Four:
The (Divine) Dislocation
The days of the Earthworks job were brutal. I was so out of my element…. I would work as a labourer, or as a traffic flagger, but I had no interest in what was happening on those jobs and I would always be thinking about other things. It was as if God was saying to me all of that time,... “This isn’t where I want you to be! You need to change something” I think in hindsight that this was Divine power. I was not suited for that type of work, so I struggled with it, Divinity allowed that and caused it to happen….
For the first few months of my employment , I worked about two days a week, then Christmas came and I was laid off…, Divinity caused that to happen too….
In the spring I started again with the Earthworks company and it wasn’t any better. Everything felt so “off.” Like, I was not supposed to be there, like I was in the wrong place doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons. I think that there is a force guiding all events and things and people and situations, and I think that that force was causing me to feel those things. The same force, (Divinity, the Tao…) decided one day in 2021 that it was time to really give me a shove out of that environment. Here’s how it happened:
I was working away, one morning, and I decided to pick up the pace, and I quickly, without looking at my footing, unknowingly stepped on a big lump of clay and my ankle rolled and there was a terrific “snap!” sound, and I went down like a ton of bricks! I was wearing a pair of boots that I liked because of the style but they didn’t have laces and so, they provided very little ankle support. I hit the ground hard and was instantly aware of a terrible burning pain in my ankle, and when I looked up at my foot, which I had elevated in the air instinctively, the foot was cocked sharply to the side in a grotesque distortion from its normal anatomical position! That sight, coupled with the snapping sound and the burning spasms of extreme pain, sent me into a terrible state of mental shock…!
“Holy F*ck, look at my f*cking foot!” I shouted, my voice urgent and panic stricken,....
My co-worker, that I had been working alongside that morning, a young and wiry fellow who was an equipment operator and a labourer, who was working with me that morning, throwing pylons and shoveling, was standing right next to me when it all happened. He looked at my foot, that I was pointing to,....
“Holy F*uck!.... He exclaimed in disbelief and surprise, as he took in the grotesquely distorted ankle,...!
“How am I gonna fix my foot!?” I screamed out in agony!
One after another, my co-workers began to shut off their machines and gather around the place where I lay on the ground, marvelling at my foot elevated up and me crying out various questions and pleas for somebody to help me,....All of my co-workers stopped their tasks and wandered in to take in the spectacle….
If there ever was a situation where a medical emergency happened and nobody had any clue how to act or what to say, this was it! Growing up, I had been a very strong swimmer and I had taken many life-saving courses, and now, I realized there was not a single soul there, at that incident, who had the slightest idea how to treat medical shock! They were supposed to be reassuring me, getting me blankets, reassuring me more, (especially with the contorted and deformed ankle) and they were supposed to be calling for an ambulance right away! They were supposed to be getting me to talk about something important to me, my family, my kids, my dreams, my favorite foods, (anything!) Where I wanted to go after work, my best friend, my favourite thing!... Anything!!!! But all they did was crack inappropriate jokes! All I could do was lay there in pain and deafening silence as the guys all paced awkwardly around! I kept thinking that the ankle was perhaps broken because of the loud and distinct “popping” sound that I had heard only a minute before. Now there was just awkward silence,....
The one young co-worker knew enough to ask me if I wanted my leg elevated,..., just one person out of about 13 people, he covered me up. The rest of the guys, paced around nervously, sometimes trying to help me with their attempts at humour, it was all they could do,... It really was extremely irritating! They should have told everyone to leave the area and simply had one or two people there to take care of me, but they did nothing!
In reality, I had severely dislocated my ankle. It was by far the most pain I had ever experienced, by far!
“Maybe we should throw him in the loader and dump him in the hole!” a guy joked…. I was in so much distress, it really wasn’t the time or the place for humour, but I just laid there and tried to breathe steadily….
After a gruelling 40 minutes of watching these helpless men debate the merits of calling an ambulance versus transporting me in the safety hand’s pick up truck, I finally broke the painful silence:
“Is it because of the cost that you don’t want to call an ambulance? Or why is it?” I urgently questioned the manager,...!
