A Tale of Grace

posted by Kamala on Mar 16

Dearest Friends and Family,
It has come to our attention that there are lots of wild RUMORS about Anni which we want to address,and get out of the AIR!!!!

Darling brothers and sisters, know that our precious and beautiful Lord,our Amma, is showering Her grace upon Anni and all of us. By Her grace alone, and through your prayers we were able to get Anni medical insurance - Medicaid, in 25 minutes,and Anni did not even have to be present! By Her Grace Alone, I am writing this to you from the private hospital room that is Her Grace to us, at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, possibly the abolute best hospital in the world… it’s a research place, that leads the world in new methods for treatement of many physical ailiments. That we got in here, is Her grace. For all the tremendous explenditure, the most modern diagnostic scans, studies, tests,etc, for the hospital room, the endless supplies of paper and disposible products and linens, etc, there is no charge to us. There are teams of doctors involved in each and every decision and direction made for Anni…  This is surely all Her Grace… is it not?  The doctors display very little ego, they are considerate,patient,the staff and nurses are all cheerful and optimistic…one night, I was crying to Amma that we were so far away even from Her devotees, and then we found out that the nurse is a Tibetan Buddhist Nun of 15 years standing!

We urgently need you all to have optimistic FAITH that Anni will be well, to pray intensely with positive feeling… one Christian African American friend of ours that we met here - a very great heart, who has tremendous faith in God, in one of her great prayers with us to Jesus, she said, “forgive us for our disbelief, for doubting you…”

We who have the great priviledge of knowing Amma, we live with the Christ… how can we feel that anything wrong will happen to Anni?

There are times, as a mother, I can’t bear her suffering…  When we first came, and saw the first Dr. A., and he outlined an aggressive plan of attack against what he thought was probably cancer in her body, I felt really sick at heart…  when she was heavily doped up with morphine the last few days, I felt really sick…  It depresses her spirit, stops the normal function of her bowels, changes her sweet personality, irritates her… and all that is stressful… we are people who never took so much as an aspirin,who worked vigorously, no matter what colds, fever or aches we had… people who love fresh air… if I have cried on your shoulder, and made you sad, realize it is only my limited mother’s view and tears… at times I need to share my pain, and seek your solace and understanding. Forgive me, if it has overwhelmed you. Know that my - really, our Anni has also another One who is not only her Mother, but her Lord, and the Love of her Life - our Amma… how can anything go wrong for her?

I only wish that all sick people could get such opportunities, could have such positive help at trying times in their lives. I wish we could bring our beloved Bombay Acchan here, and have him all loved up by the saip doctors and nurses…. That would be fun, and maybe there would be a way to make him better! I pray that the opportunities afforded to us by Gods Grace will be there for many other people as well… I wish I knew how to make it so. I hope that NIH becomes Amma’s personal institution, and that we figure out a way to get the knowledge and skills available here, available to all,and to AIMS…

So know, our darling beloved Family in God, that Anni is in great hands. Be positive about her healing, and our return to your hearts and eyesight! We have so much more that we want to do with you all! So many songs to sing, so many ways we want you to know we love you all - so,be happy, and know that Amma is healing Anni, and pray with optimism!

Remember to have optimistic faith, enthusiasm and keep joy in your hearts!
Loving you intensely,
-Kamala, Anni and Link

posted by Link on Mar 15

Dear Friends,
There are so many people who are afflicted with diseases like Anni’s, they all should obtain the benefit of your Love and Prayers. We’ve set up a prayer list. Please see it and add those people to your prayers…

If you know anybody else who should be here, just comment them in…
-Link

posted by Link on Mar 15

Today Annika had a Core biopsy of the tumor on the Kidney. This is a step up from the Fine Needle Aspiration (FNA) which was done at AIMS, with a little more risk of bleeding, etc. Annika had to starve from midnight onwards, with no water even, in preparation. They offered to connect a drip many times, but Anni didn’t want one. In the morning we had to change her pain medication from pills to injected morphene, since she was not able to have the pill without food. The morphene did not work for about 2 hrs, during which Anni was most irritable due to the pain. It also had the effect of making her quite groggy, but that has been the general effect of all the pain medications so far… The Biopsy was at 1 pm. It was performed by Dr Chang, an older, very experienced man. He patiently answered all of our questions, which was nice. He even gave me a step-by-step of what he was going to do, and went through all of our “if-then”s. We wheeled Anni there in a wheelchair, as she just was NOT up to walking. Infact, she hasn’t walked much except a little bit outside yesterday after the scans and a little around our little room. Right now she’s sleeping.

So the nurse took Anni into the proceedure room, we went out to wait. While we were waiting, we saw a little girl sitting up in her gurny attached to all sorts of tubes, with a huge line of stitches up the back of her head, looking just like a little ANGLE coming in from the ICU for a CT scan. Her dad told me her name was Kimberly, that she had had a successful Brain Tumor removal, but that her lungs had subsequently collapsed. She was 16. So please add her to your lists…

After about 45 minutes, the nurse told us that Anni’s procedure was over, that she would be out shortly. After about 15 minutes, Annika was wheeled out on a strecher, with an attached IV, etc. She was groggy, but not in pain. She told us about it, she had been concious during the whole thing, and had even seen the specimens! The Dr told us that there had been quite a bit of bleeding, he had had to embolize it with some foam pellets and Thrombin solution. However, he did not think that it was any problem. He also thought that the samples (3 of them) had been quite good, that they should be good enough for a definitive examination.

Dr Sudarshan was present during the proceedure. Oh! The LP (Lumbar Puncture) was postponed till tomorrow, since they needed Annika to be fully concious while they draw off the CSF (Cerebro-Spinal Fluid).

Finally at about 2pm we reached our room, and Annika was transferred to the bed there. She had to lie on top of the bandage until 4 pm to ensure that it clotted properly inside her. Right now it’s about 7pm, and she’s sleeping normally, awaiting a pizza to fill her stomach.
Aum Amriteshwaryai Namah
-Link