For any of you who know me from my earlier days at Associated Content, you may remember a series I wrote called “Family in Crisis.” It was about a young man who was a student of mine that was diagnosed with lupus a couple of years ago. To make a long story short, about a year and a half ago he got sick and needed to have his gall bladder removed. Rather than go through with the surgery, he checked himself out of the hospital to save enough money to pay for his stay there (over $18k), and then save for the operation. Fortunately, with a little help from some very caring people, we raised over $9k for him and his siblings (their parents abandoned them a long time earlier), and we found a doctor to perform the surgery gratis.
Since then, Arnoldo had recuperated and has gotten engaged to a wonderful l young lady named Jill. The whole family brought her to meet me for dinner back in February and I immediately liked her. I wrote an update in February after that dinner, and it contains all of the links to the previous pieces should you care to read them (just click here). I used false names in the articles to protect their identities, but for today and from here on in this blog I will call him by his real name: Arnoldo.
Arnoldo has recently become very ill once again, and this time it’s as serious as it ever was. I was prompted to visit him today at Stony Brook Hospital after his brother told me yesterday that his condition had worsened. I’d visited him last week and he hadn’t been as bad as I thought he would have been, but as happens, you leave the hospital and go back to your own life, and his situation sort of faded into the background for me…until today.
When I got there, Arnoldo was sleepy. I tried to sit down and just wait for him to wake up, but he sensed my presence and gave me a big smile when he saw me. He did look a little drawn in the face, but it wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be. I don’t know if it was luck or not, but while I was there, Arnoldo’s future mother in law stopped by, as did a few of his doctors. She’s a nurse, and so just like her daughter Jill, she was asking the tough questions and trying to dig into Arnoldo’s situation. I won’t get into all of the details here and now, but there are a lot of serious issues going on and I can only hope and pray that things take a turn for the better.
As I sat there listening to all of the doctors give their prognoses and suggestions for treatment, with all of the possible effects, I couldn’t help but think that no matter how I may feel about God for letting this happen to such a good, decent and innocent person such as Arnoldo, I believe that Jill is his gift from God. It’s obvious to anyone who sees her around him that she is completely devoted to this young man and she’d doing all she can to help him. As a person with English as his second language, Arnoldo may not be getting as good care if she weren’t around. He’s very lucky in that respect and I couldn’t be happier that she’s there.
The most noticeable difference in Arnoldo from today and the last time I visited him was the distant look in his eyes. As people all around him were talking, Arnoldo just stared away into space, almost like he wasn’t even there with us. That scared me a little and kept him in my mind throughout my evening. I don’t pray as often as I probably should, but I’m going to pray tonight, for Arnoldo. I pray that he finds a way to get through this crisis, move on with his life and his future marriage to Jill, and live the American Dream he came here to live. He deserves it!
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