The Flog – The Fabry Log

Here's the e-mail I talked about on the show today. What a wonderful listener. I hope this encourages you. Some names have been changed:

Dear Chris,
I want to thank for reading my e-mail on the show today. I am unable to call in because I'm at work when the show is aired in my area. I must admit I try to be at my desk when your show is on so I can listen. I am a seamstress at a little tiny shop across from _____ University. I have worked there for 22 years and with the same boss for the same 22 years. I run a 4 head embroidery (can't spell such a big word) machine. I also do heat press which I am not so crazy about but I take my poor little radio into that room and turn it up. My little radio has a broken antenna and I have to scotch tape a nail in the top to get Moody Radio.

I love my Job and although my boss says he's a Christian he can use some pretty bad words. But I have watched God move in his life without him even knowing it. I figure if he ever gets completely sold out to Jesus , God will move me on, but until then I bloom where I'm planted.

Over the years I have built relationships with the people who make their home in town. Mrs. _____ is in her mid seventies and she works at the church across the road from us. She comes over with prayer request every now and then. Mr. _____ just comes in and walks past the counter and we talk about his battle with cancer, and he sees his name on my prayer board. We have another man who's little boy has a brain disorder and his name is on my board. I have green dots scattered around my office with _____'s name on them he goes to my church and has cancer and he was the nurse that set in the ICU with my husband when he died 5 years ago. Now it's my turn to pray for him.

Some times I look at my small little life and can't believe where God has taken me, I love life, and I love my life. I love the people God places in my life and believe that relationship should be a starting point for the message of Christ. A small kindness in this cold world goes a long way. As I said my son's tell me I live in Bubble Land, and I guess I do to some degree. I do believe that the love of Christ should be a part of every fiber of our lives.

I will never be a Billy Graham, but I guess God doesn't need another Billy Graham. What He needs is someone to love the lost neighbor that lives next door. Or love the teenager who is having a hard time with life. Or the person who takes time to visit Aunt Jane in the nursing and take her dried apples because they were her favorite. Or send a card to a mom and dad who's 13 year old son was hit by a car on his birthday and died, 5 years ago , just to say I am praying for you this week. None of these things cost any money, just time. And they truly can change the course of someone's life.

In Christ,
Sue

PS. My son just came in and hit spell check so now I'm not a Hillbilly.

You knew there had to be some good news coming, and today feels like we turned a corner. The cactus are singing in Arizona tonight because we have Internet access again. Not only that, but the phone company installed a phone. Not only that, but the phone company says they installed an ISDN line at the house where we're renting. Never mind that I can't find it, they say it's here, so I guess it is.

It was warm today, in the upper 80s. Hm. 88 in February. What will it be like in July? I can't go there yet. But the evening was nice and cool and peaceful. Oh, and the trash guys came by and took all the trash we put by the side of the road. Andrea said they even waved, which is a far cry from the fellow who yelled at me in Tucson a couple of weeks ago because I didn't have the lids off and the bins spaced 3 feet apart. I don't know how I was supposed to know that, but evidently I made this man's day really bad by him having to get off the truck and yell at me.

The trash guys in Colorado never yelled at me.

So here we are, a little house in the desert, coyotes running around, the kids riding a couple of scooters and a "green machine" given to us by neighbors. They say home is where the heart is. My heart is with my wife and kids so home is Arizona.

As I write this, I am in a 7X7 closet in the back bedroom, the fluorescent light cascading down, three sons sleeping in three separate tents in our bedroom. It is beginning to get quiet now, people winding down from a day of activity and meds and nebulizing. That's what I'm doing as I write. You put a mix of medicine and water in this white thing that looks like an overblown peace pipe, plug it into the socket and start breathing through your mouth and out your nose. It's not easy because the smoke makes you cough until you get used to it. This is supposed to do something good for me. Same for the fish oil. And the Mucinex. And the charcoal tablets. And the clay drink. Honestly, we're drinking dirt and taking some other mix I can't begin to spell. And bathing with black soap. And shampooing with medicine. And eating sprouts of things.

I just had to pour out the red stuff into the cap and do some more nebulizing. I think people get arrested for this, I really do.

Why are we doing this? What's the point? I think the answer is survival. We were exposed to some really bad stuff. The kids were all sick and every doctor told us something different until my wife, who is a treasure, pieced it together. Now they're getting better and seeing improvement, though it's often two steps forward and one step on a cactus, and a drive to the emergency room, and one more step forward. The health insurance still doesn't cover any of this. The homeowners insurance doesn't cover any of our house problem.

But God knows. And I think he's led us to the desert for a reason. And not just to get us healthy again physically. I think there's something even bigger than that going on.

