 
My Story

God Never Gave Up On Me

By Dr. Kennard B. Sproul

Copyright 2013 Dr. Kennard B. Sproul

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### The Ninety and Nine

There were ninety and nine that safely lay in the shelter of the fold.

But one was out on the hills away,far off from the gates of gold.

Away on the mountains wild and bare; away from the tender shepherd's care,

away from the tender shepherd's care.

"Lord, though hast here thy ninety and nine, are they not enough for thee?"

But the shepherd made answer, "This sheep of mine has wandered away from me.

And although the road may be rough and steep, I go to the desert to find my sheep...

I go to the desert to find my sheep."

But none of the ransomed ever knew how deep were the waters crossed.

Nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed through where he found his sheep that was lost.

Out in the desert, he heard its cry...sick and helpless and ready to die...

sick and helpless and ready to die.

But all through the mountains high and steep... and up from the rocky seas...

there arose a glad cry to the gate ahead, "Rejoice I have found my sheep."

And the angels echoed around the throne,"Rejoice for the Lord brings back his own...

rejoice for the Lord brings back his own.

Traditional Hymn

Words by Elizabeth Clephene, 1869

Music by Ira Sankey, 1891

### THE REASON FOR MY HOPE

**" How** **God** **'** **s** **Gr** **ac** **e** **a** **nd** **Love** **Wil** **l** **Str** **e** **n** **g** **th** **e** **n,** **R** **e** **bu** **il** **d** **a** **n** **d** **H** **ea** **l"**

I can now be hopeful if I have a personal relationship with God. This relationship can give me an open door to everything that God has promised to His people in His Word. I can have hope because:

  * God loves me.

  * God has a master plan for good...I am a part of it now and everyday to come.

  * God has a "blueprint" for my life...a personalized plan that is still unfolding.

  * God still has more He wants to say to me.

  * I have people who need me to love them and give to them.

  * God is the one in charge of fulfilling the potential He has given me.

  * All of God's promises are intended for me...and He still has blessings to give me.

  * God is with me always!!

Reprinted by permission. The Reason for My Hope, Dr. Charles Stanley, copyright 1997. Thomas Nelson Inc.

Nashville, Tennessee. All rights reserved.

# PROLOGUE

It was very dark and quiet out there that night. Of course, I was sitting out beside my car on an old gravel country road several miles from town. The ground was cold, wet, and uncomfortable. There were no houses or farms in turn nearby...no traffic on that road. After all, that is why I picked this site. I remembered an old saying, "What is wrong with this picture?" I was thought of as being a very successful family practice physician in Brazil, Indiana, where I had been practicing nearly 20 years. I owned a part of a beautiful office building that I shared with two other physicians. I had three very healthy and very intelligent children. I was very wealthy by a lot of people's standards. I was driving a new beautiful Chrysler 300M. Nearly everyone in town knew me, and most of them liked me...at least I thought. What more, after all, could anyone want?

What exactly was I doing sitting out here on this dark country road with my cell phone in one hand and my gun in the other? The reception for my cell phone wasn't really very good. It only showed to one bar and the charge was a bit low, but I only needed to make one call. I planned to call the Clay County Sheriff's office to tell them where to find my body. My life was a mess. My depression was out of control. I was beaten. I was tired of fighting it all. I believed in God. I believed that his son, Jesus Christ, had indeed, given his life for me. But I didn't know how to pray. I didn't know how to ask for his help. But I tried to pray anyway, "Lord, please give me the strength to pull the trigger...and finally end all this pain."

CHAPTER ONE

I was very happy that I had been able to make my own airline reservations, including making the seat selections. I was able to choose an aisle seat for the flight to Washington and all the connecting flights across the ocean and then to Africa. I like being on the aisle and being able to get up and out of the seat more easily. I also do not like being in a "middle seat" between two other passengers. The flight across the Atlantic would be full and the airplane was huge. I looked again at my tickets to make sure that I had every one of them. I was flying United Airlines from Indianapolis to Dulles Airport in Washington D.C. There I changed to Lufthansa Airlines to fly from Washington to Frankfurt, Germany and then on to Alexandra, Egypt and finally to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This was going to take nearly 24 hours!

I was comfortably buckled into my seat and half listening to the film on the TV screen showing all about the safety features of this new Boeing 767. I remembered back to the first time I had ever flown on a commercial airplane. In June 1963 I had flown in a Continental Airlines Boeing 707 from Chicago O'Hare International to Denver, Colorado and then on to Colorado Springs. I was about to start one of the biggest adventures of my entire life up to that time. I had been offered and accepted an appointment to the United States Air Force Academy for the class of 1967.

I had graduated from a tiny high school in Malta, Illinois, with 18 other students just two weeks before. Now I was about to start basic training at the United States Air Force Academy. My father had been in the Army Air Corps during World War Two and had flown B- 17's and B-24's. His older brother had been killed during World War Two in the Battle of the Bulge. But that was the only real contact I had with anyone in the military. Why had I decided to join the military in 1963 and change the direction of my life so very much?

Malta, Illinois is a town of fewer than 1000 people located in northern Illinois about 60 miles west of Chicago. The size has not changed very much in many years. I had lived and gone to school there for 12 years all in the same building. One side of the school building was the elementary school; upstairs on the front of the building were 2 rooms for the seventh and eighth grades (our so-called "junior high); the other side of the building was the high school. Except for a very few students whose families had moved in or out of Malta during the years, I had gone to school with the same 17 or 18 students from first grade through high school graduation. We all certainly knew each other very well!

My cousin, Ross Butler, was in my class although he was almost a full year older than I was. I had spent many days and weeks with him and my other two cousins, Lee and Paul Butler, on their two farms about 2 miles outside of town. It was a very easy bicycle ride! I had spent most of every summer working on those farms or for another farmer helping bale hay or doing other work.

Pat Duffy, another fanatic Chicago White Sox fan in my group, was one of my closest friends back then. I had lived on the same block as he did in the southern part of Malta for many years. We had spent many hours playing baseball, pole vaulting in the backyard, trading baseball cards, boxing in his house with huge boxing gloves, and many, many other "kid" things. Another close friend during those years was Jim Cunningham, a Chicago Cubs fan. We still allowed him to play ball with us in the summer even though he was a Cubs fan!

Those were wonderful years, or so we thought. Many years later I drove back through Malta and took an entire roll of pictures to help me remember those days and that town. I still remember sitting in the classroom listening to the radio broadcast of astronaut Alan Shepard being launched on the first suborbital flight into space in 1959. Very shortly thereafter, John Glenn had been the first American to orbit the earth after being successfully launched on top of an Atlas rocket booster. That launch we were able to see on a TV in the classroom. We were in a "race for space" with the Soviet Union even though it wasn't called that at the time. I remember John Kennedy being elected president in 1960. Richard Nixon was the Republican contender. He was to be elected president himself later in 1968 and 1972. I remember how close the election was, especially in Illinois. Did they really find voting machines at the bottom of the Chicago River? There were a lot of stories about the politics of the Democratic Party of Chicago in the days of the first Mayor Richard Daley.

What wonderful memories I had of those high school years. Because our school was so small, I was able to participate in every varsity sport...or maybe because I was such an excellent athlete? Our high school participated in an athletic conference named the Little Eight. We competed against small schools in other farming communities near us. Nearly all the other schools were about the same size as Malta. I can still remember most of the other school's names--Shabbona, Kirkland, Hinckley-Big Rock, Genoa-Kingston, and a few others.

Our only fall sport was cross country. We really had no good distance runners and rarely did well in any cross country meet. But I had not choice! Malta had only one varsity coach. He used cross country as training for the basketball season so we ran whether we wanted to or not. Fortunately, we were always able to have at least 10 boys try out for basketball each season. That way we were able to have two teams during practice scrimmages as well as have both a varsity and junior varsity team for game night. I was a pretty fair basketball player, despite being less than 6 feet tall and weighing only 150 pounds. I played "point guard" on offense and was able to play three full years of varsity basketball. I remember my sophomore season playing both junior varsity and varsity games on the same night! There was no one over 6 feet tall on our entire team back then...and very few on the other teams we competed against.

In spring we participated in track and field. I think I liked track the best because it was both an individual sport and a team sport. I ran both low and high hurdles and pole vaulted. We all had to teach ourselves, pretty much, how to do the individual events. I became close friends with a one year younger fellow named for Don Willrett. I had worked for his older brother on their farm during a couple of summers and played softball in the summer with Don and with his older brother. Don played shooting guard on our basketball team and was a pole vaulter also. Those were the days before fiberglass vaulting poles had been invented. We used a stiff pole made of Swedish steel about 13 or 14 feet long. I still remember the world record for the pole vault being set by a fellow named Don Bragg at a height of 15'10" while I was in high school. I was able to jump 11 feet when I was a high school senior. The fiberglass vaulting pole, which the athlete could flex and bend and help him or her jump, was introduced the year after I graduated. Because Don had been such a strong young fellow, he was able to jump 14 feet as a senior with this new pole. Because of this new technology, within a decade or two the world record had been raised to almost 20 feet.

During my last three years of high school I dated a young lady named Joyce Willrett. Joyce was the older sister of Don and had a twin named Janet. Joyce and Janet were one year ahead of me in school. They both were very intelligent, very sweet... and very pretty! Joyce and I spent every bit of free time that we could being together those years. She was a cheerleader for the basketball team. We also sang in the Methodist Church choir and were both members of the Methodist Youth Fellowship. Looking back, I think I probably did many of those activities just so that I could be with her. During my senior year in high school, she was a first-year student at a small college in Iowa. I was able to visit her there quite often. She came home many other weekends. We always thought that we would get married sometime during those college years, but that was not to happen.

To this day I don't really remember why I joined the military. I suppose it had something to do with my need for a big challenge at that time of my life rather than anything to do with patriotism. School had been very easy for me. I had grown up feeling the need to excel at everything I did. I suppose that my parents had instilled that feeling in me. Everyone then thought that "success" was determined by one's accomplishments. It was many years later that I understood just how these two things affected some of my career choices. I was a varsity athlete; I became an Eagle Boy Scout; I had a 4.0 grade point all 4 years of high school and was valedictorian of my graduating class. I dated the most beautiful and popular cheerleader of the school. I wanted to be the very first person from our county to go to a military academy (West Point or Annapolis!) These were big accomplishments...and made me more "successful."

I remember every fall watching the Army - Navy football game on television. I watched the Corps of Cadets and the Brigade of Midshipmen as they marched into the stadium and onto the field before the game. Wow! I pictured myself going to one of the academies, wearing a military uniform and marching with them. During my late junior year and early senior year of high school I decided to look into going to a military academy. Academics had always been very simple for me and I loved studying both science and mathematics. I knew that the emphasis of academics at the military schools was on engineering and science, especially in those days of the space race. That would be perfect for me. I knew that if I wasn't able to go to a military academy, I would go to the University of Illinois or Purdue University and study engineering.

I contacted both the Military Academy at West Point and the Naval Academy in Annapolis asking them to send me information. I had worn glasses to correct my vision since age eight or nine, but didn't know if that would disqualify me or not. I saw in their catalog that the vision requirements at Annapolis were very strict - a candidate needed 20/20 vision in each eye uncorrected. The vision requirements at West Point were less stringent...one needed only 20/100 vision corrected to 20/20 vision. The Air Force Academy was very new. The very first class graduated in 1959 only four years before. I didn't even consider talking to them because I knew with my eyesight that I could not be a pilot. I decided to apply to West Point. I accomplished all the required paperwork and sent it to West Point, New York. I also contacted my representative to the U.S. House of Representatives. Just about the only way to gain admission to any service academy was by being appointed by one's U.S. Representative or U.S. Senator. Only about 800 students were admitted to each school each year.

Sometime after that I received a letter asking me to do a personal interview with my congressman and to make an appointment at Chanute Air Force Base in Central Illinois to undergo a physical examination and physical fitness test. I did the interview as well as the exams at Chanute AFB. About six months later, in April 1963, I remember receiving a letter from my congressman from Washington D.C. I still remember how disappointed I was when I read the first line, "I am very sorry to inform you that although you were fully qualified for admission to West Point, I do not have any appointments available this year." But then the letter went on to say that he was offering me an appointment to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado if I wanted one! I had not even considered going there because of my vision problem. Their vision standards, however, were identical to those of West Point. The Air Force needed more officers than just pilots. I had no idea where Colorado Springs even was. But that didn't matter what so ever. I accepted this appointment immediately. Wow...what an adventure I was about to start on!!

Soon after accepting this appointment, two more major things happened that affected my life. First, my girlfriend Joyce told me that because I was going so far away, and because we could not get married during my four years at the Air Force Academy she was going to break off our relationship. I knew I could wait for her for four years, but she did not want to wait for me. In fact, she did get married less than a year after I left for Colorado.

The second thing that happened was the Cuban missile crisis. Fidel Castro, the dictator of the island country of Cuba, had asked for and received intermediate-range ballistic missiles from the Soviet Union. These missiles could be armed with nuclear warheads and could easily reach most of the continental United States. These missiles were first identified during over-flights of Cuba by U.S. Air Force U-2 and RB-57 aircraft. I still remember the confrontation that occurred between the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, former U.S. Senator Adlai Stevenson, and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev. Senator Stevenson, in an open and televised meeting of the UN Security Council, showed copies of photographs of the missile installations and Soviet troops on the ground in Cuba. Mr. Khrushchev was so angry that he took off his shoe and used it to pound on the desk as he screamed at Senator Stevenson.

President Kennedy shortly afterwards ordered a complete naval blockade of Cuba. He stated that U.S. Navy personnel would intercept, stop, board, and search every ship going to Cuba. No military supplies of any type would be allowed into Cuba. He also stated very firmly that unless these missiles were immediately removed from Cuban soil that our military would take direct action in Cuba. The Soviets countered by saying that if the U.S. invaded Cuba, they would consider that action a direct action against the Soviet Union. World War Three could easily have started at any moment.

