Healing by Chocolate

I've never seen a grade A Bennie Hinn type miracle healing. Count me a skeptic and as one who thinks Pastor Hinn is a fake and a charlatan who preys on people in their most vulnerable state. I'm not saying miracles don't happen, I'm just saying I haven't seen one, felt one, or touched one; at least until last Saturday when one came really kind of close.

Marty broke her right arm about a month ago when she had an infection induced seizure. It was the first seizure she experienced in about three years but it was bad. Because of inactivity due to her strokes and long term steroid use Marty's bones are much more brittle than normal. When she had the seizure she was in bed at the hospital and the sheer force of the muscles in her arm contracting and releasing caused the compound fracture of the upper part of her right humerus. It was a horrible fracture of her good right arm, the left arm being paralyzed by stroke number two.

Saying the arm hurt then and still hurts is stating the obvious. We are letting the arm heal, but even now, a month later, it is still very painful. Marty never complains about pain, she never complains about anything, but if you move her arm you get, "oh, oh, oh." This means it really hurts. Pain meds help but they dull everything else so much she often chooses to not take the heavier pain medication. She is a better person than I Gunga Din.

Over the last month she has started to try and use the arm a little bit at a time, and I mean a real little bit. It hurts to move it at all and it appears to be pretty weak. She played the piano for about five minutes the other day, she is starting to hold on to the support rail for her bath chair and has started holding a drink with a straw; all awesome and incredibly helpful improvements. She still requires someone to feed her which she doesn’t much like but tolerates as long as you do it the way she wants.

The other night as we were sitting watching TV, one of our caregivers, Erica came in with a Heath chocolate bar, one of Marty's favorites. Marty has a bit of a chocolate problem, she has a sweets issue, and she likes candy. I can identify, even bad chocolate can be a spiritual experience.

Erica broke the bar into three small pieces and gave Marty a small piece in her right hand. Marty's hand was lying on her stomach as she sat in her chair. Marty took the piece looked at it, looked at Erica and then moving her broken right arm up she put the piece to her mouth. Erica and I both sat a bit stunned; we laughed and clapped celebrating one of life's little victories.

The next day Marty and I were sitting outside enjoying the spring with another of our caregivers, Nikkie, and I told her the story of the Heath bar. She laughed and said Marty had been "touched" and I said "Amen it was a miracle; Marty had been touched by the power of chocolate." We all laughed, it's always, always good to laugh.

I'm not saying what happened was a huge big-ass deal miracle. It wasn't. I didn't see Bennie Hinn in his Nehru jacket popping people in the forehead anywhere. Really we didn’t need Bennie, we had Heath and frankly Heath is a lot more credible in my faith journey.