[Faith-talk] Daily Thought for Saturday, October 26, 2013

[Paul]

Well folks, it's Saturday afternoon as I write this here in eastern North America, in fact, the last Saturday of the month.  By this time next week most of us in the U.S. and Canada will have to turn our clocks and watches back one hour.  Where did the year go, I wonder? Well, it went, so let's look forward to the rest of the year with optimism, realizing that, despite the situation in our respective nations and world, that God has everything under control, even if it doesn't seem that way.

Remember several days ago when I presented an article about Michael and how he met Rosie? Well, if you were inspired by that article, hopefully you will be with this article.  It's rather long; in fact it will go over to another page.  However I hope and pray that it will be a blessing to you.  The article in question was written by Gabrielle Ford of Fenton, Michigan and is entitled "My True Companion," rendered as follows:

No one knew what I was going through.  Then came Izzy.

"Izzy? Where are you, girl?" I called out from my bedroom, expecting to see my black-and-tan coonhound come running to my side.  But she didn't.  That's strange, I thought.  She was usually the first to greet me when I woke up in the morning.  I slid off the side of the bed and got on my hands and knees, crawling out of my room to try and find her.

Finally, I spotted her in the hallway, lying on the floor.  "Izzy?" She didn't budge.  Her head was down, her long, floppy ears draped on the ground.  Her breathing was shallow.  Her brown eyes were open but didn't blink.  "Mom!" I yelled.  "Come quick!"

My mother came racing down the stairs.  "Are you all right, Gabe? What's wrong?" She rushed to my side.

"It's not me.  It's Izzy." Lord, please, please let her be okay.  She's my best friend.  My only friend.

Friends were hard to come by for someone with my disability.  At age 12, I was diagnosed with Friedreich's ataxia, a progressive disease of the central nervous system that slowly slurred my speech and robbed me of my mobility.  I was able to hide it at first, but by the time I entered high school, the disease had gotten worse.  My classmates noticed my stumbling and altered speech.

"What's wrong with you? Are you drunk?" they snapped when I bumped into someone or something.  Being bullied became a daily event.  Mom encouraged me to talk about my disease.  "If the other kids knew," she said, "they may not be so mean."

"You don't understand," I told her.  They'd just swoop down on me like I was some wounded prey.  If I couldn't hide my disease, I figured, I'd just hide, period.  For the past two years, since graduation, I'd rarely left the house.  I couldn't walk far without a wheelchair now, and I didn't want those bullies to see me in one.  I begged my mom and stepdad for a dog.  I was lonely.  I had my parents and two sisters, but I needed a friend.

Mom agreed to let me have a dog, but with conditions.  I had to pay for it and take care of it myself.  "Even taking it to the vet?" I asked.  Mom just nodded.

I researched breeds online.  "Coonhounds are known for their beauty, strength, and courage," I read on one website.  Beauty, strength, and courage.  Everything I wished people could see in me.

Mom worried about how a dog would react to my condition, but the first time we met, it didn't phase Izzy in the least.  On our way home from picking her up, she began whimpering, so I lifted her up and laid her in my lap, stroking her floppy, velvety ears until she drifted to sleep.  Every morning I'd lie on the floor with her, ruffle the hair behind her ears; she'd roll over and I'd rub her belly.  I told my furry little girl everything, like girlfriends do.  She listened intently, focusing on me with those deep brown eyes.  I even sang lullabies to her at night.  Mom made sure I fed her twice a day and took her for her walks.  It was scary leaving the house, but I did it for her.

Izzy returned the attention.  Soon after I adopted her, my mom had company over.  Izzy wouldn't let me just sit alone in my room.  "Izzy, stay," I commanded, wanting to shut my door and hide.  But she kept darting in and out of my bedroom, yipping at me to follow her and meet the guests.  Courage, I thought.  Wasn't that what a coonhound was known for? I took a deep breath.  "Okay, okay," I said.  "Just this once.

My mom's friends gushed over Izzy.  For the first time in a while, I didn't feel like I was being examined or judged.  Izzy was the difference.

Then there were the days when I'd be feeling down and Izzy would just seem to know.  She'd walk up to me, rest her head in my lap and cuddle.  My best friend? More like an angel, sent to help me after all that I'd been through.

Now something was wrong with her.  Mom's eyes locked on the dog, looking lifeless on the hall floor.  "I'll call the vet," she said, worry in her voice.

The vet.  All the way across town.  A place with strangers who'd gawk at the girl who couldn't walk on her own.  You need to do this for Izzy, I thought.  Carefully, my stepdad bundled up Izzy, Mom helped me into the car, and we drove to the veterinarian.

"She's swallowed a rock," Dr. Sandy said.  "She'll need surgery, but she should be fine."  I relaxed a little.  Izzy was going to be all right.  But after the surgery, Dr. Sandy looked concerned.  "She's not coming out of the anesthesia like she should.  I would like to run some tests."