Fortunately, the Soviet Union backed down and the missiles were removed. Nuclear war was something the entire world feared in the 1950's and 1960's during the "Cold War" between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Nuclear war could very easily have started at that time. Only years later did we find out just how strongly several of our military leaders urged President Kennedy to bomb and then invade Cuba...and just how close the U.S. had come to taking ground forces into and bombing Cuba...possibly starting World War 3! But the President took the advice of his brother, Robert Kennedy, who was the Attorney General of the U.S., and of some other civilian advisors. I remember thinking, "What great timing! The world is about to go to war at exactly the same time I am joining the military." One crisis had been avoided, one war had been averted, but little did we know that the war in Vietnam was going heat up very soon and how deeply and tragically involved the United States military would become.

# CHAPTER TWO

I woke up when the co-pilot made the announcement that we were beginning our decent into Washington/Dulles airport. I didn't remember falling asleep. I had to change planes there and needed to find the Lufthansa desk in order to get more flight information. I had a three-hour layover and decided it would be a good idea to buy some lunch and a bottle of water and snacks for the next leg of the flight. The flight from Dulles to Frankfurt was estimated to take a bit over seven hours. Even though I would be landing in Germany, Egypt, and then Ethiopia, I did not have to clear customs until I arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Marty and Hugh Downey, the couple I was working for in Ethiopia, told me to pack enough gear for one year. I knew that I was certainly overloaded with a carry-on and laptop computer plus three suitcases. I hoped that I would have help when I arrived in Ethiopia.

Soon after takeoff from Dulles Airport I started thinking about those early days at the Air Force Academy. I had started 8 weeks of basic training in June of 1963, just 3 weeks after my high school graduation. Four years later I hoped to graduate with a bachelor's degree in engineering and a commission as a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force

I was met at the Colorado Springs airport by a family friend who owned a motel there in Colorado Springs. I stayed at the motel one night. The next morning he drove me the 15 miles or so to the entrance of the Air Force Academy. I was really scared about what was about to begin!

I reported in wearing civilian clothes and carrying a small duffel bag containing only a shaving kit and an extra pair of glasses. I soon found myself in a group of about 800 other men (boys?) all ready to in-process that day. We spent much of that first day standing in extremely long lines. We were soon issued uniforms including everything from hats to shoes and boots... underwear and socks. We also received several immunizations in both arms-- tetanus, typhoid, polio, flu, and, I am sure, a couple of others. We were given instructions to pack our civilian clothes in our duffel bag. Our home address was added and the duffel bag was mailed home. What an exciting and frightening day that turned out to be.

My memories of basic training were somewhat blurry. I know that at the end of the 8 weeks I weighed only 130 pounds. (I had reported in weighing about 150 pounds.) I probably looked like a prisoner of war. I was so skinny. Within those 8 weeks, those of us who "survived" rapidly completed a transition from being a civilian to being a military recruit. Over 200 of those who reported in that first day in June had already resigned and gone home. Every single one of the other 600 had at some time or the other that summer thought about going home, but we were still there.

We learned how to march and how to salute. When asked a question or given an order we learned how to say, "Yes Sir!", "No Sir!", and "No excuse Sir!" if we didn't know the answer. We learned how to eat a meal in about 10 minutes while sitting in a stiff "brace" on the front few inches of a chair and not looking at anything other than our plate unless ordered to by an upperclassman. The military and physical training was unbelievably rigorous. The bugles sounded "Reveilie" at 5:30am every morning; "Taps" was at 11pm. Every day except Sunday we marched and/or ran several miles. I am certain each of us did 1000s and 1000s of pushups and situps in those 8 weeks. I certainly had no fat left on my body in August.

Each of us needed to memorize a huge amount of material, some very important and some very trivial--all 4 verses of the Star Spangled Banner, the names and designations of all the Air Force aircraft, the Code of Conduct of the American Fighting Man, the main points of the Geneva Convention, the complete name of every upper class cadet in our squadron, and more and more and more.

Well, I succeeded! In August 1963 each of us became an official member of the Cadet Wing of the United States Air Force Academy. We were each issued several sets of "prop and wings", a silver insignia to pin on the collars of our uniforms. The academic year then was about to start! I had been assigned to the 7th Cadet Squadron. ("Seagram's Seven!") When we started academics in the fall, there were about 100 of us in Seventh Squadron...about 25 in each of the four classes. My group of "doolies", the class of 1967, had completed basic training together. Several of these fellows dropped out before graduation four years later, but those of us who graduated became closer even than brothers...a true brotherhood!

One of my most vivid memories of my freshman (fourth class) year occurred in November 1963. The entire Cadet Wing was having lunch in Mitchell Hall...this huge building where over 2000 men could be fed within 30 minutes. Suddenly the cadet-in- charge called us all to attention and ordered complete silence. There was something very unusual happening. He then announced that President John Kennedy had just been as assassinated while visiting Dallas, Texas.

Just like everyone else in the country, we were shocked and stunned. He had been our Commander in Chief. Just two weeks before, he had been scheduled to attend the Air Force-Army football game in Chicago, but cancelled when the President of South Viet Nam had been assassinated. The entire Cadet Wing had taken a train to Chicago and we were very disappointed that he wasn't able to come. We had no idea then what this assassination and change in government would mean to us. The Vice President, Lyndon Johnson, was quickly sworn in as President...on board Air Force One with President Kennedy's body in the cargo area and his widow in attendance.

I had always loved mathematics and science and found the academics at the Air Force Academy very challenging and very fulfilling. I was on the Dean's list for the entire four years. That list was an award given to cadets with a grade-point average over 3.0! I majored in engineering mechanics, a field of engineering that studied objects and structures at rest and in motion. Much of the theory was based on Newtonian physics. During those four years each of us also had to take many academic courses in other disciplines. I took many extra academic hours of mathematics and physics. I also took at least two semesters each of electrical engineering, aeronautical engineering, civil engineering, and astrodynamics. English, foreign language, economics, philosophy, military history, military training, and political science were also required. I truly loved the academics. I later would graduate in the top 10 percent of my class with a cumulative grade-point of about 3.6.

The summers were filled with various type of military training. During the summer between our fourth class and third class years (freshman and sophomore), we traveled for six weeks all over the United States doing what was called the ZI ("Zone of the Interior") Field Trip. Ten of my other squadron mates and I spent one week on a destroyer, the USS Henry B. Wilson, with the U.S. Navy sailing between San Francisco and Los Angeles. We were on one of two destroyers that trailed behind and along side an aircraft carrier, the USS Coral Sea, that was doing flight operations. We later also spent five days at Fort Benning, Georgia doing basic parachute training and firing various weapons carried by soldiers of the U.S. Army. These included the M-16 rifle and M-60 machine gun. Many of my classmates stayed on after the rest of us left and actually completed the basic parachute training course. This allowed them to wear parachute wings on their uniforms. In addition, we visited several active duty Air Force bases throughout the country, including Cannon AFB, New Mexico; Hill AFB, Utah; Offutt AFB, Nebraska (HQ of Strategic Air Command); and Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. The purpose of the entire summer of training was to expose us to the active duty Air Force, Army and Navy.

The summer between my third class and second class years, I was scheduled to go to an active duty Air Force Base in Europe. Bitberg AFB, Germany had several F-105 fighter squadrons and I was assigned as a member of one of the squadrons. I was going to be able to fly in the backseat of an F- 105! Was I ever looking forward to that! But unfortunately, because of strained relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, this European training was canceled at the last minute. Instead, I spent the summer in San Antonio, Texas at Randolph Air Force Base. I was assigned to a flight training squadron there at Randolph. The mission of the squadron was to teach pilots from foreign countries to fly the T-6 aircraft, a 2-seat very old propeller aircraft, which was nicknamed "The Texan." But I was able to do some flying...even if the T-6 was not an F-105!

Our training in the summer between my second class and first class years consisted of the training of the incoming class of cadets, the class of 1970. I was a flight commander during that summer, specifically in charge of about 30 basic (new) cadets. I was also the cadet-in-charge of the First Aid Training program given to the new cadets.

In August 1966 the academic year started. I was now a first classman...a senior. We all knew how rapidly time passed and knew this last year would literally fly by. I already knew that because of my vision problems I would be unable to go to pilot training. I was qualified to go to navigator training, but had no interest in doing that and would not be forced to. I hoped to be able to go into the Air Force Systems Command, the science and engineering branch of the Air Force.

The level of military activities in Vietnam was near its peak during the 1967 to 1968 time. There were over 500,000 U.S. military personnel either on the ground in South Vietnam or being used in direct support of the war and stationed in Thailand, Guam, the Philippines, or on ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. Many of our fighter wings were located at several different Air Force bases in Thailand. At the Academy we were very aware of the war effort, especially the mission of the United States Air Force in Vietnam. Something happened in the early months of 1967 that almost changed my career forever. Because of the huge number of aircraft flying both in South and North Vietnam, because we were losing so many pilots, and because the F-4 fighter aircraft there in huge numbers were assigned 2 pilots, the Air Force changed its physical exam requirements for basic pilot training. My vision at that time was better than 20/100 and corrected to 20/20 with contact lenses. Very surprisingly, the Air Force announced that that any Air Force Academy cadets with vision such as mine would now be allowed to go to pilot training.

During my four years as a cadet I had flown in many different Air Force aircraft and had spent hundreds of hours in the air. However, I really had no interest in being a pilot. Those of us who did not meet the old standards for vision but did now meet the new standards were ordered to take a first-class flight physical examination at the Cadet Clinic. The medical history form then and still now includes over 100 "Yes or No" questions. The opening statement reads, " Do you now have, or have you ever had, the following...?" Questions involved such things as double vision, headaches, asthma, arthritis, and many, many other things. To make certain that a person actually read these questions carefully, hidden in the middle was a question that said, "Do you have vision in both eyes?" The answers for a totally healthy individual were all "No" except to that one hidden question.

My answers to two of the questions resulted in my disqualification for pilot training. These questions were, "Irregular heart beat?" and "Rapid heart rate?" During the summer before, while doing training, I had experienced several episodes of a very rapid heart rate. I had never had that before. The only real symptom at the time had what are called palpitations--a feeling of some unusual heart rhythm. I never had chest pain, faintness, or shortness of breath. Because I had answered "Yes" to these questions, more tests were needed. I was sent to Randolph AFB in San Antonio, Texas to undergo a much more rigid physical examination, with special emphasis on my heart. I found out while there that I was going to have the same physical examination that our astronauts had gone through. After having many different heart tests, including wearing a heart monitor taped to my chest for over 50 hours, nothing objective was ever found. The flight surgeons summarized their findings, however, by stating that because of my history of rapid and irregular heart rate that I was not physically qualified to go to pilot training. Only God knows what might have happened had I passed the physical exam and had gone to pilot training. What a different direction my career might have gone.

In the nearly 40 years since I graduated from the Air Force Academy, I thought about many of the things I experienced in those years in Colorado Springs. In June 1963 I was a 17-year-old "boy" who thought he wanted to be in the Air Force. Four years later my dream had come true. I graduated with a degree in engineering mechanics and in the top 10% of my class. I was given that commission as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force. I also received a scholarship to go to the University of Michigan to obtain an engineering master's degree. I graduated with 24 other men from the 7th Squadron. Together we had all started basic training four years before; had lived and trained and gone to class and "partied" together for four years. These men had become some of the closest friends that I would ever have in my life. These friendships have lasted a lifetime. In June of 1967, I really had no idea what the world held for me...I could only dream.

In September 1967 I started a master's degree program in engineering mechanics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The University was considered one of the very best in the country in engineering education. I had won a scholarship from the University and had been given permission by the Air Force to postpone active duty for a year. I lived with four other graduate students in a private house in Ann Arbor. Two of the four were also classmates from the Academy. I would be able to complete my master's degree in two semesters plus one summer school session. Once again I was very excited about a new academic challenge.

In the fall of that year, I met a beautiful young lady named Brenda Johnson. This event would again change my life forever. Brenda was a senior in the University of Michigan School of Nursing and already commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Nurse Corp. We fell in love with each other very quickly. I moved into her apartment at Christmas time. Brenda knew that soon after graduation she would go on active duty, and almost certainly go to Vietnam. I knew that when I finished my master's degree I would also return to active duty. In the summer of 1968, Brenda received orders to report to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas for her basic Army Medical Corps orientation training. I received orders to report to the Aerospace Research Pilot School (also called the Test Pilot School) at the Air Force Flight Test Center, Edwards AFB, California. Our plans were to get married when she returned from Vietnam, and then one of us would switch branches of the military. Brenda would switch from the Army to the Air Force or I would exchange my commission for one in the Army.

When I received my orders my first thought was that someone had made a mistake. Why was I being assigned to the Air Force Test Pilot School? When I reported to Edwards AFB, I found that my official duty assignment was in the Simulation Division of the Test Pilot School. I would help program and maintain the analog computers used to control both the F-104 simulator and the space flight simulator. I also would be trained to help teach in the simulators. In the same facility, NASA maintained a large digital computer and a large, awesome space flight simulator. What a fantastic assignment this was for a brand- new first lieutenant. I would also eventually become an instructor in this simulator also. All the officers in the Simulation Division were highly educated, highly trained, and highly motivated men. We were there to help train the test pilot students assigned to the school at any one time. The students' training period was one year in length. Nearly every one of the students had completed at least one tour of duty in Vietnam. Most of them were experienced, war- hardened fighter pilots now learning how to be test pilots.

