Holly Michael's Writing Straight

~ Connecting and Inspiring Along Life's Crooked Lines by Author Holly Michael

Holly Michael's Writing Straight

Tag Archives: Vicky Sclafani

Journeys in Writing and in Life: Boulder, Colorado and Miracles at Baaaaa.com

06 Saturday Oct 2012

Posted by Holly Michael in Journeys: In Writing and Life

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

baaaaa.com, Blog, Boulder, Colorado, God, Holly Michael, Inspiration, journeys, Miracles, Vicky Sclafani, www.writingstraight.com

Today, I’m journeying over at baaaaa.com (bleats from God’s Sheep) for a guest blog gig about a recent event and a journey taken shortly after to Boulder, Colorado. Please check out my photos from Boulder below, then meander over to baaaaa.com to read…what happend only weeks before this trip.

If you think God’s handiwork is fantastic in these photos, wait until you read what He did in the life of my friend, Vicky. The rest of the story can be read at baaaaa.com.

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The Destination: Update & Thank You!

15 Saturday Sep 2012

Posted by Holly Michael in Christianity, Inspiration, Prayer Request

≈ 31 Comments

Tags

Blog, Ejection Fraction 5 %, Heart, Miracle, Thank you!, Vicky Sclafani, www.writingstraight.com

If you haven’t, you must read the two previous posts, Part 1: The Destination and Part 2: The Destination, Update and Prayer, to grasp my friend Vicky’s situation. She was on life support. Dying. Doctors and other medical staff reported she could not possibly survive the removal of the ventilator. Massive multi-organ failure. Heart. Lungs. Liver.

Vicky did not die when the tube was pulled out, a little over a week ago. She opened her eyes and said she wanted to live. The ethics committee took over. She was given care to keep her alive, but the word “futile” was repeated often. With the heart damage, it just wasn’t medically possible for her to survive much longer.

The medical staff insisted that the best hope was for Vicky to be transferred to hospice. Her heart would give out soon. She had 5% Ejection Fraction. Non-functioning liver. Lungs had been full of fluid.

Then something happened over the next few days. Improvements in her condition. Not expected. But still, she was labeled as “terminal.” The heart was the main problem. It could not sustain her much longer.

Yesterday, we were in the room with Vicky when the nurse came in with the results of the heart sonogram: “Her heart is normal.”

We were all shocked, elated, in tears!

One doctor declared, “God gave her a heart transplant.” There appears to be no medical reason that this can happen. We are told her heart could not repair itself. A doctor said, “We did nothing medically for her.”

Her liver is also normal. Her lungs are normal.

The medical staff keeps poring over her file. They can’t explain it. I can. A miracle! Vicky is doing well and will be released from the hospital, hopefully in the next few days. Thank you GOD! Thank you Jesus! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you all who prayed for Vicky!!!! You have been a part of a MIRACLE! Surely her destination is Heaven; but not yet.

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The Destination: Update & Prayer

11 Tuesday Sep 2012

Posted by Holly Michael in Prayer Request

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

Angels, Healing, Heaven, Jesus, Mary, prayers, Vicky Sclafani

Yesterday, I posted about my friend Vicky, who is miraculously surviving a massive coronary and organ shut down. She is still with us, but confused and agitated at times, her nurse reports. She still doesn’t always remember where she is and what has happened to her, often thinking she’s on a bus or in a strange house, wondering when she’s going to reach her destination. I really appreciate your prayers and support in the comments section. They comforted me and made me realize that I didn’t include a prayer of my own in yesterday’s post.

So…

…knowing, when two or three gather in His name (even across the internet), He is there. Please pray with me:

Father, be with Vicky now…mortal arms often failed to hold her up when she was weak…and this fragile, gentle soul sometimes stumbled and fell. Jesus, wrap your Heavenly arms around Vicky now, as she once hugged and assured the tsunami orphans in India…

…shower Vicky with Your Mercy and Grace. Lord, heal her broken soul, her wounded heart, and restore her to complete fullness and wellness. As I can not sit at Vicky’s bedside today, please let your holy angels be her visitors. Please send Mother Mary, whom she loves, to sit with her and comfort her through her pain and confusion. Lord, don’t allow her to stray on the mountainside, alone and confused. O Good Shepherd, call to her, bind her wounds, heal her, and bring her to green pastures. Thank you Lord.

