I work in the ag industry - egg production, to be specific. Angel has worked for our company for the past 10-15 years. He came to the US as a child during the Reagan amnesty years, so he is legal, but he still doesn't speak English very well at all. From the first day he started working here he had a slight limp. Over time his limp became noticeably worse, to the point he couldn't climb the stairs and struggled with many tasks on the job, but every day he showed up to work and struggled through his 8-10 hour shift.

My company provides full medical benefits for employees, but the premiums have gone up over the past several years - I think to cover just yourself as an employee it costs around $1,000 per year. For that reason, many of the employees opt out, hoping to stay healthy. Angel was one of those, in spite of his condition, so he went to the free clinic dozens of times, getting x-rays, cortisone shots, and extremely poor diagnoses. He was told he had arthritis, that one leg was longer than the other, that scoliosis was affecting his legs, etc. After all this he continued in pain, and uncomplaining at work, but his performance deteriorated to the point management wanted to let him go.

My manager (company VP) called me one morning and told me to take Angel to see an orthopedic surgeon, just to see what was wrong with the guy. As one of the few supervisory-level employees who speaks both English and Spanish, I went along to translate for him. After less than 10 minutes in the office, he had a diagnosis - a childhood case of polio while he was still living in Mexico had destroyed his hip socket and rotated his pelvis to the point that his left leg was about 6 inches shorter than his right. The part of his leg bone (I'm no doctor, obviously) that entered his hip socket was jagged like a medieval mace. He would need a complete hip replacement and a pelvic alignment.

Angel was scared of the doctor, the office, the prospect of surgery, and everything else that could go wrong. He worried they might amputate his leg or that he might die on the operating table, but he consented to go through with the operation when the doctor told him he would likely be in a wheel chair within a few years if he didn't do something. It has now been exactly four years since his surgery. Just a few minutes ago he came bounding up the stairs to thank me again for helping him. He's in his mid 40s and plays soccer in a Mexican recreational league in town and is full of life. I asked him what he's learned from this experience and his simple reply touched me: "Hay un dios y a veces nos da pruebas para ayudarnos a confiar en otras personas." There is a god and sometimes he gives us trials to help us trust other people.