Another of my duty assignments was unofficially called "back seat filler". I was able to work every day in a flight suit and had my own assigned helmet, anti-G-suit, and two different parachutes. I was able to fly at least three times every week with one or another of the students or with an instructor. All but two of the fighter aircraft had two seats. Because it was unsafe, as well as against regulations, to fly with an empty back seat, my job was to be that necessary "back seat filler!" During my two years at the Test Pilot School I logged nearly 300 hours in such aircraft as the T-33, T-38, F-104, and B-26... as well as in a small helicopter. Some of the flights were very boring and long, but some were unbelievably exciting.

The test pilot students were being taught the proper procedures for testing a new or redesigned aircraft or aircraft system. I remember one exceeding long and boring mission in a T - 33. We spent nearly three hours one morning in a flying at 40,000 feet altitude breathing 100 percent oxygen under pressure, flying straight and level, back and forth along a 100-mile path. I also remember flying in an F-104 fighter supersonic through Death Valley with the altimeter measuring less than zero altitude! Yes, that qualified as very exciting! During another F-104 mission, our aircraft was to fly "chase" for a student in a specially-modified F-104 that was scheduled to do a so-called "zoom mission." We each accelerated at 35,000 feet altitude to mach 2.5 (2.5 times the speed of sound... nearly 1500 mph.) The student in the other fighter then pulled back his control stick and flew a very specific flight path to an altitude of nearly 95,000 feet!

Col. Chuck Yeager was a famous test pilot--the first to pilot an aircraft more than mach 1. He was the first to try this sometime in the mid-1960s. He was the first to discover that an F- 104 will not fly properly at that altitude. The flight controls don't function because the air is so very thin. He lost control and his aircraft went into a flat spin. He was unable to recover and needed to eject. That flight was shown quite well in the movie "The Right Stuff."

When the other aircraft, the F-104 we had been "chasing" had safely recovered down to our altitude, we completed our flight by simulating the flight path of the lifting body aircraft coming in for a landing. (The lifting body, X-24, was an aircraft without wings. The knowledge and experience gained in that program were to eventually help in the development of the space shuttle.) My pilot pulled our throttle back to idle, lowered the flaps to maximum, and deployed the speed brakes. One of the most popular TV shows at that time was named "Mission Impossible." At the beginning of each episode the team's leader was told the following, "Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to...." Well, our mission that day was to fly a huge, long, sweeping 360 degree, banking and diving decent from 35,000 feet to a landing on the main runway at Edwards with our throttle still set to "Idle", and then lowering the landing gear at the very last minute. Wow!!!

Another day I was fortunate to be able to accompany about 10 of the students during their flight in a modified KC-135 aircraft used to simulate a "Zero--G" environment. After takeoff, we sat on the padded floor in the back of the airplane as the pilot accelerated and then pulled the aircraft into a steep climb. The pilot flew the aircraft in a very specific parabolic flight path. As the aircraft went over the top of the flight path and accelerated back down towards earth, it was essentially accelerating downward at the same rate as we were while sitting in the back. Essentially, then, we experienced "zero gravity" for a period of about 40 seconds during each cycle. What a fantastic feeling that was. Each of us was able to floataround inside the aircraft, feeling exactly the same as an astronaut would while in space. We all acted like a bunch of kids! This was the very same aircraft that the original NASA Mercury and Gemini astronauts had used in training not very many years before. Many years later, a similar aircraft would be used by Tom Hanks and other actors during the filming of the movie "Apollo 13."

During the first year that I was in California, Brenda first did medical training at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, and was then assigned to a hospital in Fort Carson, Colorado. Early in 1969 she received orders to go to Pleiku, an outpost hospital in the highlands of South Vietnam. By this time she was a brand-new captain in the Army and was ordered to report to a MASH unit there at Pleiku. (MASH stands for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital...like the movie and TV show.) She was in South Vietnam during the entire second-year I was in California. I sent her numerous packages of things she could not buy in Pleiku-- clothes, make-up, hair color, cookies. We each recorded lots of messages on a tape recorder and sent tapes back and forth in the mail. We also were able to talk by a shortwave radio two different times. "Hello...over!" "How are you...over!" "I love you...over!!" I flew to Honolulu, Hawaii during December of that year and spent a week there in Hawaii during her R &R. That year in Vietnam was dreadfully difficult for her and for so many thousands of other soldiers. She had very little time off, and saw many battle casualties...wounded and dead soldiers. At least once during her stay her base was attacked by the Viet Cong. She recorded a tape for me while she was lying under her bed covered with her flack vest for protection. In the background, you could hear artillery and mortar fire, rifle fire, and the sound of a tank rolling by the window. Brenda was changed forever by that year in Viet Nam.

In the spring of 1970, Brenda received orders to report back to Fort Carson in Colorado Springs when she came home. I was so very delighted by this. The Air Force colonel who was the Chairman of the Department of Engineering Mechanics at the Air Force Academy had told me just before my graduation in 1967 that if I ever wanted to come back to the Academy to teach for him, just pick up the phone and call him. That is exactly what I did. He was a man of his word! Soon thereafter I also received orders to report to Colorado Springs, back to accept a position on the faculty of the Air Force Academy.

I had driven my car from Southern California to Seattle, Washington to meet Brenda when she got off the plane flying her back to the U.S. from Viet Nam. I had packed both our sets of snow skis and had made reservations at a beautiful ski resort in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. After that week of skiing and relaxing Brenda flew back to Michigan to see her family. I drove back to California to get ready to move to Colorado. Little did I know at that time just how much my life was going to be changed again.

Soon after arriving back at the Air Force Academy, Brenda called me and asked to come out to see me after my day at work. We sat on a high bluff overlooking one of the more beautiful areas at the Air Force Academy having a picnic and talking. I felt a knife go into my heart when she told me all of her thoughts and decisions. She had decided to go to Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver instead of staying in Colorado Springs. Then she told me that while she was in Vietnam she had fallen in love with a married Air Force flight surgeon who worked with her there. He had promised Brenda he would leave his wife and family when he returned home and come to her. She told me that our relationship needed to end so that she could go on with her life....

I was devastated by that news. I had been in love with her for nearly 3 years and had planned the rest of my life with her in it! What was I going to do now? Of course I really had very few choices. I had just been reassigned back to the Academy and needed to go on and to make the best of an otherwise dreadful situation. I decided to become the best teacher that I could possibly be, and to make my four years on the faculty at the Air Force Academy as fulfilling as they could possibly be.

Less than one month after Brenda broke up with me, I went to a wedding at the Officers' Club at the Air Force Academy. One of the fellows I was living with at the BOQ (Bachelor Officers Quarters) there at the Academy was getting married to a young lady who lived in Denver. The wedding reception was held at the Officers' Club. At the reception I met and drank a lot of champagne with a young young lady named Bobbie McCormick. Bobbie was a nurse who also lived and worked in Denver. Bobbie was a tall, thin, beautiful blonde. I decided that I wanted to get to know her better. She was very lonely also. She had moved from Baltimore to Denver following some Army officer. She had been rejected as well after arriving in Colorado. It seemed that we were "meant for" each other. Very soon we were spending just about every free moment together. After only knowing each other for about three months, we decided to get married. Many years later, during intense psychological therapy, it was pointed out to me how many of my serious relationships with women had started while I was rebounding from some other failed relationship. This was another episode!

Bobbie never knew about a telephone call I received about two weeks before our wedding. Brenda, in tears, called me from Denver to tell me how very sorry she was that she had hurt me and had broken off our relationship. She told me that she still loved me and wanted me to come to Denver to see her. I was paralyzed with indecision. Should I go see her? For nearly three years I had hoped to marry Brenda and spend my life was her. But what would happen to Bobbie if I backed out on our wedding at that late date? Brenda, of course, was shocked when she found out my wedding plans. What should I do?

I was unable to make a decision...cancel the wedding and go see Brenda? Tell Bobbie everything? Not tell her anything, and then continue with our wedding plans?? This turned out to be the first of many major life-changing decisions that I seemed unable to make. My "decision" was to, actually, not make a decision. In late November 1970 we drove back to Illinois and were married at my home church in Malta, Illinois.

I spent the next four years as an instructor and then assistant professor in the Department of Engineering Mechanics at the Air Force Academy. I loved teaching and, I think, was a very good teacher. Bobbie and I could not get housing on-base, so we bought a small but nice house in the Black Forest, a beautiful wooded area a few miles from the north gate of the Academy. I remember Bobbie and I having season tickets to see the Air Force "Falcons" play football every year as having season tickets to watch the Cadet hockey team. I also had a regular group of friends that I played golf with about every weekend during golf season. During that time I played the best golf that I ever would. Bobbie and I also spent a lot of hours playing bridge with several other couples that we knew.

During those early years of our marriage I was often unhappy about my decision to get married. I frequently thought I had made a mistake by not going back to Brenda. Many times during the rest of my life I asked myself questions, or made statements, that started with the words, "What if...?" or "If only...."

# CHAPTER THREE

The flight attendant nudged me on the shoulder to wake me and ask if I wanted lunch. I looked at the in-flight map on my TV screen and saw that we had flown nearly two hours and almost 1000 miles. We were somewhere far out over the Atlantic Ocean. I still had many thousands of miles and many hours to go before I finally landed in Ethiopia. With all the hours and the many time changes, I could not quite decide if I was going to land today, tomorrow...or possibly even yesterday. I still really could not believe that this was happening to me. I was flying to Africa! It is commonly thought that "old folks" remember the past much better than they can remember the present-day. That may or may not be true, but I certainly have very real and very vivid memories of what happened to me in the past leading up to this journey.

What had happened back then in the early-1970's that caused me to change my career path from engineering to medicine? I remember there being about 15 officers teaching in the Department of Engineering Mechanics. All except one of us were Air Force officers. One was an Army officer. At that time all the members of the faculty were military officers. Roughly half had master's degrees in engineering; the others all had Ph.D.'s.

That first summer I arrived back at the Academy was quite vigorous. I am glad of that now, because it allowed me to keep my mind off my personal problems. Even though we all had advanced degrees in engineering, very few of us had ever been in front of a classroom as a teacher before. We newly assigned instructors spent between six and eight weeks that summer of 1970 learning how to be teachers of engineering mechanics...how to be _excellent_ teachers/instructors. There were no cadets there during the summer, but we all had lots of work to do.

There was one academic course, Engineering Mechanics 120, that was a mandatory course for every fourth class cadet. It was a very basic introductory course in engineering. This was a required 2-semester course even for cadets who were not going to major in science or engineering. Most of us "rookie" instructors would be teaching this course in the fall, so that is what we practiced doing in the summer. One of the experienced teachers functioned as the course director. Daily he gave us very explicit, very detailed lesson plans for each lesson. The philosophy of teaching nearly 1000 cadets the same course was that every group of 20 or so students would be presented the very same information as every other cadet. The course director decided precisely what information would be presented any one day and how it would be presented, what in-class problems would be done, what homework would be assigned.

The Air Force Academy Cadet Wing lived and functioned under the same strict Honor Code that we had when I was a cadet. This code stated, "We will not lie, cheat, or steal...nor tolerate among us anyone who does." Any cadet who failed to be honorable--by lying, by stealing, by cheating, or by failing to report another cadet who had broken the code--would, after due course and after a hearing before the Cadet Honor Committee, be expelled from the Academy. This honor code allowed us as teachers to be able to give the same quizzes and other examinations to all classes, knowing that none of the students would be cheating!

So back to the summer training.... The course director assigned each of us to teach a specific lesson. Each of us had to prepare the lecture, do all of the in-class problems in detail, and prepare all homework problems. A typical lesson in Mech 120 consisted of 10 or 15 minutes of lecture on a new idea or concept followed by a detailed demonstration to the students how to work and solve a few example problems. The cadets then went to the blackboards to do 30 to 35 minutes of board work.

The students were each assigned a specific problem from the textbook and all the work would be done at the blackboard. (Remember when we had "blackboards" and used chalk?) When all the "students" were all finished with the problem, one of the students would be asked to present his work to the rest of the class. My job as the instructor was to help each of them solve these problems. Even though discipline in the classroom was never a serious problem, we had to learn how to keep the class running smoothly and keeping every student on track. During our summer training session the experienced teachers acted as the students. They enjoyed trying to cause problems for the "teacher" at times, but mostly acted like typical freshman students. That entire training summer turned out to be a lot of fun and extremely valuable when we started teaching in the fall.

The instructors who had Ph.D.'s in engineering were allowed to teach all the advanced courses; those of us with master's degrees were somewhat more limited. I recall that during my four years on the faculty I taught the basic Mech 120 course two years, the basic strength of materials course several semesters, the advanced strength of materials course and a course in vibration theory. In my last year I was the course director for both Mech 362, the basic strength of materials course, and Mech 464, the advanced strength course. Much later both of my sons, Michael and Matthew, while they were students are Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology were very surprised when they discovered how much I knew and remembered about engineering mechanics. Each of them took courses that I had actually taught some 30 years before. Good old dad was actually able to teach them a few things and do some homework problems for them!

I knew that this assignment on the faculty was only a four- year job for those of us instructors without PhDs. As the end of those four years came closer, each of us needed to decide what assignment we wanted next. I was offered the opportunity, after my four years, to go to the Colorado State University to acquire a Ph.D. in engineering mechanics. If I accepted that option I could go to Greeley, Colorado for 2 more years and then return to the faculty at the Air Force Academy to spend many more years teaching. About that time, one of my friends and fellow instructors, Walt "Butch" Deacon came up to me one day and said, " Ken, let's go to medical school!" I was unaware that his father was a physician. Butch told me that his father was on the faculty at Tufts School of Medicine in Boston. He knew he would be able to be admitted to Tufts if he wanted to attend. I thought about it for a few days, and gave him my answer..."Yes! Why not!! I will try to get into medical school also." What a serious, well- thought out decision!! I suppose, looking back, that I wanted or needed another big challenge!

