God and Goose Poop
This past Thursday (9/26/25), I got a crash course in trusting God when things just don’t go the way we intended them to. That morning, I walked out my back door to clean the bird feeders, slipped down the hill, and ended up spending two nights in the hospital after breaking my ankle and having a rather dramatic response to pain medication.
For a bit of context, our house sits at the top of a slope overlooking a small pond. Our backyard is about 80 ft long from the deck to the water, and slopes down 15 ft as it goes. We can’t get grass to grow because the house sits on top of a giant gravel pit with not a pound of dirt to be found among the sand and rock, and any grass seed we spread washes to the bottom of the hill resulting in a beautiful green strip of grass at the edge of the gravel path.
Behind and surrounding the pond is a wooded area that brings in all kinds of wildlife from deer, to hawks, to pairs of great horned owls, bald eagles, and osprey. Squirrels, rabbits, and other woodland critters cross the yard often, and since birds of prey have always been my favorite wild animals, I decided to put out bird feeders and squirrel food to attract the creatures they eat in the hopes feeding the little critters would feed the larger ones.
Several times, as we’ve been sitting at the windows, sure enough, hawks have swooped in to chase the birds at the feeders. I was so excited!
My husband has not been as enthusiastic. He would prefer to let God feed the birds, not us. He advised me not to put the feeders out, but I put the food out anyway. Once a week, I clean them and refill the food.
On this particular Thursday, it had rained, and I knew the dish feeders would be full of water. I pulled off my house shoes and slipped into my flip flops for the trek down the hill.
You are probably already cringing, because that worked out about as well as you would expect. I picked up the first dish and headed for the second when the left flip flop failed me.
Oh, I think I forgot to mention we get Canadian Geese. So. Many. Geese! I think I counted about 50 of them in our yard this summer. And if you know geese, you know they leave behind a large amount of poop. Add that to the smooth river gravel, wet ground, and flip flops.
Yep.
I went down with an unmistakable crunch on my left ankle. I’ve twisted my ankle more times than I can count, but this time, there was zero doubt it was broken. As I sat facing the pond about half way down the hill, it was clear I was not going to get myself back to the house for help.
The pain was substantial, and in the past, I would have passed out just from the pain, but I was home alone and didn’t have my phone with me. For a moment, I closed my eyes and asked the Lord to let someone hear me, then I begin yelling for help.
Sitting in the middle of my yard covered in goose poop, I yelled and yelled until my neighbor heard me. She called 911, my husband, and retrieved all the things I needed for the trip to the ER.
As I was being lifted from the ground, the pain in my ankle nearly knocked me out again, but I managed to stay alert. Once in the squad, the EMT began preparing an IV to give me pain meds. Though I was holding it together, the panic and fear of getting stuck was too much. I refused. He wasn’t thrilled, but didn’t push. I knew they would put one in at the hospital, but I just wasn’t ready yet.
The whole time, from fall until I was in the ER bed, I was asking God to be with me. I wasn’t praying actual words, I was just begging Him to be close to me.
Because my husband works more than an hour from home, and I knew I was in good hands, I asked him to go to the house first for clean clothes and underwear, then meet me at the hospital. My mom, who lives 40 minutes from us was also on her way.
I kept joking and laughing with the staff and nurses, blaming my fall on the goose poo, and promising that I am old enough to know better than to wear flip flops on a hill, despite my lack of common sense on this particular day.
As expected, they set the IV line and pushed through some pain meds. When I felt the relaxation that comes with that, I took a deep breath and let my body relax, finally. The trouble is, when I am in a high stress, high pain situation, and my body decides to relax, it likes to power down completely. Usually, I pass out for a few seconds, my body restarts, and minutes later, I am fine.
Well, apparently, the pain meds took that fainting spell one step further and my heart stopped for 8 seconds. I had no idea of course. When I closed my eyes, the only person in the room was the nurse. When I woke up, half the hospital staff surrounded me with varying degrees of concern on their faces.
Me, not having a single clue about what just happened, tried to joke and said, “All I did was pass out.”
That’s when they informed me the nurse had done chest compressions for 30 seconds until I came back alert. Minutes later, my mom and husband arrived, having missed the episode completely.
Within 15 minutes, I was feeling fine, but suddenly my day consisted of a whole list of tests that had nothing to do with my ankle. While we were obviously concerned about what had happened, Mom and I joked about my propensity for passing out.
The Doctors were not as amused, and decided I needed a pace maker, and announced that without one I would not be able to have surgery on my ankle. I quickly shot the suggestion down and asked for a second opinion.
Blood tests, sonogram, EKG, and x-rays of my heart were taken, and nothing was found. All my vitals were back to normal. We regrouped and met with a second doctor, admitting that we made it sound like my passing out was a common thing when in actuality it is really rare and only happens under extreme circumstances like what had happened that day.
This cardiologist agreed, approved the surgery, and the focus moved back to my ankle. FINALLY.
It then became a waiting game for the ortho doctor to assess and schedule the surgery. In the meanwhile, out of an abundance of caution, I was set up in an ICU room for the next two nights.
Once I was settled in the room and the next few days were planned out, I was finally able to relax without fear. To say the staff and doctors caring for me were great would be an understatement, but what was even more incredible is that my primary care doctors (the orthopedic surgeon and the doctor on rotation for those days), along with two of the nurses offered to, and did, pray with me.
When the ortho doctor came in on Saturday before surgery and prayed with me and my husband, I could only give praise to God for how He had watched over every moment.
As we began looking back at the sequence of events, I truly believe that my refusal of the IV and pain meds in the ambulance while in route may very well have saved my life. Would the EMTs have had the ability to bring me back? Absolutely. But the Lord knew I needed to be at the hospital before any further action would be taken, and I fully believe He kept me from additional harm in that one moment of panic when I said no.
We can even go back several weeks to when we had to say goodbye to our dog. He suddenly developed acute hip nerve pain and we were forced to let him go. If he were still with us, his goofy, velcro personality would have been a serious hinderance to me getting around in the house.
Did God intend for all these things to happen? No. But He knows the future, and when we trust fully in Him, He will direct every step of our life. Even if it leads us to a moment of trust in Him in the middle of a wet, rocky hill sitting in goose poop.
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