Vol2, Issue3

Volume 2, Issue 3 – March 2002

Welcome

Keep Those Prayers Coming…

By Vinny Distefano

Since the day of the accident, I have had an opened hot-line to The Big Guy upstairs. Often, during the day, someone will ask “…How’s she doin’?” I’ll hand over an Angel-Hawk card and give them the short edition. I’d love to say to them, “Here’s her number. Call her and ask her yourself.” But when they leave, I find myself praying so hard for Angie to be able to come home soon... The prospect of someone Angie’s age, twenty-seven, spending fifty, sixty or seventy years in a nursing home is out of the question. My research shows why…

The Associated Press
N E W   Y O R K, July 23 —Many nursing homes are so understaffed they may be endangering the welfare of their patients, according to a new report by federal health officials. Read this story

Recently, I’d seen a story on the news about a study funded by the government on the healing power of prayer, too. So I did some more digging. There is an enormous amount of data out there supporting prayer. No one wants to report on this kind of study, though. It’s hard to report on prayer and not get lumped in with the religious-right in this country and many of their overboard policies and tactics. 

     Can Prayer Heal?

Scientists Suggest Recovery May Be the Hand of God at Work

Here’s an excerpt…"This study offers an interesting insight into the possibility that maybe God is influencing our lives on Earth," says O'Keefe. "As a scientist, it's very counterintuitive because I don't have a way to explain it."

U.S. Funds Prayer Research

NewsMax.com Wires
     November 14, 2000

NEW YORK, (UPI) - U.S. scientists launched a five-year study to determine if prayer intervention can improve the health of cancer patients. The enterprise was funded by the National Institutes of Health, a federal agency, and was reported in the November issue of the journal Research News.

It seems like a dream, but is it possible that scientists are admitting they can’t explain everything in our universe? Can doctors be far behind?  And, as you’ll read in the story,

"From a purely scientific standpoint, I thought it was illogical," says O'Keefe. "I don't really think of spirituality normally as playing a role in scientific, rigorous, double-blind placebo-controlled scientific studies. It's two different realms."  

There they are again. Those words, double-blind and placebo. Even when the tightest controls possible were followed, these scientists had no explanation as to why prayer worked. Could it be that science will never have the “proof” it needs to say that God and prayers do all the healing in our world? How often have we heard words like, “I’m sorry…We did all we could”. What exactly does that mean? Did the drugs not work properly? Or did they and for some unknown reason, the person was taken from us anyway. Or what about the reverse. Without any explanation at all, a person, who by all medical standards shouldn’t be getting better…is! When I lost my Dad in 1991, I was glad that the pain from his cancer was finally gone. But I was told by my family, a few days before, he was found sitting up in a chair by the window in his room. No one knows how he got there. He was heavily drugged and had a broken hip. He somehow disconnected his I.V’s and got to the chair. He could hardly move when I saw him earlier. Was this some kind of sign to us that he would be OK? And, as I wrote last year as well, I have a photo with him in the background. The photo was taken a year after he died. Yes, I have checked for double exposures. As a photographer, I know what it looks like. This is not.

Are these hints to us to look harder for our answers, beyond what we can see and touch? I know I have heard Angie’s voice from time to time…while I’m awake and working, with no one else around. It’s usually just my name, but some times it’s her giggling. And the dreams just keep on coming. So vivid and real, when I wake up, I have to stop and remember, we’re not quite there yet. Is it all in my mind or is she being allowed to communicate with us so we keep on working and never give up? If anyone could convince God to let her signal us while she’s healing, it’s Angie.

So…do I have your attention yet? Does He have your attention yet? I am probably the farthest thing from a preacher as one can get. I won’t be making any guest appearances on Benny Hin or Jerry Falwell. But as Angie continues to improve slowly, I will ask that the people who read our newsletter, past it onto another and another…to get as many people as we can to pray for Angie’s recovery. I know her name is on a number of prayer lists around the country. She needs your help to spread the word to your friends and family and co-workers. Send this newsletter to your e-mail addresses. I won’t spam anyone with unsolicited e-mails. Please visit Angie’s guest book and tell us who you are. My prayer is that one day Angie will answer you and thank everyone herself.