I had been born and raised in Illinois. I was still officially a legal resident of Illinois because of paying state income taxes in Illinois and using Illinois license plates. The library at the Air Force Academy had an extensive supply of catalogs from other universities around the country. I looked at one from the University of Illinois and was very surprised to see that the only strict prerequisite for admission to their medical school was having a bachelor's degree...a bachelor's degree in anything! And that degree did not have to be in premed or other biomedical field...or even be a degree in science.

Each applicant did have to take a standardized examination named the MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test). This was an 8-hour examination in four parts--basic science, mathematics, general knowledge, and language. I knew that my mathematics background was excellent. However, despite degrees in engineering, the only basic science that I had studied in detail was physics. I had taken two semesters of basic inorganic chemistry as well as one semester of biology while an undergraduate. However, before I could take an 8-hour examination I knew I had to study and learn a lot more basic science such as organic chemistry and more biology. I knew that some focused studying could allow me to do better on the general knowledge and language portions of the exam as well.

I took a very unique path to getting my prerequisites for that examination. The University of Colorado had a very good night school program available at a branch in Colorado Springs. Butch Deacon and I took Biology 101 and 102, including the lab work, in night school! Here we were teaching advanced engineering during the day and taking freshman level courses at night. I also took two semesters of organic chemistry by correspondence! One of my golfing buddies taught in the Department of Human Physiology. He helped me very, very much with basic physiology and with some very basic biochemistry. Many books were available containing a lot of sample questions from past MCAT exams. After looking at several of those books I realized I needed to study and acquire more "general knowledge". I spent a lot more free time at the library studying music, architecture, art, and literature in encyclopedias.

The day finally came for me to take the exam. After 8 grueling hours, I walked out knowing that I had done extremely poorly in everything except math. It was an unbelievably difficult exam. In those days before computer grading, we were told it would take at least 30-60 days before we would receive our results. But I realized that there was very little chance that I had done very well, so I went on with my life.

I remember quite vividly the day the test results came in the mail. I carried the envelope into the house from the mailbox and was very hesitant to open it. But, I realized that it would be very difficult to know the results without opening the envelope. I was shocked! My lowest score was in language and was about a 70 percentile. I had scored over 98 percentile in math; both general knowledge and basic science scores were in the 80-85 percentile range. I said to myself, "Well, now what do I do?" I was 30 years old and had advanced degrees in engineering and engineering management...as well as several years teaching experience in engineering. I had no background in anatomy and physiology. I had studied organic chemistry by correspondence...I could hardly even spell biochemistry. Good Lord, did I really know what I was doing???

I knew that my only real chances of getting into medical school would be in Illinois, my official home of record. Illinois had 2 public medical schools and 5 private schools. All the private medical schools in Illinois had an age cut off of 28 years. I was already 30 and couldn't even apply to the private schools. So, I filled out applications for the University of Illinois and for Southern Illinois University-Springfield, sent them, and waited. In a very few weeks I was pleasantly surprised when I received a telephone call asking me to come to Springfield for interviews. Obviously, this meant that were somewhat interested in me. I drove from Colorado all the way back to Illinois for the interviews.

However, I was not very optimistic when I left Illinois going back to Colorado Springs. I had been scheduled for 3 separate interviews. The first interview was with the Admissions Director of the school. We got along wonderfully. One of my Air Force Academy classmates from Illinois was in the freshman class of medical school and was doing wonderfully. Everyone loved him! The Director knew I could do well also. I then went to the office of a very busy cardiac surgeon for my second interview. Unfortunately, after waiting over about two hours they told me that the surgeon was doing an emergency surgery and would not be able to meet with me. I then had to hurry to my third interview--with a physician instructor in the Psychiatry Department. And that interview was unpleasant. The psychiatrist was very confrontational and ended the hour by saying, "Well, Ken, that didn't go very well did it?"

Once again, I was very pleasantly surprised (more correctly, shocked) when, two weeks later, I received a registered letter offering me a position in the class at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine starting in June 1975. I was really shocked! Bobbie, of course, knew what I was doing all along, but I had not really discussed my plans with her very often. I accepted the offer very quickly at SIU (before they would change their mind!) again without talking to Bobbie, as if this were my life and my decision only.

Many times in the coming years I asked myself such questions as, "Why did I do that?", or, "Do you really have any idea what are getting into...?" I also realized much too late how selfish I was to make such big decisions without talking to Bobbie about them.

Despite this drastic change in my career plans, I still wanted to stay in the Air Force. The war in Vietnam had finally ended and the vast majority of the physicians who had been drafted to serve during the war were resigning their commissions as fast as they could and going back to their civilian lives. I, on the other hand, had not changed my plans concerning a career in the military. I still wanted to spend 30-years on active duty in the Air Force. I was well aware of how the Air Force personnel system had handled this sort of situation previously. I could go back to a civilian medical school, and then either do residency training in the military or in a civilian hospital. Then, in return for them paying me during these years, I would be committed to serving three years of active duty for every one year spent in medical school and/or residency. I would be able, during medical school, to draw full pay as either a senior captain or junior major. I would also receive all the other pay and benefits that I would receive if I were on active duty.

So, with a copy of my acceptance letter from SIU Medical School in hand, I went to the base Personnel Office. I really should not have been surprised by what they had to say, but I was! Guess what...they had changed the rules. Now, at a time when the Air Force (and each of the other branches of the military) would very quickly have a shortage of physicians, they had changed all the rules drastically. They were going to make it very unattractive for me. In order to go back to a civilian medical school, I would have to resign my regular Air Force commission, accept a reserve second lieutenant commission, and receive only the basic pay of a second lieutenant without any housing or subsistence allowance. This all amounted to about 1/3 of what I was receiving at that time. Then to rub salt into the wound they told me, "When you come back on active duty we will commission you as a captain again, but this time in the Medical Corps." I accepted this about as well as I would have accepted a slap in the face. I really could not believe what they were telling me! I told them that I absolutely refused to accept this offer. I was insulted! I remember telling the personnel officer how absolutely stupid I thought this was. Many times in later years I wished that I had fought this ruling up the chain of command instead of giving in. Things might or might not have been different. Some colonel or general officer might have overruled these personnel folks. Instead, I resigned my commission and went back to medical school as a civilian.

Bobbie and I, with the help of the Air Force, moved all our household goods, cars, cats, and dogs to Carbondale, Illinois in the summer of 1975. The first year if academics took place at the SIU home campus in Carbondale. At some point during the Vietnam War, the Legislature of the State of Illinois had passed a bill offering free tuition at any state university to any veteran with an honorable discharge from the military. The purpose of this law was to help any soldier who had been drafted into the military to serve in Vietnam to receive a college education when she or he returned after the war. But the law applied to me also. I was able to attend medical school at Southern Illinois University free of charge! I also had benefits available through the GI Bill. Bobbie was very quickly able to get a full-time job, working at a multi-specialty medical clinic there in Carbondale. I was able to complete medical school without acquiring any debt. Many medical students, especially those at private schools, graduated with tens of thousands of dollars of debt! Comparatively, we were wealthy.

The academics the first year of school were dreadfully difficult for me. Fortunately, the program was "competency based." It was completely a pass--fail program. There was no competition between the students for grades. We all helped each other as much as we could. I recall spending every waking hour either in a classroom, in the anatomy lab, or studying at my desk at home. Studying math, physics, and engineering had been a breeze compared to studying neuroanatomy, human physiology and anatomy, or pharmacology. I remember thinking that perhaps the school made a mistake and sent the acceptance letter to the wrong person. Maybe I really was not supposed to be there.....

Probably the best thing that happened to Bobbie and me that very first year was that we were finally able to successfully complete an infertility workup. We had then been married over six years and had not yet been able to have a child. A gynecologist that Bobbie worked with at the Carbondale Clinic finally diagnosed our problem and corrected it at the same time. Very shortly thereafter, our first child was conceived. Michael was born in the July 1977. He was born at St. John's Hospital in Springfield, Illinois because we had moved there to Springfield after the first-year of school in Carbondale.

All the clinical rotations would take place at either St. John's Hospital or Memorial Hospital in Springfield. The clerkships (pediatrics, general medicine, surgery, OB, and others) were a breeze when compared to the academics of the first-year. Even that soon in my medical career I found out how easily I got along with other physicians and with patients and how much confidence I had in my own abilities. It was very simple...I have always liked being around people.

My first rotation was in surgery. I really enjoyed that, so I decided I would become a surgeon after graduation. Next was a rotation in pediatrics. I love working with children, so then I decided I would be a pediatrician. Guess what... I then found out how much I enjoyed delivering babies and doing obstetrics. OK, I will be an obstetrician. Good Lord, what was really going to do? Then I found out about this new specialty called family medicine. You say if I am a family doctor, I will be able to deliver babies, take care of children, take care of adults, and do emergency care? Perfect!! A residency training program in Family Medicine took 3 years and I needed to find one to accept me after I graduated. More about that later....

I graduated from Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in June of 1978 along with 40 other new physicians. I still have a beautiful photograph showing me in my cap and gown holding my diploma and our son, Michael, who was then 10 months old. What a proud father and brand new doctor! I had succeeded... I had proved I could do it!! I was still very sorry that I was not going back into the Air Force. Instead Michael, Bobbie, and I were about to become Hoosiers by moving to Indiana. What an unbelievable path I had taken to get to this point. No one, except God, knew what else life had in store for me.

# CHAPTER FOUR

An in-flight movie was being shown, but I really had been paying no attention to it at all. The on-screen map showed that we were about halfway to Ireland. We would fly over Ireland and part of Scotland before flying over much of western Europe to Frankfurt, Germany. I still had a very long flight ahead and many more hours to spend before I would finally arrive in Ethiopia. It was still very hard for me to believe that I had committed to work two years for a small mission group named Lalmba as medical director of the health center in Chiri, Ethiopia. Chiri is located in the mountain high lands in far southwestern Ethiopia, many miles from the capital and described by the Downeys as being "at the end of a really bad road!"

My very first experience giving medical care in the "third world" was during a trip with a military medical team to the island country of Madagascar out in the Indian Ocean in 1990. This team of physicians and nurses spent three weeks doing free clinics and seeing the country. Many thousands of years before, Madagascar had actually been physically attached to Africa, but now it was a completely separate island. So, technically, this would now be my first trip to Africa. Lunch on Lufthansa Airlines had been rather good. Free wine had been served, but since I had had no alcohol in over eight years I decided not to have any. I closed my eyes, leaned my seat back, and remembered the years in residency training.

On July 1, 1978 I became a first-year resident in the Family Medicine program at Union Hospital in Terre Haute, Indiana. I was delighted by the fact that I had been accepted into my first choice of programs. I had looked at other programs in Chicago, in other parts of Illinois, and in southern Indiana but decided that the program in Terre Haute was going to be the best for me. Bobbie and I bought a house east of Terre Haute. That small decision became very significant later, when I decided to "moonlight" in a different hospital to earn extra money, and especially when I decided what I would do after residency.

Now, I was a "real doctor." Family medicine was a very new specialty in those years. The residency program consisted of three more years of training after graduation from medical school. During those three years a resident would receive training in general medicine, pediatrics, surgery, as well as obstetrics and gynecology. We would also spend many hours working in the outpatient family medicine offices. Only then could we call ourselves specialists in family medicine. A television show very popular back in the 1970s was named "Marcus Welby, M.D." A well-known actor, Robert Young, portrayed a gray-haired family doctor who saw patients of all ages in an office in his own home. None of us expected to have an office in our home, but I certainly wanted to have patients respect and like me as much as they liked Dr. Welby.

My first three month rotation was in the intensive care and coronary care units there at Union hospital. I still remember the hundreds of hours spent trying to help the attending physicians care for their patients. Of course, these were the very sickest of patients. I had to learn how to care for patients who had just had a major heart attack, or had major surgery, or had suffered serious burns, or had been badly injured in an automobile or motorcycle accident. I learned how to intubate a patient (put a tube down into her or his lungs to help with breathing), how to put in a chest tube in order to treat a pneumothorax (a "collapsed lung"), how to put in an arterial-line (to better measure blood pressure), how to do a vein cut down, how to put in a central IV line under the clavicle and into the subclavian vein. I also had to learn how to handle my own emotions when one of my patients died. Because we were the doctors in the hospital 24 hours a day, we often were the staff responsible for interacting with the family members of our patients. This very often was very difficult also.

The Union Hospital Family Practice program took in 4 residents each year. Three of we first-year residents had been students together at Southern Illinois University. The other fellow was from Indiana University. There had never been a female in the program up to that time. Of course, at that time there were actually very few female physicians!

I hate now to even think about the number of hours that we spent in the hospital. Each of us did a 24-hour call every third or fourth day depending on which rotation we were assigned to. During the other days we still worked from 7 a.m. until nearly 6 p.m. There were certainly no 40-hour weeks. Bobbie's life at home with our son, Michael, and my life in the hospital began to diverge quite drastically. The hospital became my new home. Other residents and hospital employees became my family members and friends.

My second rotation was in pediatrics. I absolutely loved those three months. The inpatient ward was never very busy, so we had a lot of extra time to study and do other things. Pediatrics involved learning some very special skills-- putting in an umbilical line catheter in a newborn, intubating a baby or young child, starting an IV line on a child, doing a spinal tap on a baby or on a very sick, young child with meningitis. This was the time I really learned how to take care of children in an office setting also. One of the skills a physician needs to learn very quickly is to assess just how sick a child really is. A child with a fever of 103 degrees may be screaming and crying on his mother's lap, but might well not really be very sick. An ear infection or viral infection can certainly make a child feel terrible but be very easy to treat. On the other hand, a baby lying very quietly on the bed or in its mother's arms might be seriously dehydrated or even have meningitis. But, this child can die very quickly without treatment. I knew that I would certainly need these skills in Ethiopia. I knew that we would be seeing many, many children in the clinic, and that very often these children would be critically ill.

