It happened around 15 years ago. My baby boy was playing in the yard while my wife, Roxie, and I were doing some yard work. All of a sudden we heard him crying and when we turned around he was sitting in a large ant pile. By the time we reached him, he was covered with ants and bites. We quickly brought him into the house to nurse him. I tried to calm him down while Roxie prepared a sterilized needle so she could puncture the ant bites to remove the pus. As I was holding his hands down she began to puncture the bites one at a time, when all of a sudden one of his hands got free, shot out of my grasp, and hit her hand, the one holding the needle. This forced her hand up and the needle went into my left eye.
At first it felt merely like her hand had hit me on the cheekbone and eye and I did not realize that the needle entered my eye. I was covering my eye with my hand out of reflex and held it there since I could still feel the effect of her hand hitting me. We were both looking around on the floor for the needle, when I let go of my face and could feel the needle touching the palm of my hand and I knew that it was hanging out of my eye. Stunned I said "Roxie!" She turned and looked at me and yelled, "Troy don't move!" At that time we lived just two doors down from my Mom and Dad's house, so she picked up our son and ran frantically for help. The next thing I knew I was on my way to the emergency room at our local hospital.
When we arrived at the hospital my personal physician was on duty and came running to see what happened. He instantly put me in a room and started his examination of the incident. But the way in which the needle was lodged made him reluctant to remove it himself. He arranged for me to be rushed to the next town to see a specialist who would be able to do more testing and remove the needle. The specialist suggested rather strongly that I have surgery right away due to damage that was done. But I simply couldn't afford it and so we went back home to figure things out.
I remember leaving my parents and Roxie in the living room and locking myself inside my bedroom with the lights turned off. While they sat there not knowing what to do, I was alone in the darkness where no one could hear me. I began to cry from the fear of not knowing what was going to happen, not knowing if I was going to lose my eye or go blind. This was one of the few times in my life that I was so distraught that I cried out to God in total anguish. This memory always reminds me of Psalm 18:6, "In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears."
After that everybody else was still shaken, but I became calm. It is hard to explain, but it was like Jesus was whispering in my ear, "It is going to be alright, I am here with you." I truly learned the power of prayer and how gentle Our Lord can be.
After a long agonizing night, we decided we had no choice but to go to the charity hospital in a nearby city. A newly-trained specialist examined me to see what the best treatment and/or surgery options were. His initial examination determined that more extensive testing would need to be done and that surgery was definitely needed to repair my eye. I checked in. After running a series of tests we found out that the needle had gone up between my eye and eyelid, but without puncturing my eyeball, it had done some damage. I was informed that surgery would be done the following day, with a local anesthetic. When they told me I would be awake, I was extremely nervous so I went outside to get a breath of fresh air. Who should I see outside but a man handing out booklets about Gods love? Immediately I was calm once again. God was there every step of the way. Even when I was so caught up in what was happening and not thinking of Him, He was there.
I can still recall how my wife and parents were sitting with me in my room trying to hold back the tears. I wanted to let them know I was going to be alright. Somehow I just knew. I credit that to the prayers I had said earlier and the way in which Our Lord let me know He was there for me through the man that was handing out those booklets. But my body was so tired from the testing and the emotional ups and downs of what was happening that all I could do was just lie there. I know they thought I was in a state of depression. But I wasn't. It is hard to explain, but when you are laid up with injury or are very ill, prayer becomes something different than it ordinarily is. Without even trying, I found myself listening to the Lord. He was speaking to me in the silence even when I didn't recognize that it was Him. But He was there the whole time. It is very difficult to put into words the comfort and calmness I felt.
The following day they performed the surgery. The doctor had confided to my wife that if they found infection, he was going to take my eye. He didn't find any infection and so he continued on to repair the damage. He performed a type of cataract surgery and took out my damaged lens and implanted a new artificial eye lens. The following 6 weeks would be a time of recovery and I was instructed not to do heavy lifting of any sort and was given a special eye patch.
When they finally took the patch off of my eye, everything was hazy. The doctor said that it would take some time before my eyesight would get better. But in the end, and to this day, my eyesight is still hazy. I lost my eyesight but kept my eye. My blindness in my left eye has become a constant reminder that all of life is precious and it helps me never to forget how God brought me through such a terrible ordeal.
God gives peace that cannot be explained but only experienced. And He does so because He loves us so much. Never be ashamed to cry out to God. He is listening.