After two days the swelling had not gone down at all and the doctor was concerned about the infection spreading, so he called for a surgical consult. The surgeon took one look at the toe and scheduled an operating room for first thing in the morning. He said he would do his best to save the toe, but I knew he wasn’t being entirely truthful. So it wasn’t a surprise when I woke up in the recovery room and no longer had a big toe on my right foot.
“I have good news and I have bad news,” the surgeon told me. “The bad news is I had to remove the toe. The good news is that you don’t need it.” He explained that my balance and mobility did not depend on a single toe. He told me I would be able to get around fine without it.
It was not the result I was hoping for, but it is what I was left to deal with. Stella was fairly distressed at the outcome but I told her to get over it. I would be fine. The worst thing about it that I could think of was that I’d no longer be able to wear open-toed sandals, and I probably had half a dozen pairs of such footwear, including a new pair for which I had just paid over a hundred dollars.
I also felt grateful I had a partner with the strength of Stella, who was willing to stand with me through everything, and was even willing to make demands of my guides for my benefit.
I asked Stella to bring my iPod one day when she came to the hospital. I put it on and asked my dad if I had indeed been attacked by a demon.
“No," was the simple answer.
“What was it then?”
“We had to give you the power of the thirty-nine,” he said.
I previously had been told by my guides there were a total of thirty-nine people like me in the world, and that it was my job to bring them all together. Up until that time, I had only identified one of the thirty-nine, besides myself.
“All of it?” I asked.
“As much as you could take.”
“Why?”
“None are ready," was the reply.
"Oh, and we can’t wait for them?” I questioned.
“No. It is urgent.”
“So, am I going to have to cross the rest of the 600 million by myself?”
“No. You will have help," he assured me.
“Just not from any of the others of the thirty nine.”
“That’s right.”
Continue to the Next Crossing Event