Now in this 21st century, family practice physicians very rarely do obstetrics. Because of the medical - legal climate that exists, most family practice physicians now only do general medicine and pediatrics. Fortunately for me, in the 1970's and 1980's in rural Indiana, we still were able to deliver lots and lots of babies. Union Hospital had a maternal health program that was very active. This program gave free prenatal care and obstetric care to ladies who could not afford health insurance or afford to see another physician. As the resident assigned to obstetrics, I worked in the maternal health clinic three days every week giving prenatal care, and then was the primary obstetrician when the ladies came to the hospital in labor. A more senior resident or attending physician helped teach us the technique of delivering a baby. But I, as a first- year resident, was primarily in charge. Did I ever love delivering babies! During my three years of training, I also did several other electives in obstetrics working with other extremely busy OB doctors in Terre Haute. Dr. Raj Noorozi and Dr. Ali Hoda were two that I became friends with and worked with many times. They were both from Iran. It was during the very early 1980s, that a major upheaval occurred in Iran. I remember learning a lot about Iranian politics and about the Islam faith talking for many hours with Ali Hoda. These two physicians became very good friends for me. I was fortunate to have been able to work with them. When I finished my residency training in 1981, I had helped with nearly 200 deliveries. I had also been able to help with a large number of cesarean section births of babies.

I officially finished my training program in the summer of 1981. I felt very well-trained as well as very confident and competent. I knew that I would be able to be an excellent family doctor. This training had proven to me that I had selected the correct course for my professional life. I loved what I was doing as a family doctor, and truly thought I had made an excellent decision! During the fall of my third year of training, I took over and managed for two months the practice of a physician in Brazil, Indiana, Dr. Rahim Farid. Dr. Farid was a surgeon who also did a general practice. I worked in his office daily and gave care to his patients at Clay County Hospital there in Brazil. Sometime shortly thereafter I decided that I wanted to move to Brazil and practice family medicine. I had also found a beautiful house out of town in the woods that I wanted to live in. Once again, I made this decision alone without consulting with Bobbie.

Bobbie and I had two more children while I was in residency. Matthew, our second son, was born in October 1978 during my first year of training. Laura, our daughter, was born in the summer of 1980. During these years Bobbie and my lives really diverged more and more. I spent many, many hours every week on call in the hospital, working at the Family Practice Center, or working in the emergency department at Clay County Hospital in Brazil, Indiana. I worked there every Friday evening from 6pm to midnight and was paid $150. That was a lot of money in 1978! In addition once every month I spent the entire weekend working at Clay County Hospital, and on Monday was paid $1000. I also worked at least one other night every week at some other local hospital. It was so easy to make lots of extra money. I was rarely at home. So many times over the coming years I regretted that I could not go back and do something over again. If only I could have spent more time at home being a better husband and father. God only knows how much pain I could have avoided causing myself and my family. I was forming many new addictions.... These would come back and haunt me for many years to come.

# CHAPTER FIVE

My journey to this new adventure in Africa was continuing. I was born at the very end of World War Two, and was now 57 years old. I was basically "broke", owned no home or car anymore, and still had a few debts. But very soon I would be teaching and practicing medicine again. Please God, let this work out for me! I had not needed to consult any family concerning this decision to go to Ethiopia, because I essentially had no one left to consult with. After many years of unhappiness in both our lives, Bobbie and I were divorced in 1993. God has truly blessed me with this opportunity to help people in Africa. I was alone and frequently very lonely. But, I was now in a position to be able to do many different things with remainder of my life.

The map on the TV screen showed that we were just about to pass over the coast of Belgium, after having been airborne for nearly six hours. I had very briefly been in Frankfurt, Germany many years before and would be arriving there at the airport in about two more hours. I would have to spend nearly six hours in the airport, and then change planes. From Frankfurt we would fly to Ethiopia, with a brief stop in Alexandria, Egypt for refueling. Will I able to count Egypt as another country visited even though I sit on the airplane for one hour before takeoff again?

My memory drifts back to those years in Indiana when I first started my private practice. Brazil is a farming community of nearly 8000 people. It is the county seat of Clay County, home of about 25,000 people. Like so many new medical specialists, I had settled very near my city of training. Being less than 20 miles from Terre Haute gave me the comfort of knowing all the medical specialists in that city. In less than one hour drive we could be in Indianapolis and enjoy all of the things that city had to offer. I would be a very unique entity in Clay County - the first residency trained and board-certified family practice physician. I would also be the youngest physician practicing in the county even though I was nearly 40.

Many years before, a hospital had been established in each of the 90 counties of Indiana. Each was to be controlled by the county government. Many of them had closed over the years, but Clay County Hospital was still struggling along trying to give good medical care. I decided I would do everything possible I could to improve the level of healthcare available in Brazil and at the hospital.

I had been granted privileged status just by virtue of earning a degree in medicine and the title of doctor...not justified, but true. That is a very dangerous position to be in. My ego loved it! Little did I know then how much this ego would get me in trouble in coming years. As the newest and youngest physician practicing at Clay County Hospital, and being one of the newest professionals to be living in Brazil, I could quickly see all of the problems that existed there, and also thought that I knew all the correct solutions! Several school board members were corrupt and wasting millions of dollars on building projects while trying to decide about the education of our children for the coming years. It was easy for me, I thought, to know and understand all the problems and have all the solutions. Why were people so bull headed and not immediately accept the solutions I had to offer? I saw all the problems that existed at the hospital and thought I also knew exactly how to address those problems also. Why wouldn't the hospital board and medical staff listen to me and immediately accept my solutions??? (A question I really should have asked myself instead--what made me think I was such an expert and why did I think everyone would accept my ideas blindly? I had, at that time, only vaguely heard of or studied a health problem named manic-depression...bipolar illness!!)

I had once seen a testimony on You Tube done by Pastor Lawrence Chewning. In the testimony, he asked, "Have you ever had a year when _everything_ goes wrong...all at the same time?" He called that year his "year of sorrows" and a dreadfully "long dark night of despair." He gave up his ministry and said, "I went back to the piano." He wrote a song in 1992 about his life and named it, "The Anchor Holds." Part of that beautiful song has these words:

I have journeyed through the long dark nights,

And I've been out on life's raging seas.

I was always there by faith alone, never was my sight known...

But always, I found His eyes were watching me.

I had my visions and as a young man I dreamed big dreams.

But then one day I held them all in my hand.

But there's one thing I never knew and that was someday I'd

watch them slip through my hands like they were only grains of sand.

Words from "The Anchor Holds", Lawrence Chewning and Ray Boltz. Copyright 1994, Shepherd Boy Music (Administrated by Word Music, LLC.) All rights reserved. Used by permission.

I certainly had many visions for my future. God had indeed blessed me with intelligence, talent, and good health. Those many years ago, I really did not know how best to use them. Looking back, I see how many of my visions and plans never really worked out. They, like in the song, had slipped through my hand like grains of sands. Why did that happen? I had loved being in the United States Air Force. I wanted to spend a career helping my country...why was I not going to be doing that? I wanted very badly to go back and live and practice medicine in Colorado...why was I living in Indiana instead? I wanted to be happily married and able to share my life with some wonderful woman that I loved...why was my marriage so unhappy. Why did I end up divorced twice and so alone??

I had just spent nearly 20 years living and practicing medicine in Brazil, Indiana. Bobbie and I had three wonderful children, but my actions over the years had practically destroyed my relationship with that family. I now looked forward to a future alone and uncertain. I could no longer practice medicine in the United States. How could I not have seen what was happening in my life and how my actions were affecting others?

Sometime during the 1980s, I had diagnosed myself as having a medical problem called depression. I tried to keep this secret - the symptoms, the signs and the treatment. One of the absolute most stupid and dangerous things a professional can do is to treat herself or himself. But what I did was neither the first stupid thing nor the last. I knew that my condition had been very serious in the past and might even become worse. But I refused to seek help. I did not have or need my own physician, I thought, I could treat myself! I also had several addictions, but would not use that word, and knew that I could always control them. My problems with this mental illness, depression, and with addictions worsened and remained essentially unaddressed over the first 15 years or so that we lived in Brazil. It was eating at me like a cancer! Unfortunately, it was only many years later that I was able to understand and address these problems. Of course I had helped other people over the years try to deal with their problems, but I refused to admit that I had any mental problems. Those years now seemed so chaotic, so stressful, so painful, so self gratifying. Only God's grace, allowed me to survive.

I knew what addictions were...they were problems _o_ _t_ _h_ _er_ _p_ _e_ _o_ _p_ _l_ _e_ had. And what is this so-called thing, "the addictive personality?" Well, that is something I have and wish that I had dealt with many years ago. I had taken up a cigarette smoking in my cadet days at the Air Force Academy. I drank beer and smoked Marlboros every weekend while out "partying" with my friends. Then I started smoking during the week. I was young and healthy and knew that cigarettes certainly would not harm me. I could stop anytime I wanted to...how many people told me that same thing over the years? I did not need to drink alcohol to have fun, but I certainly wanted to. Alcohol would not cause me any trouble, would it? I knew and truly appreciated the attention, friendship, and love of lovely, young women. That certainly could not be an addiction could it? I didn't need that attention and that love, did I??

I was really into "self-gratification." Because I spent so many hours working and helping others, I certainly deserved fun and pleasure, didn't I? During those years many in Brazil, I saw patients six days every week in my office. I arrived at the hospital at least by 6 a.m. every morning to make hospital rounds. I started seeing patients in my office at 8 a.m. and enjoyed arriving early enough to have coffee, catch up on paperwork, read the newspaper, and make telephone calls. I saw patients until noon every day and then exercised during lunchtime. When the weather was nice enough I jogged three miles every day. During the winter, I exercised on the treadmill at the office. I then had time for a shower and some SlimFast for lunch. That gave me the mental boost to get me through the afternoon. Compulsively doing exercise everyday could not be an addiction, could it? I tried to finish seeing patients before 5 p.m. and then went back to the hospital again. Eventually, I made it back home. But, because my home life was so unhappy there certainly was no rush to get home.

I really had a lot of grandiose plans. I intended to save enough money to be able to put my three children through college paying cash and to be able to retire a young and wealthy man. In addition to working all the hours in my office, I continued working many hours in the emergency department at Clay County Hospital. I worked between 60 and 80 hours extra every month as the emergency room physician. What is this thing called "workaholism?" I worked a lot because I wanted to!! I was not addicted to work. What an absurd idea! I really _n_ _ee_ _d_ _ed_ to buy that condo in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I really _n_ _ee_ _d_ _ed_ to buy that land on the golf course in North Carolina. I really _nee_ _d_ _ed_ to buy that land in the mountains in Colorado. I really _n_ _ee_ _d_ _ed_ to take at least three vacations every year. I really _n_ _ee_ _d_ _ed_ to act in our local theater group...of course, I should have the lead in those musicals. After all, I was an excellent actor and singer! What was wrong with that...it only took about two more hours every evening for a couple of months to prepare for each play. My family really did not need or want me at home, so why not do something that really made me feel good?!

Soon after deciding to live in Indiana, I applied to and then received my commission a medical officer in the Indiana Air National Guard unit in Terre Haute--the 181st Tactical Fighter Wing. I could certainly afford to spend that "one week-end every month and two extra weeks every year" in the National Guard. I very quickly decided that I should go to eight weeks of extra training in Texas in order to receive a rating as a flight surgeon. Once I received that rating, I could be the commander of the medical unit. After all, I had been trained at the Air Force Academy! Who better to be the commander my ego told me! Unfortunately, I often needed to spend not one weekend but two on duty every month and not two weeks, but often an entire month, on active duty every year. But most importantly, I would be back in Air Force uniform, serving my country, and being able to fly in jet fighters again.

Because I so unhappy, and probably because of my addictions, a long-term, very serious relationship had developed with a young lady in my practice named Sherri. We fell in love and spend as much time as we possibly could either together in person or talking on the telephone. How could this possibly hurt my relationship with my wife...after all, if I were a happy man, would not that make me even a better father and husband at home? Should I be concerned with the fact that she also was married and had two young daughters? She did not love her husband any longer, she said. We would be careful, so that no one would ever find out!! Yea, right!!!

This relationship went on for over seven years and then ended very painfully. Both our married partners did find out about the relationship. Sherri did get divorced and then demanded that I either get divorced and marry her or she would end our relationship. Bobbie told me that if I left her for another woman she would divorce me, take our children and leave. Just as had happened at the very beginning of our marriage, I was paralyzed by indecision. I thought that my only possible chance for "happiness" would be with Sherri and her two children, but I was unable to decide to leave Bobbie. Within only a few months, Sherri stopped talking to me and found another "boy friend." I again felt hopeless and helpless. I could not function at work or in the hospital. For the very first time, I seriously considered suicide!

I did some incredibly stupid things during my life. It was during this time that one of the worst things happened. Over a long period of time I had developed an extremely serious mental health condition that I had ignored. How incredibly stupid! This medical problem very nearly cost me my life. It did cost me the love and respect of my wife and my children. It also cost me the love of my second wife just a very short time later. That marriage ended in divorce also. I also lost the respect and confidence that many of my patients had in me.

Depression is a very common, very serious, very poorly understood, very under-diagnosed illness. I do not know when mine started. This illness has no easily recognized medical indicator. Diabetes can be diagnosed and monitored by measuring the blood sugar. Hypertension can be diagnosed by determining the blood pressure. Pneumonia begins when an infection starts in one of the lungs and has very specific signs and symptoms. When did my depression problem start? I really don't know. This mental illness does have very specific symptoms just as pneumonia or tonsillitis do. However, very often the symptoms are difficult to recognize (especially in yourself!) They are also very nearly impossible to quantify.

