story "on the road"...

this is a very strange night... my lower back is acting up like someone hit me with a two by four,and so the pain reminds me of time "on the road" that i spent... it is 1:45 am,and i am sitting straight up in this chair,trying to ease the pain... i spent many a night "on the road" sitting in a diner and in pain... one story comes to mind:i had traveled to Salt Lake City(locals call it just Salt Lake),with an very infected,torn up,and full of gangrene pus,ankle,and i was trying to make through this one night,with my foot up on the seat,but i fell short of my goal,as the waitress noticed my ankle about sunrise,and she told me to go to the hospital,and so i limped fourteen blocks to LDS Hospital,just as the sun rose over the mountains,in downtown Salt Lake... what happened was that i had rubbed my ankle bone raw,as i traveled... as i got to the hospital,the attendant asked me if i had insurance,and i said,"in California"... she took one look at my ankle,and said to me,"the hospital would pay for my treatment of my ankle"... i spent four mornings in the hospital having IV's of antibiotics,put into my veins,as i spent a week,in a medical shelter,recovering from the near disaster of having my foot amputated... i will never forget the kindness of the hospital staff,so this pain in my back is only a minor annoyance to me... people think that my time "on the road" was memorable,and it was,but sometimes,it was very painful,as this story was,in my memory....