“No! It’s not because of cost at all! The safety hand replied reassuringly….
“Well, then, could you please call an ambulance??! I pleaded…!
I was terrified of even the thought of moving my foot the slightest bit. It was so painful. I was worried that my ankle was broken nastily and that the artery in the foot had been severed and that I was bleeding out internally with each passing second! The safety guy from the Earthworks company was talking to the safety guy from the primary contractor about the merits of just lifting me into his pickup truck,... blah, blah, blah, blah– more experts and authorities that were literally clueless! It was a terrible idea, because I was in too much pain and too much shock. I had been kicked in the face, bitten by a large dog, fallen through a greenhouse window, tazed by the police and suffered many other injuries in my life but this was by far the most painful!
From that point on, after I had pleaded for them to call an ambulance, things improved little by little.The ambulance arrived and I was given laughing gas by the paramedics. Next, I was lifted onto a stretcher, and put into the ambulance. Next, the paramedics administered fentanyl via injection into my body, to relax me and lessen the pain. Then they cut my boot open and removed the boot, which was still excruciating. I shouted out at the top of my lungs while they pulled off the boot, but they had to remove the boot in order to determine exactly what kind of injury they were dealing with, as soon as possible. I was worried that the brachial artery in my foot had been severed and that I might be losing blood. They were ruling that out by taking off the boot. I was driven to the hospital and in a few minutes there was a team of medical professionals surrounding me and preparing to anaesthetise me. They were very good at it all, for the most part. I asked them when they would be knocking me out and they replied “We already have, Jesse, the procedure is all finished….” I could hardly believe it! I was so relieved….
The whole incident was extremely traumatic, and stressful, and to make matters worse the safety hand from the Earthworks company was unprofessional, unempathetic, and inappropriate, hounding me constantly,… asking me about the diagnosis… by text “...is it broken?” Any news? “Please let me know!..” He was very concerned about his paperwork,..., that was crystal clear….
As soon as I got word I texted him. “It’s dislocated.” “Oh that’s great news!” He only cared because of the implications for his company and his work load. I went home and I was so exhausted, but the safety person from the Earthworks company kept badgering me, telling me that no matter what, that I had to show up at work the next day, and he kept telling me
‘You have to do this and you have to do that…” It made a very strong impression on me, that he didn’t care much about me.
The next day, I had to work. There was no question about it. From the very beginning the “safety hand” was grouchy and curt with me and he made a point of telling me he and his company were very disappointed with me, because at the time that I got injured I hadn’t been wearing the required safety glasses! Huh? I thought! What did that have to do with anything!? Next the safety hand was asking me to do a vast amount of reading of his safety files and then he wanted me to make changes that I thought might be necessary,… , it was like he was punishing me for injuring myself! It was extremely bizarre, but it was as if the Divine force was saying to me:
“Jesse, stop what you are doing! Stop what you are doing for work, stop your daily routines and examine everything! Just leave this company, this isn’t a suitable job for you…, just look at what you are doing with your life, everyday, just look at the type of work you are doing! What do you want for yourself? Why do you do this work? Why are you doing what you do, why? Why do you do what you do?
After a few days doing the reading, ignoring all the signs that life (Divinity) was placing in front of me, again and again and again,... I was asked to clean some trucks in the shop. I did it, climbing up into the cab of big Kenworth trucks,..., all the while wondering to myself,... “What am I doing here?”
In the mechanics shop, nobody spoke to me, and I was filled with uneasiness and anxiety! I would spend 8 hours sweeping the shop, going over the already clean floor, bewildered at the entire situation and I felt so out of place. It was like some force was trying to cause me to see it. After about 3 weeks of awkwardly and anxiously pretending to look productive, I got cleared to go back to work by a doctor, but when I got cleared by a doctor to return to work, the company didn’t call me to go back! I was incredulous!
Finally about two weeks later, to my astonishment, I got laid off! I was so upset, but,... it turns out it was actually part of a series of events that would lead me to a new life full of more agreeable circumstances and a great decrease in anxiety…. This was all the beginning of a series of events, and my life had begun to change, even though I didn’t realize it,..., soon things began to change, drastically,... for the better.