May 2, 2013

54 of 65

Healing – Part 4

My Dad was 91 years old and my Mother 84 when they decided to make the trip. My cousin’s daughter – my Mother’s grandniece – was to be married in Dallas. My parents were in Arvada, Colorado. Recognizing their mortality, they wanted to go to the wedding. “This is probably the last time we will ever travel to Texas [my Mother’s home],” they said.

People wouldn’t say things like that if they really understood the power words have on the subconscious.

Since this was to be their “last trip,” they wanted to make the most of it. Their plan was to fly from Denver to Austin to visit their granddaughter Lisa and her family. Then, they would meet another relative and drive with him to his home in San Antonio. After a visit there, they would fly to Dallas for the wedding; and then back home. The itinerary sounded exhausting to me, and I was much younger.

I took them to the airport to begin the adventure, and said a brief prayer as they disappeared into the security line. I stayed in contact with them by phone every few days, as did my two brothers. The visits to Austin and San Antonio seemed to be enjoyable, but tiring. In Dallas, they stayed with my cousin Mitch. They had a full day to quietly visit and rest before the wedding ceremony.

When the wedding was over and my parents were back at Mitch’s house, my Dad began to feel ill. To be safe, he was taken to the emergency room of a nearby hospital. The examination found that he had contracted pneumonia and needed to be admitted for treatment. That meant he could not fly to Denver the next day, and my Mother was not going to leave without him; so the return tickets were cancelled, he stayed in the hospital and she was Mitch’s guest for the next several days.

He was only hospitalized for a couple of days, and then transferred to a rehabilitation facility to recuperate. The doctors apparently did not realize how tired and weakened the long trip had left him. After only two or three days, he relapsed and had to be re-admitted to the hospital – this time in intensive care.

It was not clear when or if he would be strong enough to fly home. In Colorado, we waited, but not patiently. We felt that someone should be in Texas to help make medical decisions and to support my Mother. My brother Jim said he would go, but he could only take a week off work at the time. After that week, I would go down for another week or so; and if it was necessary, my brother Lonny would come after that.

Jim’s reports were bleak after he arrived there. It seemed that my Dad’s condition was worsening each day, with the doctors saying it could be weeks or months before it would be reasonable for him to fly on a commercial airliner. His lungs were so weak and infected that he needed a respirator to continue breathing.

Throughout this time, I was doing Reiki and other energy healing to try to assist my Dad. Those modalities work well, even over great distances; but they are not magic. Still, it was about all I could do.

Seven days passed and it was time for Jim to come back home, and for me to fly to Dallas. As she dropped me off at the airport, my wife Cathy reminded me that the main reasons I was going were to see that my Dad’s health improved and that he returned to his home in Colorado. I agreed, and thanked her. Those are the kind of words that are powerful and helpful.

I took one book with me to read on the plane, a volume entitled The Secret of Instant Healing. It had been released in Europe several months earlier, and that is when I first heard of it. It had only been available in the United States for a few days. My copy had arrived from Amazon the day before. The author is a Florida chiropractor who had practiced transcendental meditation for many years. He described a technique he called “triangulation,” which seemed intended only to keep your hands occupied. The real “secret” he presented was to empty the mind and do nothing, so the Universe can do whatever is supposed to occur. I didn’t have time to learn any techniques or procedures, so I mentally filed the information away.

Mitch picked me up at the airport and we went straight to the hospital. My Dad was still on the respirator in ICU and my Mother was speaking to a doctor as we arrived. The doctor was not optimistic.

In the early evening, my Dad fell asleep, so the rest of us left to get dinner. Since my Mother was exhausted, we did not go back to the hospital. Instead we went to Mitch’s house so she could get some rest. Three days earlier, she had experienced chest pains and other symptoms and a physician had wanted to admit her to the hospital, but she refused. She clearly needed rest.

The hospital called about midnight because my Dad had awakened and he seemed agitated and disoriented. I borrowed Mitch’s car and went back to see him. He knew who I was, but not where he was or why he was in the hospital bed. He told me to get him out of there. I calmed him down and helped him understand why he was hospitalized. Within an hour he was asleep once again. I sat by the bed for an hour after that, meditating, trying to empty my mind and doing a little energy work.

My Dad had been a Marine stationed at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. From there he had fought throughout the South Pacific during World War II. In recent years, he had worked with a group called the Greatest Generations Foundation to tell the story of that war to schools and community groups. My mother had spoken with a member of the Foundation a few days earlier to let him know what was happening in Texas.

That person passed the information on to an on-air personality at radio station KOA in Denver, who in turn had broadcast the “news story” of a Pearl Harbor veteran facing an uncertain future in a Texas hospital. One of those listening to the broadcast was the owner of a local air ambulance company. That gentleman volunteered to bring my Dad back to Colorado as soon as that was medically advisable.

All of these things were happening that second day I was in Dallas. The next time the doctor came by, I asked how much recovery would be necessary for my Dad to be stable enough for transport by air ambulance. The doctor said that he seemed to have made good progress in the past 24 hours and could be transferred at any time. I passed that news on to my brothers, and Jim was amazed. Two days earlier he had been convinced that recovery was weeks away, at best.

We made arrangements with the air ambulance company, and the next day a team of nurses and paramedics arrived, transported my parents to the airport and flew them by air ambulance, at absolutely no cost, to Colorado. Then they transferred my Dad to Lutheran Hospital, less than three miles from his home. He remained there for a little more than a week, and then was moved to the rehabilitation facility at the hospital – where the signs in the hall say, “Getting Old Is Not for Sissies.”

He regained his strength fairly quickly – though it would have been even faster had there not been an outbreak of C.diff (Clostridium difficile), a rapidly spreading antibiotic-resistant bacteria that is found mainly in hospitals – and was sent to his own home to complete what was a pretty amazing recovery.

The two-week trip to Texas had become a two-month odyssey through the medical system, with miracles occurring as necessary.