Yesterday, I sat with a family friend named Mr. Tommy while his wife went to talk to his doctors. You see, Mr. Tommy was diagnosed with cancer many years ago. He had surgery to remove the cancer in his mouth and he was left unable to speak. We met Mr. Tommy at the hospital. This kind man volunteered with the Aiken Regional Hospital even with his disability. Incredibly, he volunteered working on the lobby information desk. He would write notes to answer questions and would accompany lost visitors to where they needed to go. In April he was given an award from the ARMC for excellence in communication and customer service.
He was fortunate that the cancer went into remission for a while, but now the cancer is back and the chemotherapy has been so hard on him physically he recently decided to stop the treatment. He's now on home hospice care. Mr. Tommy's wife called my mom about finding a young person to come on a regular basis and play with their six dogs because they are no longer able to go out and exercise the dogs. My mother is the coordinator of the Junior Auxiliary Hospital volunteers at Aiken Regional Hospital so she knows quite a few college students who could help.
It touched me so that I told mom I wanted to go play with the dogs, but I was having an attack of my pancreatitis and was hardly able to get out of bed, much less play with the dogs. But then a week later, after mom had found no one and I was feeling better, I called and asked Mr. Tommy's wife when they might need me. She told me about the doctor's appt. scheduled for Thursday and I told her I would be there to play with the dogs and help out with Mr. Tommy if needed.
Mr. Tommy was sleeping for the first hour I was there with the dogs. When he woke up, he came out to 'talk' to me with his note pad. I asked him if he was feeling any better and he wrote "I want to die". Reading that absolutely broke my heart. What's worse is the guilt I felt because I have been so sick pretty recently that I said I wanted to die. Now I realize how painful it is to hear someone say that so I made a vow to try to never say I wish to die ever again.
When his wife got home, they thanked me for taking the time to come help out and I told them, "I consider this a ministry. If I'm able to help others then I'm letting God's love show through my actions".
Mr. Tommy got his pad and wrote, "You should know, I'm not a Christian".
I replied, "that's OK Mr. Tommy. I can still pray for you, right? It can't hurt". He nodded yes. I then went on to share my testimony of being healed by God in 2013. I was in a coma and the doctors did not expect me to wake up or if I did wake up I would be a vegetable. They asked my family to sign a DNR (do not resuscitate order". My parents said no that as long as there was a God in heaven then there was hope i could be healed. I coded about 5 minutes later and they worked with me for over an hour and brought me back, but I was still in the coma for two weeks then I just woke up one day.
I told Mr. Tommy that the doctors at the hospital even told me that it was a miracle from God that I recovered. My MRI had shown necrosis (dead areas) on the corpus colosseum in my brain and they knew that dead brain cells usually can't be reversed, but mine did. I wasn't trying to preach to Mr. Tommy but I felt I had to say something to give him some hope and God was leading me in my heart of what to say.
I cried and prayed out loud all the way home. I then posted a request for prayer for Mr. Tommy on FaceBook. Many of you responded and I'm so thankful for all the prayers that have been going up for him. He has been such an inspiration to so many people that someone who can't even speak or eat food and has a feeding tube would take up his time by volunteering at the hospital to help others. So, let's keep this prayer chain going up for Mr. Tommy that he might regain to will to fight this battle and also that maybe he will come to know Jesus before it's too late. Thank you all for your prayers.
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