Till next time, be safe…Hugs and Prayers

Pass it on and tell a friend to stop by. Thanx

Vol2, Issue2

Volume 2, Issue 2 – Feburary 2002

Welcome

I’m Not Blind, ya Know…

By Vinny Distefano

Double blind studies. What are they? Well, it’s where neither the doctor nor the patient knows whose getting a real drug or a placebo. Only the administrator of the study knows. This is the scientific basis for drug effectiveness. Why try to fool them? Are you telling me that if they “think” they are getting a drug, that somehow their minds can help heal them, without the drugs? Hmmm, sounds like voodoo, don’t you think, doc? How could our mind’s be so powerful, that tricking it into using sugar to heal a real medical condition can work? Hmmm, once again. What if you’re not sure if the person knows or as in Angie’s case, was in a coma at the time she was given a drug ( or not ) to protect her brain from the injuries she sustained. I think it’s time for science to take a look at itself and find out what’s really going on.

       Existing programs out there do not cover her HBOT treatments. Why? Because science can’t figure out a way to trick the mind into thinking it’s receiving oxygen under pressure. So, the answer for patients who could be helped is, “NO, it doesn’t work”. If you have a wound, sure. It’s wonderful. The oxygen helps the tissue to heal. Anyone can see that. My point exactly. If you look at where Angie was before she began her HBOT treatment and now, there is a marked difference that can be seen by anyone. Here’s a partial list of conditions covered by HBOT…

·         Actinomycosis - only as an adjunct to conventional therapy when the disease process is refractory to antibiotics and surgical treatment

·         Acute carbon monoxide intoxication

·         Acute peripheral arterial insufficiency

·         Acute traumatic peripheral ischemia - HBO therapy is a valuable adjunctive treatment to be used in combination with accepted standard therapeutic measures, when loss of function, limb or life is threatened

·         Chronic refractory osteomyelitis - when unresponsive to conventional medical and surgical management

·         Crush injuries and suturing of severed limbs - as in the previous conditions, HBO therapy would be an adjunctive treatment, when loss of function, limb or life is threatened

·         Cyanide poisoning

·         Decompression illness

·         Gas embolism

·         Gas gangrene

·         Necrotizing fasciitis - as an adjunct treatment, as above

·         Osteoradionecrosis - as an adjunct to conventional treatment

·         Preparation and preservation of compromised skin grafts

·         Soft tissue radionecrosis, as an adjunct to conventional treatment

A pretty impressive list... In all of these conditions, the oxygen reaches the cellular level as it heals. So why are brain cells so different? It seems to me, of all the cells in our bodies that could be helped by increased oxygen, they are at the top of the list. Keep an eye out for this special…This September the Discovery Channel takes us on an hour long journey inside "The Healing Chamber"

 Let’s Get Wet

Swim with the dolphins?…

OK, let’s move on now. I’ll keep on the HBOT story and update it as we get the info. What about physical therapy? All of us are familiar with athlete’s getting whirlpools, massages, heat/cold packs to keep them in top shape for competition. Who hasn’t sprained an ankle and put ice on it to keep the swelling down. Stretching before exercise is known to reduce injuries, too. And we’ve all heard the phrase, “Use it or loose it”. Our bodies respond to such things. Then why, as in Angie’s case, is it like talking to a wall when we request exercises to help keep her body ready fit. The answer most often given, “It’s not worth it”. Short and sweet. Oh sure, if they’re wrong and Angie recovers, then they want to operate to repair her tendons and ligaments. Sounds nuts. As I have written in past issues, I’ve seen folks “exercising” Angie in a way you would not be able to do to someone who could respond, because it has to hurts!  So we search and search for alternatives. I have said many time, I would like to buy Angie a wet suit and get her over to Discovery Cove to swim with the dolphins. It’s not as crazy as it sounds. Angie really relaxes when she get her twice a week whirlpools at the nursing home. While they are done to help with her hygiene, the benefit to her body is quite evident. All of her muscle spasms are reduced significantly and it’s easier for her to “work out”, i.e., rotating her shoulders and hips. So why not take it a step further? Well, Barbara and Ronnie have found a pool for disabled folks where we can actually get in with Angie and “swim” around. We should know something in a couple of weeks. And as for Discovery Cove, well, the summers coming, The Angie Hobbs Foundation is coming, the wheels are turning to get our documentary wrapped and on the air and nothing is going to get in our way. I want Angie to be proud of what we’re all trying to do here.     

