[il-talk] oct.13

[JOSEPH MONTI]

hi folks, some people feel that's all i do is beg for money. 
most people say 'well, that's all i can afford' this is not true.  besides being fundraiser for the NFBI i have chaired stewardship committees many times at my churchs.(yew plural). actually i know more about giving than buying or begging. i told you about a special oct. 13 back in 1978. let me tell you about another oct. 13 3 years earlier. 
oct 13th when i was growing up usually meant some kind of disaster. it was the day after my birthday and when it fell on friday, look out!!!.but this oct. 13 in 1975 started out to be the worst but had a very different ending.
i sat in the waiting room at Children's Mem. hospital here in chicago. my daughter was in intensive care. waiting to see her i decided to page her doctor. she pcalled me bac and said Amy was very sick. they had looked into her lungs and she had pneumonia. she told me Amy would not make it.     Mary at this time was in a different hospital. she was in nursing school and the combo of amy's illness and school did a number on her gut. she had Crohn's disease. so i stayed at childrens for 8 hours seeing Amy only for 15 minutes every 2 hours. Finally i decided to go see Mary and tell her the bad news. as wallked out i heard my name paged. i answered the page and it was amy's doc. she wanted to talk to me. so we met in an empty clinic. she told me that they had sicovered that Amy had Hodgkins disease and was being given chemo as we spoke. i will continue this on the next email.
joe monti