I know that because I read it on the Internet.

Here's a slice of life that has become our lives. We are sleeping on Coleman blow-up mattresses. Some of the kids who are scared of spiders are sleeping in zip-up tents, thinking that will keep them out. It's going to be a long spring in Arizona.

But one of the things Andrea has said over the past few weeks is, "If we can just get a couch where everyone can sit, we'll be in a better place." On Saturday we went looking for a couch, with instructions not to have it "treated" with any of those sprays they use. We found a furniture store, found a nice 4 piece set, complete with a recliner for dad at a reasonable price. We purchased it and they actually delivered it that afternoon.

Early in the morning, Shannon, who is sleeping on a blow-up mattress in the living room, woke up in repiratory distress, which means she couldn't breathe. She moved into one of the bedrooms and was fine. Upon inspection, this was not the actual couch we had bought, but another from another location where they sprayed the bad stuff on the cushions.

Well, I couldn't leave the thing in the house and there were no deliveries on Sunday, so I rented a U-Haul and got Ryan to help me load it. Then I drove back to the store. But wait. This is where it starts to really get good. They wouldn't accept returns at that store. I had to drive to the other store in order to return it. More miles on the U-Haul. So I took it over and was assured I'd be given "all" my money back because of their "mistake." Except they couldn't refund my money because I didn't have the credit card my wife used and they didn't have access to the other store's records.

I tried to keep my cool through the process, and I think I did a pretty good job, but there were several times when I just wanted to ram that U-Haul into something. I guess we all feel that way at times.

On the way back, however, I saw the White Sox or Rockies or some baseball team practicing. I guess there is a silver lining in every U-Haul, couch return story.

Due to some circumstances beyond our control, I haven't had a chance to upgrade the blog lately. We are living in a small town in Arizona that has little Internet access. So Andrea hasn't been able to update her blog and I can only do so when I get to my "office."

Thanks for your prayers for us. More news is forthcoming. We are in a rental now that we believe is clean and will help us stage our assault on the maladies we've been facing. Have a great weekend.
cf

I just signed a 6 month lease on a house in a remote section, outside the city limits of Tucson. It's small. It's remote. Did I say it was remote? But it is all tile floors and no one has ever lived there. Plus it only has electric appliances and that's a plus for our kids. The owner even said we could have a small dog if we want. No cats. Yes!

It will be good to finally land somewhere since living here the past couple of weeks. God has been faithful to uphold us through the strain of this move, and Shannon and Ryan are supposed to arrive today. So probably Wednesday the boot camp will begin for all of us and the kids can get back to their diet/supplement/medication regimen that they were on before and seeing such progress.

Thanks for praying. We've felt your care and concern.
cf

It's Valentine's Day and I'm on the road again. Stayed with good friends last night and am meeting with the hygienist today to talk about our house and the tests recently completed. Also got to see my son sing in a "battle of the bands" at his high school last night. What fun!

Also got to see my other two daughters in Colorado Springs and have dinner with them. It was a full day yesterday and I'm missing my Valentine today. I'll drive back to AZ today through some rather wintry weather in Colorado.

Yesterday was Pippen's birthday. Pippen was our Bichon Frise we had to put down in October. I remember his birthday because it was exactly a week after Kaitlyn's. So when I got to the house where I stayed last night, their dog, Alfie, stayed by me. When I went to the bedroom, he ran in, jumped on the bed, and stayed there all night.

I felt a little lighter yesterday because after a long search we had finally found a house that passed all the tests we could throw at one. Andrea went to the realty firm and filled out the application and paid the fee. After the radio program we were driving to a doctor's appointment when the realtor called. He's a nice young man who drove a lot of miles to show us a couple of houses. He said the owner had decided not to rent to us.

Andrea wept. We had planned the next 6 months in this new, remote community and thought it would work. The kids began asking questions about "Why?" We didn't have answers. Still don't.

This is another setback in a long line of bad phone calls. It feels like a cruel joke at times, and at others just bad luck. But I don't believe in luck. And I don't believe this type of thing happens in life for no reason. There is a purpose in the seemingly endless dot-to-dot scratching and clawing that is our lives.

It reminds me of our first trip to Chicago in 1983. Andrea and I had been married 6 months and we'd packed everything we owned into the back of a 1978 Toyotoa Corolla Hatchback (whose engine, I am convinced, is still running in some junkyard). I had secured a small apartment, subletting it from a young woman who lived in the city. We were to meet her at Hemingway's Restaurant, which I don't think is up on the North Side any longer, to pick up the keys. We didn't have mattresses. We were going to sleep on the floor.