We’re gearing up for the fight of our lives. We’ll use their own logic to convince them that a traumatic brain injury is not the end all they’ve made it out to be. There’s evidence out there. Next month, studies about the healing power of prayer.

Till next time, be safe…

 Pass it on and tell a friend to stop by. Thanx

Vol2, Issue1

Volume 2, Issue 1 – January 2002

Welcome

It’s Coming…

By Vinny Distefano

Well, what can I say?  Angie and we have all come a long way this past year. I was recently speaking to my sister about where Angie was and where she is now. I have a great deal of respect and awe at what the doctors accomplished and how they saved Angie in the beginning. I will be forever grateful. An amazing array of tubes, machines and medicines. But their books stopped where Angie’s real recovery began. As she began to use less and less technology and more and more of what God gave her, the help ends. Just when she needed to shift gears and change to a different regiment of care, it was non-existent.

Naturally, the first year of her recovery was to get her thru the critical stages and get her off the machines. Then to slowly stop the medications to see if she would take over “running” her body again. As we watched her fight her way thru every stage, we asked, “Where can she go now to continue stimulating her body and mind to recover?”  The short answer, “Nowhere!” Whoa…the answer in “the book” is, nowhere? Who ripped out the pages at the end of the book? Do you walk out of a ballgame before the ninth inning? Do you leave the movie theater before her hero rides off into the sunset? How could it be, who wrote these books??????????

Thru August 1999 to January 2001, we searched for answers, on the Web, local organizations, etc. not knowing where to go for help. Slowly, painfully slowly, we were finding information on alternative avenues to try. In January 2001, we began a concerted effort to ask the world thru the Internet and this newsletter, so The Angel-Hawk Times began. We wanted to keep everything we’d found available to other families going thru this. No one should have to search in the dark. Some answers began to filter in to guide us, but the realization of a knowledge void was also evident. So many people with the same questions, so many people getting the same answers from the same “books”. Sorry, there’s no data on this or that so insurance or government programs won’t cover it…It was that frustration that has led us to be begin the process of “covering it”. The process of getting a non-profit organization started is lengthy. It will take four to six months. But the goal is to get a real program of different therapies here in Central Florida for people with Traumatic Brain Injuries. Every program we’ve contacted has rejected Angie for one reason or another, but the bottom line revolves around two scales, The Glasgow Coma Scale and The Ranchos Scale. Each describes levels of consciousness, awareness, mobility, and vocal levels. Each program has a minimum level, which they have found to be necessary for admittance. Fall short of these levels and you’re out of the system on your own. The one’s I have contacted are all doing great work getting people back into this world again. There is nothing out there that will take someone who falls short, Sorry Angie, no pun intended (inside joke)

I have a passion to fill this void. So while we’re getting approval, we will continue to document Angie’s day to day in this newsletter and on film, to be aired in the future. Angie still talks to me in dreams. I pray for her to be able to take over this someday and tell you in her own words to find a way to pitch in. I never paid attention to the Life-Flight helicopter in the past, but for two and a half years, I can’t stop hearing it. It’s constantly in the air. I live just east of downtown Orlando where it is based, ORMC. Look down at the road and see all of the skid marks. The road is completely covered with them. How many of those families are going thru the same things we are? How many could we help? More questions, but this time I will find the answers. And at the same time, we’ll be writing a “new book”- to take over where there was a dead end before. We’re going into uncharted territory as far as awakening the mind, but since no one is willing to risk their reputations on saving even one person, I envision many different unconventional approaches to getting the person out of the dark and back into our lives…back into their lives.

Happy Birthday, Sweetie  XXOOXX

Till next time, be safe…

 Pass it on and tell a friend to stop by. Thanx