Walking With Angels

Today was different than all the other days before it combined, I was walking with angels. Yes you may think I was just imaging this but you’d be wrong.

So let me tell you what really happened.

I’m not an outwardly religious man going around telling everyone about the lord but I do pray. Amazingly I have gotten answers.

Prays have been answered, to an extent. Each time just enough to get me by. You see I’m a cancer patient for the last 3 years and haven’t been able to work a job for the last 2 years.

On top of that challenge in 2001 on a cold February day I had a major stroke at work. The doctors did a great job removing most of the clot in my brain which restored movement to my left side, speech and memory. They couldn’t know that a few hours later I would have a second major stroke and loss everything.

Left side moment gone, speech gone, spelling gone and memory of people’s names gone too. That is just the short list of the big losses.

The doctor told my best friend that night to prepare my family because I would not live overnight.

I did.

My recovery was something the hospital staff admitted to me; they had never seen anything like it. Suffice to say I worked really hard each day to the point of exhaustion. I got it all back and went back to work after 6 months. However I was not walking with angels yet.

During that period, one day a flash came to me, I’d live with good health to at least 97 years of age. Anything after 97 I would consider a bonus round!

These stories are just the latest: it really started out when I was in diapers. My brother, 18 months older than me, was spinning around in the basement of our house with a hammer in his hand. I walked up to him and the hammer hit me in the back of the head. Hair never grew on that spot after that.

Next when I was a pre teen riding my bike down the road to my parent’s cottage I heard the report of a rifle and felt the breeze across my eyes as the bullet past me by. To the right of me I saw a man in a field pointing the rifle straight at me. I never pedaled so hard in all my life till I arrived back at the cottage.

Moving on to my teens, my brother again, this time with a golf club accidently hit me in the eye. This time cracking my skull at the edge of my eye socket, missing the eye ball by less than a 16th of an inch. I have the dent to prove it.

1973 came along and that was the start of 14 car accidents in a row, one for each year. The other drivers all were charged with causing each accident. Even funnier my insurance company kept lowering my rate each year because they consider me a safe diver!

My auto shop told me the only panel they haven’t replaced is my front right fender so see you next year.

13 of the 14 accidents I walked away from uninjured, it was the 14th that did me in.

Fifty mile an hour head on collision. My Pinto against a full sized van who decided my lane was more exciting. I broke and folded the steering wheel in half with my face.

From the neck down I was untouched but the right side of my skull was shattered. Basically like frozen toffee slapped down on the counter top.

I was in a comma for 3 days. The hospital told my mother I wouldn't survive.

I did.

All of this takes me back to my strokes; the "Walking with Angles" comes in a while. During recovery the feeling came over me of being looked after. I was being saved each time for some purpose.

As a kid I went to church and Sunday school. Even sang in the junior choir till my voice changed.

My mother would sit with me at bed time to do my prayers when I was little. Later when I was older and she didn’t sit with me at bedtime so eventual I stopped praying.

Church was an off again on again thing through the years but I always considered myself a religious guy.

The moment I knew who was looking after me I started praying again. One day a flash came to me again. I was asked to right my story about my stroke and the things I did to get rid of it. Get rid of the impossible and tell as many stroke survivors and their caregivers how I did it so they could perhaps use my example to undo they’re strokes.

Admittedly I think my prayers were not effective enough because they’re not fully committed. Still at this point I'm not walking with angels.

I've been saved from one financial crisis after another through the last several years but only enough to tread water. All this changed when I ran across a used book in a thrift shop; the books name is “Money Cometh!”

A quarter of the way into reading this book I realized I needed to participate to get my prayers answered fully. I made that commitment on my mind and I’m going to see it through. Now I’m not going to tell you what I committed to; you have to read it yourself. As a fellow author I’m not going to steal his thunder!

Let’s now get to the angels part. Three years ago while writing my book, "I had a Stroke" ,I became ill and the doctors discovered I had colon Cancer in stage 3.

You don’t want stage 3, stage 1 or two would be better if you have to have colon cancer.

An operation removed ten inches of my colon and then went for chemotherapy for 6 month. Following the treatment I had a CT scan and the results showed no cancer in my bowels. I was very happy but there was a catch, the cancer had moved into my liver.

Here we go again with six more months of chemo. The therapy finished up and I had another CT scan. This time, no signs of cancer. The hospital booked me for another CT scan in three months. I went home very happy.

Like a bad penny the next CT scan showed the cancer was back in my liver and I needed an operation. The doctors took out half my liver but fortunately it grows back.

Next is six month of chemo, again after which is another CT scan.The results showed no cancer in my liver, it had moved to my lungs. I was now the proud owner of up to 30 tumours between both lungs; three more months of chemo.

The follow up CT scan showed shrinkage to be fifty percent in all the tumours so with this good news I got three more months of chemo. I’m now officially a chemo Junkie.

At this point I’m three years into battling cancer and it’s doing the world tour through my organs. So once again a CT was called for when I finished my three months of chemo with the result to date of more shrinkage by about twenty percent.

This wins me six more months of chemo!

At this point I run across the book mentioned before. I committed myself to the wisdom contain in it. Now I firmly believe my prayers are answered about my health, about my success for my book and my spiritual wealth. I can see it in my mind’s eye.

This is the part I wasn’t expecting.

Today I drove to the hospital for my chemo treatment. As I always do I park three blocks away so I don’t have to pay for parking.

Now I start walking to the hospital. I get this feeling I not along.

Continuing to walk I feel someone to the left side of me, then to my right. A rush of warmth comes over me and that’s when it happened.

I can now see through my mind’s eye two angels in front of me, two to my left side and two to right. Happiness starts too built in me. What is going on?

Looking behind me there are two more angels and behind them is a multitude of angels all walking with me from my truck. The farther away I get the more angels appear.

This warm and happy feeling courses through my body and spirit. I’m being escorted to my appointment.

Let me tell you this was the happiest chemo I ever had.

Inside there were only four angels surrounding me as if keeping me safe. When the chemo was finished and once again outside the other four angels joined back in. They felt like an honour guard. We happily started walking back to my truck.

I wondered as I walked, were the other angels went? Looking up I saw the white puffy clouds against the blue background of sky and on the edge of each cloud stood hundreds, maybe thousands of angels all looking down at me smiling.

At that moment I knew the cancer was beaten. The angels had come to my graduation.

I had learned what it takes to beWalking with Angels.

Angels Are Still With Me