Troubles and trials often betray us
Causing the weary body to stray
But we shall walk beside the still waters
With the Good Shepherd leading the way

Those who have strayed were sought by the master
He who once gave his life for the sheep
Out on the mountain still he is searching
Bringing them in forever to keep

Going up home to live in green pastures
Where we shall live and die nevermore
Even the Lord will be in that number
When we shall reach that heavenly shore…

(Ferdinand Ortega – Green Pastures).

Below, Vicky in India with us in 2004, giving a Certificate of Deposit to an orphan that will help this child with college or marriage costs in a couple of years.

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The Destination

09 Sunday Sep 2012

Posted by Holly Michael in Christianity, Prayers Needed

≈ 55 Comments

Tags

death, God, life support, prayers, Vicky Sclafani

Our friend, Vicky, tells my husband and I she’s on a bus, traveling. She wants to get to her final destination, only she’s not sure where the bus is headed.

On Wednesday, Vicky went on life support following a massive cardiac arrest incident and multiple organ failure. Vicky has no family, no living will. On Thursday, the medical staff made a decision to stop life support. The tube was removed and the doctors concurred that she could not survive. After several hours, extremely dehydrated but alive, Vicky opened her eyes and said, “I want to live!”

With those words, the atmosphere in the ICU changed. Bright lights. Busy staff. Medical procedures.

Vicky needs a new heart, but she’s not a candidate, given her damaged and failing organs. No one can explain why she’s alive. But she is. Vicky has a brilliant mind, even now. She’s a deep thinker, even now. She’s an educated, vibrant, witty woman, who can crack a joke, even now.

But Vicky also cries often. She has a sensitive heart, maybe too sensitive. Her wounds, going back to her childhood, are deep and like open sores that she shows to us from her hospital bed in the ICU.

She’s the same Vicky we’ve known, but the ammonia build-up in her liver causes her confusion. She thinks she’s on a bus, or perhaps a train, she says. But she feels as if she’s traveling. “What’s happened to me?” She often asks, especially after waking. “Where am I?” Where are we going?”

When the tsunami hit South India, in 2004, Vicky was instrumental in our church’s major fundraising event. Vicky came along with my husband and I to India. Together, we walked through devastated remote villages and shed tears on beaches that had become cemeteries dotted with coconut sapling gravestones. Vicky hugged children, prayed for the wounded and was a trooper through horrendous conditions.

Now, Vicky hugs us and says she loves us. She jokes, smiles, chats, and contemplates on her past, and often cries, touching the sandalwood rosary around her neck that she purchased during our mission trip to India in 2004.

Please pray for Vicky. I’m not sure why shy can’t get off the bus she thinks she’s on and why she can’t reach her final destination. I wish and pray she could survive and be the full and complete person God meant her to be. I want her to live. The medical staff says she has zero chance of recovery. She has the will to live, but so do many others who still die. God is a factor in why she is surviving. We can’t get anywhere on our own. There is more going on, spiritually, in this situation than I can wrap my mind around.

I just don’t want Vicky to remain stuck on this bus going nowhere, sad and confused.

Tonight she told us she wants to go home, but she says she’s stuck in a bizarre situation, in a house with three girls who say they are nurses, but she knows it’s not so. She says her house needs to be cleaned and she’s really worried about that mess.

Please pray for Vicky. Pray to God that she can find peace and healing so that she can reach her final destination. Pray for God’s mercy for Vicky, for God’s Grace and for Jesus to take her where she needs to be.

I am human. I am frail. I am sad. I am not the driver of this bus.

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Done this: Regular freelance ghostwriter and online editor for Guideposts for Teens/Sweet 16 Magazine, creator/editor of a magazine for Wal-Mart Corp., journalist, newspaper features writer, published in a variety of national magazines and local newspapers, script writing/editing for corporations. Doing this now: author of fiction and nonfiction, blogger, and editor of Koinonia Magazine. I’m the wife of Rt. Rev. Leo Michael, an Anglican Bishop in the Holy Catholic Church-Anglican Rite. Mom to three great kids: Nick (#81 Rajin Cajuns), Betsy (Super cute professor) and Jake (T1D & NFL player) Also, enjoy my travels extensively across the United States and internationally.

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