Possible symptoms/complaints of a so-called major depression can include:

  * loss of interest and pleasure

  * withdrawal

  * feelings of guilt

  * inability to concentrate

  * cognitive dysfunction (i.e. inability to "think straight.)

  * anxiety

  * chronic fatigue

  * feelings of worthlessness

  * loss of interest in sex

  * thoughts of death and/or ideas of suicid

Many different signs can be present including:

  * insomnia

  * weight loss due to loss of appetite

  * constipation

  * inability to work

  * crying spells

Often depression is just a part of a much more complex problem named bipolar illness (or, in older terminology, "manic- depression.") A so-called manic episode is a mood change characterized by elation with hyperactivity, over-involvement in activities, irritability, flight of ideas, easy distractibility, little need for sleep. The bipolar illness consists of episodic and often very rapid mood changes between mania and depression. Wow...doesn't that sound familiar??

This disease can be treated in several different ways, but first it must be properly diagnosed. During my many years of practicing medicine, I think I helped a lot of people who had these or similar problems. I recognized the symptoms in others very quickly. I was able to convince many of my patients to accept treatment and many quickly started feeling and getting better very quickly. But my own illness went undiagnosed and very poorly treated for many years. The honest truth was I just ignored these symptoms.

Over a very long time I had suffered from rapid and drastic mood changes. I had become a "workaholic" constantly needing to be doing something. Very down-deep, I frequently felt very guilty about the ways I was treating Bobbie and our children. I thought I had the right solution to any question or problem. I was frequently really irritated when others did not accept my thoughts about some problem. But not until very dreadful other things occurred did I ever feel the need for help.

# CHAPTER SIX

Waking me out of my daydream, the captain informed us over the aircraft PA system, first in German and then in English, "We are beginning our descent into the Frankfurt International Airport and should be on the ground in about 20 minutes. Please take your seats and securely fasten your seat belts." We were arriving in Germany within 30 minutes of the estimated time of arrival...actually earlier than originally planned. I wished this were my final destination, but at least I could get out of the plane, stretch my legs, and move around a bit.

I remembered landing at the Frankfurt airport many years before...in 1967. One of my very best friends from the Air Force Academy, Kent O'Brien, and I had flown from London Heathrow to Frankfurt during a 2-month tour of Europe after graduation before we actually went on active duty with the Air Force. My connecting flight today was also with Lufthansa but wasn't scheduled to leave for nearly six more hours. The leg from Frankfurt to Alexandria, Egypt should take about four hours...then from Egypt to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, another four or five hours. I was scheduled to arrive in Ethiopia at about 1am local time. I would need a calculator to even try to figure out what time it was according to my body clock.

I wondered around the airport for an hour or so. Frankfurt is an industrial city, so there was not very much good sight-seeing. I was content to stay at the airport. Had I been in London or Paris or Munich, maybe I would have left the airport. But instead I had coffee, read from in a novel I had with me, and then just waited for the connecting flight.

I started remembering again.... The first half of the 1990s had been a chaotic time. When the decade started I was flying high! I was wealthy; my practice was booming; I had been promoted to Lt Colonel in the Indiana Air National Guard and had been appointed the State Air Surgeon at State Headquarters and was promised the rank of full colonel; my children were doing wonderfully well in high school and then in college; I was looking forward to retiring and moving to the coast in North Carolina and spending the rest of my life traveling and playing golf. I thought that I had it made! However, by 1996 I had suffered through two divorces, had lost my family and my medical practice, had gone from being a private medical practioner to being a hospital employee...and then had been fired!

A very famous and often-quoted medical study was done many years ago. This study proved that emotional and psychological stressors (e.g. divorce, moving, the death of a spouse, the changing of jobs, etc.) could lead to real physical disease. I had used the check list/scoring sheet many times with patients over the years. Each stressor is given a specific score. You go through the entire list of stressors and then add up the scores! There is a very strong positive correlation between the total score and the likelihood of developing a real physical disease...my score was nearly off the stop of the scale!

The memories of that time were very blurry. So many dreadful things happened and I was drunk much of the time! A lot of things were happening that ended up causing a tremendous amount of stress. Bobbie and I were still married (until 1993) but divorce had been inevitable. We were essentially living separate lives, but were still married and living together. In 1990, Michael was 13 years old, Matt was 12, and Laura was 10. They were each doing wonderfully well in school and causing us no problems at all. Both boys were excellent baseball and tennis players They also quickly learned how to play golf. I was still working 6 days every week in the office, doing 80 or more extra hours working in the ER each month. The National Guard also took up lots and lots of time. I spent 3-4 weeks every year on active duty with the Air Force. I was very fortunate to have been able to spend several weeks with a military medical team in Madagascar in 1990 and another 30 days in the island country of Dominica, located in the eastern part of the Caribbean, in 1991. The State Headquarters position required me to spend many extra hours each month doing Air National Guard business. I also appeared in at least two plays with our community theater every year. Play practice took several hours a night, several nights a week. Sherri and I thought we were deeply in love and that our relationship would likely go on forever.

But things soon came crashing down!! In the span of a few years (between 1990 and 1995) my life had irreversibly changed - I was in the pits of a dreadful depression and continuing to treat myself, I was living in an old house with basically no furniture, I had been divorced not once...but twice, several people truly hated me, I had hurt many people, I was drinking straight Jack Daniels out of a glass and often having blackouts!! Only God's grace saved me from death.

I had no friends left to talk to, or so I thought. I had isolated myself from everyone for so long that all the friendships Bobbie and I had developed since moving to Brazil had dissolved. I had no one to talk to except Bobbie. We discovered that after two or three really strong drinks each (scotch for her and Jack Daniels for me) we could and would talk about serious matters. Soon, I was drinking very heavily every night and during the day on weekends. Under the influence of alcohol, I didn't have to think about my troubles. I could escape! A few years later, when I was forced into treatment for my alcohol and emotional problems, I learned a very simple fact. People use alcohol and drugs simply in order to change the way they feel. Most hope the drugs will make them feel better--happier, more fun to be around, more acceptable, allow them to have a "good time." I used alcohol as a drug to try to cover up my feelings of unhappiness, inadequacy, frustration, loneliness, failure.

In late 1993 Bobbie I filed for divorce. I felt very guilty and wanted to be able to financially support her and our children so that their lives would not have to change. I paid nearly $4000 a month in child support and continued making the mortgage payment on our home (another $1000 a month.) I would be totally financially responsible for college expenses of all three kids. All our property was left in both our names until something else could be arranged sometime in the future. The $5000 a month didn't seem like a lot initially...but it represented nearly $15,000 of my monthly gross income...before office expenses and taxes were subtracted! It is certainly no surprise that I later ended up bankrupt! (This financial mess also harmed my second marriage as well as another very serious relationship later. These relationship failures also contributed significantly to my later physical and emotional collapse.)

In early 1996, I was diagnosed as having "an addiction to female relationships." I had no idea at the time what that meant. Later, when I was forced into addiction treatment I was able to examine myself intimately, it all became clear. I "needed" to be in love; I "needed" a woman to love me; I felt worthless unless I was in a close relationship with someone. This was the direct cause of all the rebound relationships I had over the years. I could not handle rejection. I "needed" a woman to tell me how desirable I was! It had happened again and again over the years...and caused tremendous pain to many others as well as to me.

Very soon after Bobbie and my divorce was final, I became close friends with a beautiful young nurse, Robin, who worked in the OB Department at Clay County Hospital there in Brazil. We had worked together for several years. Unfortunately, she was married. But that didn't stop us. She was very unhappy in her marriage and was considering divorce. She loved the attention I paid to her. We used each other to prove to ourselves that we could still be attractive to the opposite sex and to try to cover up our own unhappiness and pain. Of course, I again made a ridiculously stupid mistake. I let myself "fall in love." (I later heard the definition of insanity: Doing something stupid a second or third time and expecting different results from the first time!!)

I assured Robin that no one would find out about us. Yea...right...sure!!! One evening after Robin had finished her shift at the hospital she came to my apartment so we could spend some time together away from Clay County Hospital before she drove 20 miles south to her home in Clay City. She had only been there a few minutes when this man, someone I didn't know, broke down the door and rushed in. He was screaming obscenities at both of us as well as threatening us. Just before he attacked me, I heard Robin call him by name..."John, what are you doing here?!" It was her husband! He rushed at me with fists flying. I had never been in a fight like this in my life. I kicked and threw a few punches, while trying to avoid his fists. Fortunately, I had a loaded pistol in a drawer there in the living room. As I was protecting myself from his attack, I yelled for Robin to grab the gun and get it to me somehow. She managed to do that...I then was able to "reason" with John and "suggest" that he leave. He did, still screaming at both of us as he left. I quickly called the Brazil Police Department and had him arrested for breaking and entering, as well as for assault and battery.

We had sure kept our relationship secret, hadn't we! The next morning, Robin begged me to withdraw my charges so that her husband could be released. They had two teenage sons growing up in the exact mold of their father. She was afraid her sons would hate me (or us) if I followed through and if he had to stay in jail. I called the jail and he was soon released. I did go to court, however, and County Judge John Stelle granted a restraining order. But guess what...soon John was able to persuade their sons that both Robin and I were the most evil, despicable people in the world. Robin thought it would blow over soon enough. But, it didn't! She had proceeded with divorce proceedings. Because there is only a 60-day waiting period in Indiana, their divorce was final within four months of the start of our own relationship.

We really did think we were in love with each other. I felt so fortunate to have this young, blond, beautiful nurse telling me she loved me. I was afraid, however, that if I didn't ask her to marry me quickly that she would change her mind about us or find someone else. In the summer of 1994, I flew to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for a week-long family medicine medical meeting. Robin agreed to go with me. The meeting was held at a beautiful hotel on the beach in North Myrtle Beach. I had called the Horry County Court House there in Myrtle Beach before we left Indiana and found out that getting married in South Carolina was so very easy. No, they said, we did not need any blood tests...just proof of our divorces. I convinced Robin that this was the right thing to do. I took one afternoon off from the meeting; we drove to the court house, filled out paperwork, and were married by a Horry County notary public! That was certainly very intimate and special, wasn't it!! We didn't have (or even need) anyone standing up with us.

Robin had told me how lucky her sons would now be to have me as their step-father. She very much wanted to get them away from the influence of their father. Unfortunately that would never happen...we would never find out. Just as her ex-husband had controlled her for so many years, he was able to totally control their sons also. They both refused to see their Mom or even talk to her on the telephone. They returned birthday cards and presents unopened...even birthday or Christmas cards and presents. They all were very rude to her and even told her they hated her. We thought that time would change things, but it wasn't to be.

Looking back now, I can see how blessed I had been having Bobbie as an ex-wife. She allowed me to come and go from our old house whenever I wanted. I could drop by and see and talk to our children whenever I wanted. I was able to coach my sons' Babe Ruth baseball teams several years. Both the boys played on the varsity tennis team at Northview High School there in Brazil. During the tennis season Bobbie and I watched the matches together. This was good for me, but how terribly thoughtless of me to not see how much this would upset Robin. Her oldest son was a varsity basketball and baseball player at the other high school in Clay County, in Clay City. Robin had to actually sneak in to the Clay City High School gymnasiumand try to hide during the games so that she could watch without being yelled at, ridiculed and humiliated by her ex-husband. I was not allowed to go with her to give any kind of support. She was worried what her sons or ex- husband might do if they saw me. She was agonizing over the fact that she had effectively given up her marriage and now her sons also in order to be with me.

I let my boys use our house for parties on at least two different occasions, which was dreadfully inconsiderate again...I didn't ask Robin's permission. I suppose that down deep I considered it "my" house and not "our" house. I was paying the bills wasn't I? Then to make matters (and our marriage) even worse, I started getting very depressed again. I was very burned- out at work. Because I was giving Bobbie and the children so much extra money, Robin and I didn't have enough. I was now effectively paying for two houses. My parents had been living near Bobbie and me in Brazil for many years. They had accepted Bobbie just like another daughter during our entire marriage. Now, they excluded Robin and me from any family gatherings. I was still self-medicating with medicine and alcohol for depression and the treatment wasn't working. Again, I never thought to admit my problems and get help!

Robin refused to accept that I had a serious medical problem and that I needed medication with potential very serious side effects. She admitted that she really knew nothing about depression. One of the symptoms of depression is the loss of interest in sex. In addition, a common side effect of the antidepressant medication I was taking is impotence and/or the total loss of interest in sex. I had told her some of the history about the long and intimate relationship between Sherri and me. She had also heard other numerous rumors about my relationships with other women. Robin incorrectly assumed that I had started seeing and having sex with Sherri again. After all, she thought, I didn't seem interested in her! At the same time, while Robin was agonizing over the loss of her sons, I was unable to comfort her. I was once again withdrawing and isolating myself from her, from other family, and from friends.

We had been married less than a year and our marriage was quickly falling apart. Robin moved out of our house and into an apartment in nearby Terre Haute. She would continue to see me, talk to me, and have meals with me occasionally. We even started having sex again. But, unbeknownst to me, she was also having affairs with two other men at the same time. She was just as emotionally needy as I ever was. She needed me, but I was unable to be any kind of support to or for her. In return for friendship and sex, these other men (both married!) were able to show her some of the attention she felt she so terribly needed. She told me she felt good, in fact even enjoyed, doing this to me because she knew I was having an affair with Sherri even though I wasn't!

