I WAS A HOT MESS INDEED, THAT DAY!

IT WAS TEN YEARS AGO THIS WEEK

New Beginnings in Christ began holding our annual "Bikefest" fundraising event with motorcycle ride, and day event complete with my special, delicious grilled chicken (remind me to give y'all the recipe, this year's Bikefest was held yesterday, and others do the cooking now).

I cooked the chicken for the first one, and the next five, year after year, ending with the one in May of 2016. It was just weeks after I founded this group here on Facebook. As usual, I had borrowed three large trailer mounted propane grills from Swainsboro merchants to cook the chicken.

We cooked enough chicken quarters to feed a few hundred people. That day as we were cooking, one grill kept going out, and I had to relight it several times. At one point, one of my NBIC helpers told me the grill had gone out once more, I asked him if it had only just then gone out and he said it had.

I tried to relight it several times, to no avail. If a gas grill will not light, it is due to one of two reasons: no gas, or too much gas. If there is too much gas in it, it won't relight because there is not enough oxygen in the cooking area, as the gas has displaced it. I assumed the problem was no gas.

Actually the grill was filling with too much gas. I used my lighter at the small hole made for the purpose of lighting it safely but it did not light. I made a terrible mistake, still assuming it was not lighting because of too little gas, I closed the grill, and walked to the back side, squatted down and opened the clean-out door, to see if it would light from there.

It lit!! A huge fireball erupted in my face, and since I was squatting, I could not walk or run away. My head, face and hands were burned, and in the photos...taken about two weeks later...you might wonder why I have, "tiger stripes" on my face. That was caused by me immediately "scrunching" my face and closing my eyes tightly a nano-second before the fireball hit me.

In so doing the wrinkles of my skin burned less in the furrows and more on the more exposed parts. A fireball like that envelopes you and it is over quickly, well it knocked me backward onto the pavement, and let me tell you, the pain was immediate, and bad. There was of course a crowd of folks and it shocked everyone.

I immediately looked around to see who I knew who had the vehicle nearby, and I saw Steven Thompson (from Tattnall County, a fellow graduate of NBIC) and I saw his pickup was parked closest by. I hollered to Steven and said, "let's go!" I did not ask if he could take me to the Emergency Room.

I just called his name and we were both running to his truck. I recall how far that eighteen miles was to Swainsboro, and I kept saying over and over to Steven, "faster, faster," and the only other thing I could do was to tremble and say, "ooooh, oh, oh," no conversation, just "go, and oh!!"

I was shaking all over. I had never been so glad to see a hospital in my life. I guess most of you, my readers are aware that I had been addicted to opiate pain medicines for twenty-seven years, as well as to alcohol, and that was why I lived in Garfield. I moved there from Swainsboro, in March of 2008, to go to New Beginnings in Christ.

All recovering opiate addicts must take care to avoid taking opiates unless it is absolutely necessary, lest it reignite our addiction. I can tell you this, that day it was absolutely necessary! From the Swainsboro Hospital, I was taken by ambulance to the Joseph M. Still Burn Center at Doctor's Hospital in Augusta.

It is now the largest burn center in the nation, and the third largest in the world. (Note, for some reason, the web page underlined this entire final section of this post as I went back to edit any mistakes, and the only way to remove it would be to delete it and start over, I was not willing to do that, I guess satan was trying to prod or poke me, but I refuse to let him dampen my enthusiasm for the Lord).

The first thing they did there was to have me shower and wash my face, hands and arms where I was burned. I think that was when they buzz-cut the hair from the top and back of my head, because I asked them to do it because I looked funny with the hair burned from my arms and face but not the back of my head.

I really don't recall that being done, just asking them to or agreeing that they do it, whichever it was at the time. They don't have mirrors there, and no one took pictures that I know of, so these photographs were selfies I took about two weeks after I came home.

I know this is running a bit long, so I will try to condense the story a bit. It seemed they could not give me enough pain medication, I was getting constant injections of Demerol and Morphine, but the pain was hardly abated. On the evening of the second day there, they told me they were going to take me to the operating room the next morning, to clean and debride my wounds.

Then also do some skin grafts and stem cell therapy. There were places on my nose, chin and ears where pieces had burned away or burned through, you can see those places here. That morning, I awoke having slept little although they were pumping the pain medications into me.

Let me say this, there were many good folks praying for me, I could literally feel it. I was prayed for at NBIC, and was on the prayer list at many churches over a large area. That morning, I asked to have the doctor come to my room, and he came. I had felt the prayers of others, and my own.

Although the pain was constant, I told the doctor that I was not going to have surgery, to just give me a last large dose of morphine and do what they could do right there in my hospital room, let me shower, and I was going home then, and did not want to go home with a prescription for any pain medication.

I was sure he was going to say NO! But he was quiet for a minute, and then patted my shoulder and said quietly, "okay." He knew I was not going to be talked out of my decision, and did not consider it leaving "AMA," "Against Medical Advice." They came and did get me cleaned up a bit there in my room.

They told me if I needed pain medicine after returning home, to let them know, and I said I would. But I didn't. Randy Olliff came to get me that afternoon, I came home and never had any more pain from my burns at all. I was also spared by God from a reignition of my opiate addiction.

I had been in agony for three days and nights, at a level that the strongest pain medicines would hardly affect, but when I asked our Great Physician to relieve my pain, He did. When I tell you I left there and never even needed a Tylenol or an aspirin, you can believe it, because I put it in God's hands, and I did not hedge my bet.

There was no reason to. This was just one more page from my life's story, a remarkable life's story lived by an unremarkable man who has witnessed remarkable things wrought through God. Each year on this anniversary, I tell myself that I am not going to write about that brief chapter in my life.

Because most of you know already about it, and it is a rehashing of an oft-told tale, but I always recall the late, great Donald Atkinson's words to me about such things, "Wade, when God blesses you, tell it." Yes, tell it, but only for the GLORY OF GOD, and all of God's Children say "AMEN."

p.s., again sorry about the underlining of this post, it was beyond my control.