Miracles do happen

Although five years after her death Mother Teresa has been given beatification by Pope John Paul, for the ‘miracle’ she performed on a woman with a tumor in her stomach, she is to be given sainthood only after five years, when the Pope is truly satisfied that her cure was a miracle. I have not understood why it should take 10 years to come to that conclusion. I was always under the impression that a miracle takes place almost immediately. I wish to give a personal example of this.

Last year I had gone to the States to visit my son in Chicago. On August 6 after a round of golf, at breakfast time, I found that when I folded my arms, they tended to separate out, as if by an invisible force. I put it down to a hangover and my imagination. After a while my legs began to give way and I could hardly stand. I was rushed to the city hospital and was admitted in its intensive cardiac care unit. I soon became paralyzed from head to toe. A series of tests taken ruled out a stroke. A lumbar puncture was also done, but its results were awaited.

As I showed no signs of any movement, the neurosurgeon decided not to wait any longer for the lumbar test results, but started to treat me with plasma-freesias and gammaglobulin, for he suspected that I was suffering from the Guillane-Barre-Syndrome (GBS), a rare neurological disorder of the immune system. I was put on a ventilator on which I remained for three-and-a-half weeks. As my condition was fast deteriorating, the neurosurgeon felt that my heart would give up if I was not put on a heart-lung machine. My wife did not agree to this as she did not want me to live like a vegetable on a life support system.

When the news spread to the Zoroastrian community of Chicago, they all gathered together and had organized a special prayer for my recovery. The very next day I suddenly started breathing on my own for short spells, and very soon I was off the ventilator. The neurosurgeon could not believe this. The attending doctors, staff and the duty sisters exclaimed, "A miracle has happened. Only God could have done this.”

I believe the courage of my wife and the prayers of my community initiated God to bring about this miracle — the medicos also helped. While I was leaving the hospital on a stretcher heading back to India, I asked my neurosurgeon, a golfer, whether I would ever be able to play golf again. His reply was, "God will be waiting for you on the 19th hole,” and He was.

Brig (Retd) N. B. GRANT

Poona