However, at Hemingway's she handed our deposit to me in cash in a crumpled white envelope and said she had changed her mind. Andrea wept that night, too. We'd never been to Chicago together and had no idea what to do. We spent that first night, a long one, in a hotel on the South Side. The next day we spent looking for an apartment, believing God really wanted us to study at Moody. It seemed right, but everything was going wrong.

The next night we slept on the floor of some strangers who became good friends, Greg and Lisa Hatteberg. Greg was in the admissions department at Moody and had heard of our plight. The next day we heard the news that someone had departed from the married student's dorm and that night we slept in a fully furnished apartment on campus. It was like a death and a burial and a resurrection. Two nights of darkness and then a lot of light.

For us, the rest was history. Andrea and I both took classes, thought we would be in some kind of "missions," but God had other plans.

Fast forward to 2009 and here we are again, living in a hotel, still believing that there is a purpose in all of this wandering, and instead of packing all of our belongings in a car, we're packing our children. I'm looking forward to the sunrise after these long nights.

This experience feels like a movie. From the depths of despair in putting down our dogs to swimming in the pool last night while snow fell on the mountain behind us. We were in a hotel in Sierra Vista Saturday night, Andrea wasn't feeling well, and I was trying to cheer her up as we were about to fall asleep.

"Who do you want to play you in the movie?" I said.

She turned over and her face was drawn and quartered. She's been living in Arizona since before Christmas, giving the kids their meds, trying to get them healthy again, and seeing some progress. Now, with all the moving around and living out of Target bags, they can't do the same routine.

"I don't think I'll make it," she said. Meaning, she won't survive long enough for the movie to be made, so she doesn't care who plays her. It showed me the despair she's under.

I'm holding out for Brad Pitt, by the way. When I was a kid, some of my classmates thought I looked like Donny Osmond. A really plump Donny Osmond. I could have been the 12th Osmond, Orson. Or maybe the movie won't be made for years and someone who isn't even known yet will play my part. Maybe my son will be old enough to play me then.

Sometimes it's helpful to think of your life as a movie because you can hear the soundtrack playing in the background and know the dialog is not pointless. There's an end to the story you can count on because the writer and director and producer are working together to bring this seemingly pointless, endless story to fruition. That's what I believe in my heart, even if my head is shaking as we roll down what seems like another dead end road of this film.

Andrea woke up Sunday morning and looked at me. She said two words. Julia Roberts.

I nodded. "Yeah, I can see that."

"And you'd be played by Tom Hanks."

Yes. Orson Donny Brad Hanks. I like it.

This is a difficult but beautiful blog to write. The traveling road show that is the Fabrys life continues in Oro Valley, Arizona. We spent the last 3 nights in Sierra Vista. Friday was Kaitlyn's 11th birthday and we tried to make it special. We've been calling realtors and talking with people to try and find a "replacement" place to stay, but tonight we will sleep in another hotel room.In the midst of all this change and moving around, I was tagged by my 18 year old son on Facebook.

I want you to read what he had to say, if you have time. Ryan is in Colorado finishing out his senior year of high school and getting ready to go to school in New York. He may need to join us here for treatment soon, but we'll see. Here's what he said on his Facebook page:

I'm not the kind of guy to comlain...most of the time. I'm also the kind of guy that doesn't care what people think...Most of the time. This note is just because these feelings have been bulding up inside me for the past month.I spent my seventh consecutive night in a dear, dear friend's house last night. Seven nights without a family member being seven steps away has been tough for me. Before this week, i was staying in an amazing, beautiful rental home. This was made possible by the same friends i am staying with now.

It had been a couple of weeks that it was only my father and I. At least that's how long it felt. It didn't feel long because of my dad, but because we are so used to our enormous, loving family being around. I felt horrible every time i walked out that door and left him alone. We had gotten to watch a lot of movies together, which is one of our favorite things to do. We watched Sling Blade, a little bit of raging bull, Michael Clayton, In Bruges, and Iron Man. It was a good week and a half. Yes that's how long it was.

Then we moved all of the furmiture donated to us into my friend's family's new house. They are a missionary family. This furniture was PERFECT for their new home. We were nothing but happy to help.

I said goodbye to my father one week ago yesterday. I've talked with him once since he left. That time when i talked with him he asked what i was doing the next day. I told him. He said, "Well have, man!" Now understand that my dad says "man" to his friends. He says, "Talk to you later, man. Thanks man, I'll see ya!" He only says that to his friends that are his age. I wil say it right now. As stupid and cliche as some may think it is, something happened at that very moment.