During this same time period (mid-1995) my partners at Clay Family Medicine and I had decided to try to sell our medical practice to one of several hospitals that were showing an interest. Two of us were 50 years old, the other 45. After months of very difficult negotiations we sold our building, medical records, and entire practices to Terre Haute Regional Hospital for $1 million. Dealing with THRH was simple; trying to deal with my partners was so very difficult. After splitting my share with Bobbie, and after paying taxes on the remainder, I was left with about $70,000!! I had practiced medicine in Brazil for nearly 20 years; we had over 20,000 active patient charts; my gross income was over a quarter of a million dollars annually...and I had $70,000 to show for it, half of which I had to share with my ex-, Bobbie. That made me feel nearly worthless again.

Another problem... we had now become employees of a big corporation. We had lost all our individual freedoms. We now were told what to do! This was far more stressful than we had ever anticipated. Everything seemed to continue building to a major crisis personally. I was barely able to make it through December of 1995 because of the depression. I went for days without being able to work at the office. I withdrew from everything and everyone.

Then another surprise...my mother and father asked Robin and me to come to their house to talk. One of my partners, Jim Stephens, had sent my father to a joint replacement specialist because he was nearly unable to walk. This specialist had suggested that my father get a knee replacement. But, first he needed to have a cardiologist (heart specialist) give his or her blessings.

My father went to see a cardiologist in Terre Haute. I remembered that my father had a somewhat minor heart attack when I was in medical school nearly 20 years before. One of my friends, Dr. George Bittar, did a heart catheterization. This heart cath showed a very major, very serious blockage in the most important vessel feeding the heart muscle itself, the left coronary artery. There were also significant narrowings in several other vessels. Well, my parents had called and asked me to come to their house to ask for my medical judgment concerning what to do next. The cardiologist said that he needed a CABG (coronary artery bypass graft) immediately even if he didn't proceed with the knee surgery. Robin and I drove to their house to talk. Robin had never even met them before despite the fact that we had been married nearly a year. We all talked for awhile, rather superficially. Then they asked for my advice. I knew that heart surgery was certainly very serious, but so many surgeries were being done that I felt he was perfectly safe having a CABG. I also knew the surgeon that George Bittar wanted to use. I told him that afterwards he could have his knee replaced. With his heart working much better and then with a "new knee" he would be able to get out of the house, get back on the golf course and do many more things that he wanted to do. Like me, he had been struggling with depression as well over the years. He had practically given up living.

One week before Christmas he was admitted to Terre Haute Regional Hospital to have surgery. The surgeon was a very good friend of mine from Indianapolis, Dr. John Mersho, the senior partner of an excellent group of vascular surgeons at Community Hospital. He had done the repair of an abdominal aortic aneurysm on Dad some years before. We all had total confidence in him. Surgery the next morning went beautifully. I was allowed to watch the entire surgery from the head of the table standing beside the anesthesiologist. My father ended up with 5 grafts after about 3 hours of surgery. While he was in the recovery room, I drove back to Brazil to try to work in my office.

The next morning, while I was seeing patients in my office, I received a phone call a nurse in the ICU telling me to come to THRH as quickly as I could. She wouldn't give me any details on the phone. When I arrived about 30 minutes later, John told me that my father had collapsed in shock just minutes after the he had made rounds and had seen him that morning. His blood pressure had dropped nearly to zero and he became unconscious and unresponsive. The surgeon had opened my father's chest incision right there in the bed in the Intensive Care Unit and found his chest to be full of blood. A heart surgery room was being prepared for a surgery on a different patient. The surgeon decided to go there immediately. While doing open-chest heart massage, the bed was quickly taken downstairs to that surgery suite and Dad was put back on the heart bypass machine.

He was given many, many units of whole blood. One of the bypass grafts had detached and he had lost a tremendous amount of blood into the sac around the heart called the pericardiam. That graft was repaired but the damage had been done. His brain had been without adequate blood flow for too long.

There is an old and terrible saying..."The surgery went well, but the patient died!" My father's heart was beating and he now had a blood pressure, but his brain (except for the brain stem) was dead. His surgeon was dreadfully upset. I had certainly never seen John that way before. He said to me, "Ken, I have never in over 20 years of doing heart surgery had a patient die!" I had to try to console him. "John, I know that your surgery was excellent. Remember, I was there. But bad things do happen in life sometimes." He replied, in a tearful, quiet voice, "Yes, but why to your father, Ken?" I actually tried to console him.

My father was kept on life support for several days. The neurologist who was consulted thought that perhaps he would wake up when the effects of the anesthesia wore off...perhaps he was given too much Valium. On Christmas Eve at my parent's house, we had a family meeting. This time, I was an important part of the meeting. At least we all knew that he was not suffering anymore. We all understood that he was in an irreversible coma. But the family was suffering dreadfully. We knew there was no more hope and decided to instruct the doctors to turn off all life support the next day, Christmas Day, 1995.

That next morning, the neurologist tried to talk us out of our decision, but we all felt very strongly. I thanked this physician as well as my surgeon friend, John, and then I turned off the pulmonary ventilator myself. The Sproul family held hands around the bed as my father's heart finally stopped beating. What a horrible end to a horrible year - 1995.

# CHAPTER SEVEN

It was finally time to board Lufthansa Flight 2023 leaving from Frankfurt flying to Addis Ababa. I had taken off from Indianapolis about 14 hours earlier and wouldn't arrive in Ethiopia for another 8 hours. I was mentally and physically exhausted. I hoped I could sleep on one of these next flights. However, my brain was going strong...full of so many memories and anticipation of what was to come.

The year 1996 was to change my life forever. After my father died and I again became totally dysfunctional. I was unable to go back to my office and see patients. I isolated myself at my house (Robin and my home??) hoping that something good would happen magically. Once again I started drinking heavily, this time lots and lots of wine. After all, I reasoned, wine wouldn't hurt me the way straight whiskey would...would it? I felt like no one really cared about me, even my family, and that there was no real good reason to try to get well. (Later, I would find out that the name for this is "stinking thinking!" How can the thoughts and reasoning of someone in the pits of depression and full of alcohol be logical or real? )

Robin and I decided to get divorced and try to put an end to the pain we were causing each other. She told me she hated what I had done to her by causing her to lose her sons. She blamed me for that as well as everything else bad in her life! Of course, I accepted all this...all the verbal abuse. This was the woman I was still in love with, I thought, and she wouldn't lie to me, would she?! In addition, she was very seriously involved with some other man and didn't want me around anymore!

I tried to do my shifts in the Emergency Department at Clay County Hospital so I wouldn't get in trouble with them. I didn't make any serious mistakes, I didn't think, but it was a struggle just to make myself get out of bed and go to the hospital. One afternoon in late January one of my partners called me at home and told me to come there to the office in about an hour to talk to Jerry Dooley, the Administrator and CEO of Terre Haute Regional Office, my "boss" since THRH had bought our practice six months before. I somehow knew that this couldn't be good! And it wasn't. Because I was not upholding my part of my employment contract (I was not able to work in the office) my contract was being terminated...I was being fired!! I was not surprised. There was very little else Jerry could do. We had talked several times before and I was aware of the trouble I was in. I was too depressed to even care that I had been fired.

I still had my income from the ER. Maybe I could pick up a few more shifts. However, within a few days another crisis occurred. I was accused by two of the other physicians on staff at Clay County Hospital of making some major critical errors in caring for their patients in the ER. I totally disagreed, but my fate had been decided. I was then told by the Administrator of the hospital that I would not be allowed to work any more shifts in the ER and that I was being asked to meet a disciplinary board made up of several other physicians. I was really angry!! I was being accused of being a bad physician and of harming patients. That was simply not true!

When I walked into the disciplinary meeting, I found out the real reason for the meeting. Both my partners were there as well as the other physicians who were accusing me of poor ER practice. I was also introduced to a nurse from Indianapolis, a representative of the Impaired Physician's Program of the Indiana State Medical Association. They were all there in order to do an intervention into my life. My colleagues all said that they cared about me and wanted me to get well. Since I was not apparently going to do it on my own, they were going to force me to do something. My privileges to practice at Clay County Hospital were officially suspended indefinitely. The ISMA representative told me to come to her office in Indianapolis the next morning to discuss more details. There was nothing I could say that would change anyone's minds. My fate was sealed once the ISMA representative had been notified.

I went back alone to my house, too stunned to really understand what was happening. For the first time in a long time I had no desire to drink. I started a fire in the fireplace and sat for hours watching the flames. Everyone does that, don't they? I actually slept very well that night.

Again the next day, I knew what a wonderful lady my ex-wife was. Bobbie agreed to go to Indianapolis with me to help me and support me. I can still remember many details of that meeting. I was told that effective immediately, assuming I still wanted to keep my medical license, I was enrolled in the Impaired Physician Program (IPP.)

An appointment had already been made for a 3-day psychiatric evaluation at Rush Memorial Hospital in Chicago. The results of that evaluation would be immediately made known to the ISMA/IPP. The next decisions would then be made. I spent 2 1/2 emotionally grueling days there at Rush. A psychiatrist even interviewed Bobbie for several hours. This was the very first time she had discovered all the dreadful things I had been doing. I was diagnosed as having bipolar illness under very poor control, being an alcoholic, and having an addiction to female relationships. In Chicago, I was told to report back to the ISMA HQ in Indianapolis the following day.

During the meeting the next morning, the next 5 years of my life were outlined:

  1. I would report within a week to a treatment facility near Jackson, Mississippi named COPAC - Caduceus Outpatient Addiction Center. (This center had been established several years before to primarily deal with addiction problems of medical professionals.) I would stay there for a minimum of 6 months.

  2. Upon returning home, I would not be able to practice medicine for at least another 6 months. During those months, I would attend a 12-step meeting everyday; I would start therapy with both a psychiatrist and a psychologist/therapist; I would not be allowed to self-medicate; I would not use alcohol or any other illegal or mind-altering drugs; I would attend weekly group meetings at the ISMA offices in Indianapolis; I would submit to no-notice urine drug screens at least every 2-3 weeks; I would have counseling with the IPP director at least monthly.

3. After the first year, I would then continue in the program for another 4 years. The details of those 4 years would be decided on later.

I had no idea how I would deal with the financial crisis that all of this was going to cause. I had no health insurance that would pay for the COPAC treatment...an estimated $10,000 per month. I didn't have any disability insurance either. I was still responsible for paying Bobbie nearly $5000 every month. Before I left for Mississippi, I cashed in all my mutual funds. Those were intended to pay for 3 college educations as well as my own retirement. But I needed the cash right then in order to avoid bankruptcy. My God in heaven, what was happening to me?! I knew in my heart that this was necessary. Without some sort of intervention, I would certainly die!! But what did the future hold for me.

# CHAPTER EIGHT

I had been to Mississippi during the summer once before. Our National Guard unit had deployed for 2 weeks of active duty at a training base in Gulfport, Mississippi about 10 years before. I had taken the whole family with me. It was so dreadfully hot and humid there on the Gulf of Mexico! This time I flew to Jackson, Mississippi in April but knew that if I was to successfully complete the program I would need to stay for 6 months...including the entire summer! I was met at the airport by an employee of COPAC and then driven about 20 miles out somewhere into the country. Seeing the facility for the first time was a shock. My new "home" was for men only and looked like a remodeled 1960s style motel. I was later to find out that this had once been built for fishermen to stay in while they fished the local lakes.

Because addictions also affected women, COPAC had another facility in a different place just for women. My facility housed up to 60 men...all addicts to one thing or another...usually many different things at the same time. The facility had been developed originally to help addicts who were professionals in the medical field hence the name "Caduceus"...the symbol of a snake coiled around a staff, signifying a physician. But in order to make more money it now cared for anyone who could afford it. It was also approved by Medicaid, so there were many court-ordered, non-medical men there also.

We lived in groups of 8-10 men for up to a month. After that the room assignments were totally shuffled and each of us was reassigned to a different building. Each of us was assigned to one specific counselor, an employee of COPAC...another recovering addict with expertise in counseling. My counselor was an attorney from Miami, Florida who had lost his entire practice and home because of a cocaine addiction. At the time I was there in Mississippi, he had over 10 years of sobriety. I did individual counseling with him weekly. He also led a group session at least 3 times every week.

Purposefully, we had very little time to be alone. Each day officially started after breakfast with a mini-12 step meeting and prayer. Every evening there was a formal 12-step meeting. There was "homework" assigned in the group sessions that required some research, talking and writing. For one hour every afternoon we had mandatory "sports time." There were some great volleyball and softball games during my stay. I hadn't played in a long time and it was fun! I had been too busy in my life. Several of us also threw horseshoes between volleyball games.

The absolute best therapy we did were the required "one-on-one" sessions. During the week each of us had to spend one hour each with at least five other addicts discussing our lives, our addictions, our hopes, our dreams, our faults, our strengths, our families. There were absolutely no secrets there. I was able to talk about anything and everything with 59 other men...likewise them with me, one at a time. For six months I was forced to think about me - what had happened in my life, how I had become an addict, how I had nearly lost everything, why I had done the things I had done, what I was going to do with my future. I was also forced to "feel things"...daily one of my assignments was to write a list of things I was feeling in a notebook. As the weeks passed I found myself really enjoying this. I had time to look deep inside and get to know myself in order to do these assignments.

James Frey, in his book, A Million Little Pieces, described himself as "A Crack addict, an alcoholic, and a criminal" while going through treatment at the well-known Hazeltine addiction treatment facility in Minnesota. He describes in detail his feelings during family week, when his parents really found out about their son's problems.

At one session, he said, "I'm sorry about what I told you this morning. It must have been terrible for you to have to sit through it. As I was doing it, I couldn't believe the number of things I felt. The first was anger...intense anger.... I felt shame, enormous amounts of shame. I felt shame because of who I am, what I've done, the way I've lived my life, the crimes I've committed.... I felt regret for a lot of the same reasons I felt shame. But also because I have wasted so much of my life.... I felt like I wanted to drink. I felt like I wanted to do drugs. I felt like I wanted large amounts of both of them...."

