Mission 71

Mission 70 | View All Mission Reports | Mission 72

Departure:
St. Augustine, Florida

Arrival:
Indianapolis, Indiana

Date:
March 4, 2010

Mission Report

Gene C is a 79 year old from Indy. He is very active and is always trying to “give back to others”. He is a hospital volunteer and known for his great smile and generous service. He other love is golf. For a winter break, he traveled to St Augustine for a month of sun and golf. On the 8th day he collapsed in his room and was found by his friend. ER physician diagnosed him with an acute stroke completely paralyzing his right side and severely slurring his speech. Wow, how scared he must have been to be in that condition-Gene was now in a position where he was the one needing comfort and help.

He chose to try a risky clot-buster medication and thankfully it worked and he immediately regained much use of his right side. Unfortunately he suffered another small stroke a few days later and it caused more weakness and speech slurring. His son flew down to be by his side. Thanks to his previously active lifestyle and God’s grace, he showed good signs of recovery with each day. After 7 days when the hospital told them he was well enough to be discharged- his son was left with the task of getting him home for rehab. He was still very weak and unsteady and had a lot of weakness of his right arm.

Gene happened to be a good friends of two of our Grace on Wings volunteers and his son called us. It happened that we were on our way to Florida with Mission #70 and very close to his location! We relocated from Jacksonville to St Augustine the next morning and flew him home with us to Indy on a beautiful blue-sky day. (Hal said he was “due” because every other flight this year had been with bad weather!) After a 3 1/2 hour trip, we arrived at the rehab center and Gene said-“that wasn’t bad at all”. (I told him it beats driving!) We pray that Gene will have a full recovery and be back on the golf course soon!

Thanks to great flying by Hal and Rusty, and excellent care by nurse Ashley.

 

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