DECEMBER 1, 2025
It is now time to start our Blog again. I am currently in Munich on my way to Ukraine for
another medical mission with Global Care Force. The path that I took this time significantly differs from my prior trips.
This spring, I fell in my house, injuring my back. Initially, I wasn’t particularly concerned, but the pain continued to worsen, and I consulted my primary care physician. I found that I had broken my back!
As the pain continued to worsen despite significant narcotics and muscle relaxants, I was sent to a spine surgeon with a set of X-rays suggesting a spinal fracture. He elected to treat me with a kyphoplasty (kind of like mud jacking) to treat the fracture. Unfortunately, the first surgery had only made things worse with increasing pain and new leg weakness!
At this point, I felt that I couldn’t live this way. I feared living the rest of my life like this and what it would mean for my family and for the ministry where I go to places that others wouldn’t go. I prayed and received the advice of friends and family. I then sought a second opinion from a different surgeon to see what could be done. He suggested a much more radical surgery involving the fusion of 4 levels of my lower spine that would restore my strength. However, he said that the surgery would be very high risk with a 40% chance of death, paralysis, chronic pain, heart attack (and the list went on). I went back to prayer. I agreed to proceed and put my life in his hands with the faith that I would fully recover.
He operated on me the next day, for 6 hours, and it was a success.
In the recovery room, I was told that my leg strength had returned (although I have no recall of it). The recovery has been rocky and long due to the pain and medication and the extent of the surgery, but Jo kept reassuring me that I was alive and I could walk. I hoped, no, I knew that eventually I would fully recover. I knew that God had performed a miracle for me through the surgeon's hands. I am not there yet, but I am still improving, and the surgeon has cleared me to return to Ukraine to resume my medical mission.
It will be an interesting time with Russia’s attacks on the heating/electrical systems, the ongoing Russian infantry assaults, the US peace proposal, and the HUGE corruption scandal in the Ukrainian government. I won’t have any shortage of subjects to write about.
Once in Ukraine, we will return to the villages we have visited in the past. It will be good to see the team members again and to take care of patients in need.
Thank you for following me in this mission. God bless you.
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