The brightest glow covered my face. Satisfaction was mine. I became a man. Well, i miss my family. I just wrote a paper about how inportant family is. I miss Megan's sophistication and insight. I miss Kristen's smile and maturity. I miss Reagan's giggle, his admiration, and his wonderful sense of humor. I miss Kaitlyn's scream haha no i miss her grace and charm. I miss Colin's dedication and the way he chews (i don't know he just chews funny). I miss brandon's laughter. If i even begin to list what i miss about my mother i will not only keep crying, but start doing it uncontrollably. I miss my father's incredible wisdom. I miss my parent's strength and guidance.

Don't take your family for granted. Please, please don't. They're all you need.Thanks for reading.

I received an email yesterday from a listener going through some financial turmoil. He identifies with our situation and said, "I'm tired of the cliche's Christians give." What he wanted to know was, does God really care when we are in desperate situations?

I could judge that by my circumstances right now, and if I did, I would conclude he doesn't. I walked outside last night and looked up at the expanse of the Arizona sky. I'm just a speck in the universe. How could God care? If he did care, why did he let this happen? Why would he let the kids progress in their treatment and then hit a toxic wall with the house we moved into? Why am I alone again, apart from the people I moved down here to help and nurture? How could so many things be going wrong?

And yet, I received a score of emails yesterday from people telling me they were praying for a breakthrough for us. A missionary and his wife said they had set aside the whole day to pray for us. Andrea and the kids went to a church the Sunday before I arrived and she filled out the little card for newcomers. A pastor called her yesterday, at one of her low points, prayed with her, and told her, "This is why we're here, to help."

So I could focus on all the junk that's happened, all the shattered dreams of how things might have been, or I can focus on the way I've seen God work in the people around us, some we don't even know, and what he's doing in us each day to bring us to a point of wild dependence on him. I wish I didn't have to go through this, and I wish I didn't have to watch my wife and children go through this, but I'm glad we don't have to go through it alone.

If any of what you're about to read comes off as whining, forgive me. I do not mean to whine. This has just become such an unmitigated personal disaster that I can't believe what I'm about to write.

I drove all night Friday, reached Tucson Saturday, made it to the home we're renting for at least two months, unloaded everything and reconnected with my family. I thought everything was going to get back to a semi-normal routine with me beginning my treatment and watching the kids start theirs. However, the reunion was short-lived. Saturday night Andrea and the kids began to have rashes pop up on their skin. Andrea's hands cracked and Brandon had four nosebleeds in one night. I used to think nosebleeds were no big thing. Now I know you don't just get a nosebleed for no reason.

The kids also had respiratory problems. This, after we had had the house we're moving in tested for the presence of mold. It didn't make sense. Sunday night Andrea and the girls slept outside on the back patio with electric blankets. The temperature was in the 40s or 50s, and they said it was better, but they still were having problems. Then we learnd yesterday that the exterminator sprayed for termites recently. That made sense.

Because of the toxic exposure we have had, the toxicologist told us the children would develop multiple chemical sensitivity. We thought he might be wrong since the kids didn't show any signs of that early on. However, looking back, we can see how right he was. Their immune systems have been shot. Anything out of the ordinary makes them respond. Poison for termites threw them for a loop.

The good news is, after getting out of this environment and sleeping in a hotel one night, Andrea and the kids feel a lot better. However, we're stuck. All our stuff is in a house we can't live in. My studio is in a house I can't stay in. The owners brought none of this on themselves, they thought they were doing a good thing in spraying for bugs. It's just a mess.

And to top it off, I can't get my email to send the messages I've written! Well, that seems like a small thing now. If I haven't emailed you it's not because I don't like you. :)

I'm not giving up. We've come too far to turn back. We're just realizing this is what our life is going to be like for a long time.

Thanks for your prayers for us.
cf

Or is it cacti?

I made it. Thanks for praying, for those of you who did. I began at 7 PM Friday night and pulled into Tucson at 11 AM Saturday morning. I had one "rest stop" and I'm not sure how long I slept, but the radio was good company and that rumbling truck was my companion.

It appears the home we have rented is causing some problems for the kids and Andrea. They have had some rashes, nosebleeds, and unexplainable reactions. It was so bad that Andrea, Kristen, Kaitlyn, and Megan slept outside on the patio last night and it was really cold. We wanted to give it more than one day, but the whole purpose for coming here was to get the kids better and if they are in an environment that is hurting them, we'll have to move.

I really like the office in this house. The ISDN connection is in and we're ready to go. The room is a little "live," with hardwood floors and bare walls, but I can fix that pretty quickly. However, if we move, I'll need to figure something else out and fast.

I could write a lot more, but I'll stop. Just got the Internet working Sunday night. Still praying for a safe environment for the kids.

Thanks for your prayers. We really appreciate those of you who are thinking of us.
cf