Oh By Gosh, By.......Ghaly

As you all know by now, I truly believe that God shows us He is with us in many ways. Sometimes it is largely evident and other times, very subtle like the whispering of the breeze. This last time He helped me through a co-worker. I went back to work last week and it was actually a helpful diversion for my mind. James has done a great job of taking care of Paul and I was able to benefit from being able to step back and take some moments to see the 'forest for the trees'. I also got to enjoy being surrounded by the love and care of my many friends at work. After Paul's surgery and the subsequent complications with no real answers, I was at work and started to talk to Monica, who has a very deep faith in God. I knew she would bring me comfort with her wise words, giving some perspective to our circumstances. She said that while we are in the midst of the pain, suffering and moments of anxiety, we can only see what is going on down here on earth. But if we were able to see the view from heaven, we would be amazed and delighted at the rejoicing that is going on in heaven. Our remaining faithful to God's will is the cause of that rejoicing. I found immediate comfort as I pictured all the saints that we have asked to help us pray and the Blessed Mary, all smiling down at our son Paul and I smiled too. The image has stayed with me since last week and Tuesday night I shared this all with my friend Dee, whose son also had a brain injury. All along, She has shared her love and concern for us. She called me to remind me there is a healing Mass this Friday night at the Eucharistic Congress that the Atlanta diocese has every year on the weekend of the Feast of Corpus Christi. When I told her what my friend Monica said, I added that I remembered what I wrote a long time ago in the blog that I had thought about a homily a priest had given about 20 years ago. He said that God's tapestry that is woven each day is visible from heaven, but from earth, we see the backside with all the knots. I said I hoped that if I got to heaven, I would be shown the rose that was woven which represented this event in our life. I hoped it was a yellow rose. Dee said that it would probably not be just a single rose but a garden of yellow roses. Again, I felt real joy as she said that and I pictured it in my mind. The next day, Kelly drove me to work so she could go and get the complete medical records for Paul from the hospitals where he has been treated. She and I came in and walked down to my sister Beverly's cubicle and the first thing we saw was a large vase of yellow roses - opened up all the way! I got tears in my eyes and said out loud, " God is so good to me, He didn't make me wait until heaven." I took one of the petals from a rose and placed it in my daily prayer book as a reminder of the tremendous amount of love that is offered to us by God and his people. A little bit later, I went down to Monica's desk and hugged her and told her how she played a part in the joy I got to experience that morning. You can call it coincidence, but I won't. Too many of these moments happen where joy is dropped off at my doorstep!

Now to the title. Kelly was getting the medical records for what we hope will be our help from heaven above. When Kelly got here Tuesday, I was very thankful for her help. I had prayed to God on Monday night that I knew He sometimes closed doors and then opened windows. We have seen that happen often. I asked if I could possibly just feel a little breeze. I told Kelly she was definitely the breeze that came in our home. She immediately got started with trying to find some options of getting Paul the help he needed. She was on the phone with a friend of hers in Chicago, who mentioned that her husband might have the name of a good doctor. In his work, he deals with the medical profession often. Kelly called him and he said it was so strange that Kelly would call him and ask him this at this time. He had just finished some work with a neurosurgeon who has handled some really tough cases and had been successful with them. He gave Kelly the website of the doctor and said we weren't going to believe what we saw. He was a firm believer in the power of God and actually prayed for his patients. When we opened the site, one of the options was to see pictures of the office. We opened that and the first thing we saw was a crucifix on the wall over the reception desk. There was also a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and in the Catholic faith, it is always in June that we remember this with the Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. This picture is also in our front room, across from the crucifix. He has written 3 books dealing with Christianity and the brain. He does not hide his faith away in this very secular world. It was so refreshing to see all this and to read all of his accomplishments. He lives by these words, DO YOUR BEST, LEARN IN DEPTH, CARE FROM YOUR HEART AND LET GOD DO THE REST.

We called his office and left a message. Later, when we called again (no patience being shown here................smile) he answered and said he recognized the phone number and he said he would call back in the evening. He did and I spoke with him for an hour. He asked for full medical records from page one to the present, with nothing being left out. He would review these records and would try to help us. He did say this might be a complicated case from what I had told him. I asked if we could bring Paul to him and he said that without having seen Paul, he could not advise us in this way. He said that possibly if Paul were to be brought by air ambulance, it would be a safer way. He said he would review the records and then proceed from there. When I got off the phone, Kelly, my sister Bev and Jon were all waiting to hear the news. I realized that Paul had to be fed and given medicine, as it was pretty late in the evening. Jon said he would take care of Paul and Bev asked him, "Don't you want to hear the news?" As he was walking into the kitchen, he called back and said, "I'll read about it in the blog!" All of us were very excited about the possiblity that we would have someone who could help us over this hill. There are over 2000 pages of medical notes and 6 CD's of images for Dr. Ghaly to review. I pray he will find the 'needle in the haystack'. Kelly will be taking all of this to him on Friday when she gets home. He is in the next town over from her home.

Paul will have the staples removed today from the last surgery. We are going to see if we can get an opinion whether Paul can travel safely by car. We would take 2 days to get to Chicago, taking hour breaks every couple of hours. If that is possible, that will be the way we get Paul to Chicago when the time comes. If not, we are checking out a number of sources for transporting him by air ambulance. Please pray we will do the right thing for Paul.

Paul seems to be slowly improving in his ability to get up. He has been on a couple of walks each day, albeit short ones. He got up the other night when Richard Watson came by to visit. He didn't at first, but after about an hour, he heard all the laughter and talking downstairs, and he agreed to come down. He sat up for awhile and even ate some food.

On Wednesday morning, before I went to work, I wanted to check on Paul. I saw he was awake and I asked him if he could tell me what day it was. He closed his eyes and said no. I asked him to try harder and to at least give me a guess. He said "Thursday." I said he was almost right and asked him to try again. He looked over at the clock to see the time (for a frame of reference I would imagine) but the clock was turned away from him. He said he didn't know and I asked him to please try to guess. He looked right at me and said, "I could start with Monday, then Tuesday, Wednesday, obviously not Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Is that what you want?" I laughed and said his response was much better than a guess and then said, "Welcome back Paul". His response was so 'Paul'. He has been pretty irritable this past week. The new medicine has that side affect - but it could be that as he recovers he is just trying to deal with the pain. Kelly said she remembers he went through this once before, as she remembered reading it in the blog.

I have to let you know, I get calls from Jon so often after he reads the blog and he will ask if I have seen the comments. He will tell me how many comments there are and will wait until I read them too while we are on the phone. With all the complaints about the horrible things you can come across on the internet.......................it has been a blessing to our family. It is a wonderful tool for everyone to share their faith and love!!

To all of our 'bloggers in Christ', peace to you in this day.
Love,
Jon and Rebecca Fidero