We brought Izzy home the next day, but the vet was still mystified.  For days Izzy wouldn't stay still.  She paced restlessly in circles.  I tried to calm her, but she just shuddered.  I stared into Izzy's weary eyes, hoping I could see something the vet couldn't.  Why is this happening? I asked God.  Why to my only friend?

The test results came back.  Izzy needed major surgery to fix a liver problem.  The cost? At least two thousand dollars.  My heart sank.  I didn't have that kind of money.

My uncle suggested a fund-raiser.  He knew a man who could help get the word out, a reporter for a local paper.  I didn't think an article could make any difference.  Nobody cared about me in high school, so why should they care now?

I was in my room a few weeks later when Mom came upstairs and knocked on the door.  "There's a man here to see you," she said.  "He's a teacher from the middle school."

"Who?" I asked listlessly.  What could he possibly want?

Mom walked into my room.  In one of her hands was a can wrapped in pink construction paper and in the other, a small white poster.  I sat up slowly.  "What's this?" I asked.

"See for yourself."

The outside of the can read, "For Gabe and Izzy." On the poster, in different colored markers, more than a dozen students had written messages.  "We're all praying for you," one said.  "I hope Izzy gets better soon," said another.  One student had made a colorful drawing of a nurse giving Izzy a shot.  I opened up the can.  It was filled with money.

"I... I... don't know what to say."

"Don't say anything to me," Mom said.  "Say it to the teacher.  It was his class that collected for you and Izzy."

Holding onto Mom, I shuffled down the hall.  "It's an honor to meet you," he said as I came into the dining room.  "My students read the article about Izzy and wanted to help."

"I don't know how to thank you," I said softly.

He said he'd be thrilled if I could come down to the school with Izzy and meet the class.

But going back to school? In a wheelchair? Facing all those people? Even if they had collected for Izzy and me, how could I go there? Kids could be so cruel.  What if they laughed at me? Then I looked at Izzy.  She looked up at me.  So many times she had seemed to know my thoughts.  Now I knew what she was thinking.  Be strong, I thought.  I decided to do it.

I nearly canceled the day before.  I was so nervous, my whole body shook.  My mom helped me out of the car and into my wheelchair.  We entered through the side door of the school.  The locker-lined hallways reminded me of the ones I stumbled into not so long ago.  Reluctantly, I entered the classroom.  My mouth went dry.  How would I begin? Then Izzy broke the silence with a bark.  The kids started asking questions.

"How is Izzy?" "Do they know what's wrong with her yet?" "Will she be okay?" And they all wanted to pet her.  I expected Izzy to shy away.  After all, she had been so out of sorts lately.  But she wagged her tail like crazy as the kids came up to meet her.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  This hadn't been so horrible after all.

Izzy improved after the surgery, but she still seemed weak at times, unsteady on her feet.  She often stumbled into things.  Dr. Sandy's associate did a muscle and nerve biopsy and sent it to a leading veterinary neurologist in San Diego.  With Izzy, I didn't care who saw me or what people thought of me.  I was finally out of hiding.

So many times, doctors told me Izzy wouldn't be the same, that she wouldn't live much longer than a year.  She surprised at every turn.  Even when she needed a little wagon to get around, she'd still wag her tail and gladly greet anyone.  I thought about what I'd read about Izzy before I even adopted her.  Beauty, strength, courage.  She was showing all of that now, even with whatever illness was hurting her.

Finally, the neurologist in San Diego made the diagnosis.  "It's a rare progressive muscle disease," she said.  "Sort of like Friedreich's ataxia."

I looked at Izzy with a newfound admiration.  No wonder she had seemed to know so much about what I was going through.  If she could keep being herself despite her disease, then maybe I could too.

Since that first school visit, I've told people all around the country about Friedreich's ataxia and, most important, about the effects of bullying.  I owe it to Izzy.  She didn't just become my friend, she gave me the courage to reach out and find more friends.  Only God knew that was what I really needed all along.

FAMILY ROOM

Through Izzy, her beloved coonhound, who has a similar disorder, Gabrielle Ford found strength in dealing with Friedreich's ataxia, a rare neuromuscular disease.  Growing up, Gabe was bullied, something that has called her to action.  Today Gabe visits schools around the country giving talks about the effects of bullying, with Izzy by her side.  "Izzy brought me out of hiding and helped me to heal.  The students love her!" she says.  "Whenever I've finished a talk, students apologize to the kids they've hurt.  I tell them they can choose to make or break someone's day."

Another source of strength in Gabe's life is her mother, Rhonda, who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer.  "The roles have reversed now," says Gabe.  "I've become a rock for my mom, like she's always been for me." Gabe, who once dreamed of becoming a professional ballerina, just released her autobiography (in 2009), "Still Dancing.  Stop by http://www.gabeandizzy.com where you can order her book, T-shirts and much more.

And there you have one of the most inspiring stories I've read in quite a while.  Wonder if an article about her was featured in "Guideposts" magazine? Again, I hope you enjoyed reading her piece.

And now may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep you safe, individually and collectively, in these last days in which we live.  Your Christian friend and brother, Paul