When I was drunk or busy or with a woman, I did not need to get inside of me! I didn't really have to feel anything. But, while at COPAC, I was really and truly able to feel things. How wonderful.

Each of us, also daily, had to write a list of at least 10 things we were grateful for that day. Several times I had been close to the point of committing suicide. I wanted my pain to end. How, in God's name, could I now be grateful for anything?! In Mississippi, I was forced to see those many, many things to be thankful for and then write them in my "Gratuities List."

The letters "AA" are known in every single part of the world. These letters, of course, stand for the most famous of all the 12-step groups, Alcoholics Anonymous. Evolving from that first group are many other groups that use the 12-step approach to help people with addictions. It only took me a few days of meetings with all my new "friends" for me to get up the nerve to introduce myself, "My name is Ken, and I am an alcoholic and an addict!" The group then responded all at the same time, "Hi Ken!" This was another daily time when I knew I was an addict and that I badly needed help. I was not any different from any of the other residents at COPAC. When I was finally able to admit my problems, then, and only then, could I get well. I was very soon then asked (or actually "told") to give my story...that is, tell the entire group all about me. Just as the one-on-one's were so cathartic and helpful, it feels so wonderful to unburden your troubles on others who all have the same or even worse troubles.

The first three of the twelve steps say: (1) We admitted we were powerless over alcohol--that our lives had become unmanageable. (2) We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. (3) We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

In the earliest days of AA, the word "God" was used exclusively. Later, in the days of political correctness, the term Higher Power was substituted instead of God. It was thought that this would help those in the group who did not believe in God.

I had never thought I needed God in my life. I suppose I believed in God, but didn't have any kind of relationship with Him. Later I would find out that many, so-called Christians, also don't have a close relationship with God. I had started attending the Christ Community Church in Brazil a few months before going to COPAC. This had started me wanting to have a relationship with Him, but I really didn't know how to go about it. This "higher power" idea immediately became God to me. God was, is, and always will be my "higher power." Then in our daily 12-step meetings I was able to ask God for His help. I knew every day that He was there with me to help me.

In Chicago I had been labeled as being an "addict to female relationships." I remember thinking, "What in God's name is that all about?" Guess what... I found out the absolute painful truth about me and my relationships with women. Why did I always have long relationships with females, and then why did these relationships inevitably end painfully? Why did I immediately jump into another relationship? Would I ever be able to have a healthy relationship with a woman in the future?

For about six weeks there at COPAC, a group of about 10 of us at a time dealt very openly and painfully with addictions to sexual issues. Many of us had been divorced. Several, like me, had more than one divorce. Only a very few had long-term relationships or marriages that could be considered healthy and good. What unbelievable group dynamics occurred in that small group. All of our secrets were exposed and openly discussed in the group and in the "one-on-one's." During the six months I came to understand one of my core problems--I really didn't like who I was on the inside and what I was doing to myself, to my family, and to others. Without a woman to "love" me or at least like me, I felt worthless. When a woman ended a long-term relationship with me, I was devastated. She had discovered that I was worthless. Because I was an addict, I needed to find another relationship very quickly to try to keep myself from becoming dreadfully depressed. How often that hurt me and hurt others. None of us there at treatment were healthy. Of course not!! If I had been healthy I would have lived my life differently. But, I couldn't go back and do it over, could I?

The six months seemed to creep by, but everyday went by quickly. In October I was going back to Indiana to try to pick up the pieces. Every one of my counselors and friends told me that I should not return to Brazil, Indiana--I needed to start over somewhere else, away from all the reminders of that other life before treatment. But how could I do that? My medical practice was gone, but all my children were there in Brazil. And I had absolutely no money. How could I possibly go somewhere else and start over? Against everyone's advice I did return to Brazil. (I found out a very short time later that the COPAC people were right...I didn't have the strength yet to make it on my own.)

Graduates of the Air Force Academy would commonly say, when asked about their experience as a cadet, "It was one of the most wonderful things I ever accomplished, but I would never, ever do it again...." Similar things could be said of my experiences at COPAC. When, after six long months of treatment, I was driving out the front gate, I remember thinking, "Thank you, God, for forcing me to come here, but I will never come here again."

There were lots and lots of hugs and lots and lots of tears during those six months. Thank God that I can still feel the need to comfort someone, to help someone, to hug someone, to love someone. As addict and author James Frey was leaving Hazeltine Treatment Facility, he describes his last moments with his personal counselor, Joanne:

"Joanne speaks.

You're all set to be picked up?

Yeah.

Have you checked out yet?

No.

You should get going.

I nod again...I know.

She stands.

Give me a hug?

I stand.

Of course.

I step forward and I hug her. There is emotion in the hug, and there is respect and a form of love. Emotion that comes from honesty, respect that comes from challenge, and the form of love that exists between people whose minds have touched, whose hearts have touched, whose souls have touched. Our minds touched. Our hearts touched. Our souls touched.

Make us proud, Kid.

I'll try."

Reprinted by permission. A Million LIttle Pieces, Thomas Frey, copyright 2005,

Anchor Publishers; Random House Publishers. All rights reserved.

# CHAPTER NINE

Wow...those 4 hours went by quickly. I heard and felt the effect on the airplane when the pilot lowered the flaps and then shortly afterwards the landing gear. I had no idea where Alexandria, Egypt was...but I was going to be there very soon. Could I now tell people that I had been to Egypt? The captain said in German and then in English that we would be on the ground less than an hour and that passengers were not going to be allowed to leave the plane. That was OK, I was certainly absorbed in memories.

In Mississippi we studied and then discussed in detail the qualities or strengths of healthy relationships. I had certainly never done that before. I naively thought that they "just happened."

The University of Texas at Austin, Counseling and Mental Health Center, has available an excellent little paper called "Build a Healthy Relationship from the Start." This paper first describes "The Beginning Stages":

  * **Build.** First build a foundation of appreciation and respect. Focus on all the considerate things your partner says and does.

  * **Explore.** Explore each other's interests so that you have a long list of things to enjoy together. Try new things together to expand your mutual interests.

  * **Establish.** Establish a pattern of apologizing if/when you make a mistake or hurt your partner's feelings. Saying "I'm sorry" might be hard in the moment, but it is a powerful statement.

Then "As the Months Go By: Important Things to Recognize as Your Relationship Grows":

  * **Relationships Change.** Changes in life will often impact what you want and need from the relationship. Welcoming this as an opportunity to enhance the relationship is more fruitful than trying to keep it from happening.

  * **Check in Periodically.** Check in with each other now and then concerning any changing expectations and goals. Make changes in your relationship as needed in order to satisfy any changing expectations and/or goals.

There is also a well written section called "Healthy and Problematic Expectations in Relationships" Each and every one of us enters into romantic relationships with ideas of what we ourselves want and expect. "The following will help you to distinguish between healthy and problematic relationship expectations":

  * **Respect Changes.** Anticipate that both you and your partner will change over time. Feelings can change over time. Respecting and valuing these changes is healthy.

  * **Accept Differences**. It can be difficult, but is healthy, to accept that there are some things that will change in our relationship...with our partner. Accept them; adapt to them.

  * **Express Wants and Needs.** Don't just assume that your partner knows your wants and needs. A healthier approach is to directly express them!

  * **Respect Your Partner's Rights.** In healthy relationships, there is respect for each partner's right to have her/his own friends, activities, and opinions. Do respect that!

  * **Be Prepared to "Fight Fair."** Accumulated and unaddressed conflicts can be a real threat. Healthy couples disagree...even fight...but they "fight fair." Each takes responsibility for her/his own part in a problem, admits when she/he is wrong, and seeks compromise.

Here are a few other characteristics or strengths of a healthy relationship:

  * We are happy with one another, just as we are.

  * Each of us listens to the other...and cares.

  * We can argue or disagree, and remain friends.

  * Each of us has come to rely on the other, because we value our relationship as a top priority.

  * Mutual communication and sharing is valued by each of us.

  * Neither of us must be something or someone other than what we are in order to please the other.

  * Total honesty is a shared value, as well as kindness and sensitivity toward one another's feelings.

  * We are both committed to the relationship, and to one another.

  * We love and care for one another, unconditionally.

(From: "Building a Healthy Relationship from the Start". University of Texas at Austin. UT Counseling and Mental Health Center)

Would I ever be healthy enough myself to have a healthy relationship? If so, would that ever happen?

There were no parades welcoming me home to Indiana when I left COPAC after those six months. There was no TV coverage of my homecoming. I had so effectively withdrawn from everyone that most people had no idea what was going on in my life. I moved back into my nearly-empty house and wondered what would come next. I had no job. I was prohibited from practicing medicine for at least six more months because of my contract with the Indiana State Medical Association. My family really didn't want me around them yet. Every penny of my savings was gone. My divorce decree still said that I would pay Bobbie nearly $5000 every month.

Phase Two of my Impaired Physician Program now started. I would be extremely busy going to AA meetings in Brazil and in Terre Haute, 1 every day, as well as driving back and forth to meetings in Indianapolis. What a financial mess I was in. Once again, Bobbie was there to help me. When my partners and I sold our medical practice just over a year before, Bobbie had received half of my share of the proceeds. Just before I left for Mississippi, she agreed to not force me to pay the child support and house payments until I had a job again...so long as I agreed to pay her the money back if and when I could. What a wonderful relief!! I also quickly decided that it was essential to sell the house I was living in, the one Robin and I had bought, despite the realization I would probably take a big loss. So, yes I did sell it...and yes I did lose money. I was able to sell the house after a couple of months and took about a $5000 loss overall. But, I had no choice. I moved into a tiny rental house (less than 800 sq. feet) but at least I could afford the rent.

One evening, I was in town shopping at Wal-Mart when I saw one of my former patients in the aisle near me. Karen had always been one of my favorite patients. I had really enjoyed taking care of her 2 children since they had moved to Indiana from Cincinnati 10 or 12 years before. I didn't remember if I had ever seen Karen herself as a patient! She had just recently divorced her husband. He, like me, was an alcoholic...but he was in denial and not trying to do anything about it. We talked for a few minutes. We decided to get together for coffee the next day at her house. She, also, was forced to rent a very tiny house. She was trying to make ends meet using a small amount of child support and the amount she made selling real estate.

Karen worked as a realtor, and did not have a job with regular hours. Of course, I didn't either. She had two school-age children. But we were able to spend many, many evenings over the next several weeks together talking and really getting to know each other much better. Karen was a beautiful lady 10 years younger than I was. Conversations in my office had always been very pleasant. She was sweet, pleasant, very well educated and loved to talk. She had been both physically and emotionally abused by her husband, and loved the kindness, friendship, and attention I showed her. Our relationship became very serious, very quickly. (However, can you see where this is heading??) I was still very needy and Karen was also. But, we were grown, mature adults. We wouldn't get hurt or hurt the other one...would we?!

The first six months after I completed treatment actually went very quickly. Every Monday I drove to Indianapolis to spend about 2 hours in group therapy with other medical professionals at the ISMA building, and then another hour in an AA meeting. The other days I went to a 12-step meeting either in Brazil or in Terre Haute.

One day, on an impulse, I drove to Northview High School, just outside Brazil, and talked to the principal, Lynn Romas, a friend and patient of mine. I told him that somehow, in some capacity, I wanted to volunteer at the school full time. He was delighted to say, "Yes!" During those coming months I tutored in the study hall, assisted teaching in the math department, did "guest lectures" in the anatomy and physiology classes, and even filled in as a substitute teacher at times. I really loved my time there and think I helped some students. My daughter and younger son were still students there at Northview High School then so I was able to see them at times...even teach several of their math and physics classes.

When my first year in the IPP program was coming to an end, I was very pleasantly surprised by a telephone call from Jerry Dooley, the administrator of Terre Haute Regional Hospital. I had first met Jerry when I was in residency and he was the chief at the Vermillion County Hospital in Clinton, Indiana. Clinton is about 10 miles north of Terre Haute. I had also done some "moon lighting" in their ER during my residency days. About the same time I was completing my residency program, Jerry moved to Terre Haute and took over as administrator of Regional Hospital. On that dreadful day in January of 1996, when he was forced to fire me, he expressed the heartfelt feelings that he knew I was still an excellent physician and told me he would pray that I would get well. Then he said, "Ken, when you get well, please give me a call. I may want you to work with me again!" He had actually meant it.

Jerry asked me that day in the fall when he called me, "Ken, do you remember what I told you nearly a year ago concerning working for me again?" I certainly did! What was coming next? The business side of medical practice had changed so drastically, probably because so many of us physicians are terrible business people. The two Terre Haute hospitals, Regional Hospital and Union Hospital, probably owned nearly 2/3 of all the family practice offices and all of the so-called "walk-in" clinics in Vigo County. THRH owned a walk- in, one-physician office on the far eastern side of Terre Haute that was struggling to stay open, let alone show any kind of profit. It was named Regional Family Medicine.

Later in my life I would really understand much better just how God works. He really likes and wants to work through His people here on earth to get the things accomplished that He wants accomplished. God was blessing me by giving me this opportunity to be a physician again! I drove to Terre Haute, visited the facility, and talked to the staff and to Jerry in much more detail. Jerry said to call him within a few days.

I thought about the opportunity to practice medicine again...what I really wanted to do! I went to Jerry's office several days later and he gave me an offer and a contract to consider. In just a few days, I signed the contract and again became an employee of THRH. I was being offered an opportunity to practice as a family doctor without needing to worry about the business side of the practice.

`Just about every free moment we had, Karen and I spent together. Both her children knew me from my time as their family doctor, and both liked me. I was able to help them with school work and other things. I taught her son how to play golf and played catch with him. He loved to play baseball. Karen's husband finally stopped harassing us so we were able to be all together without fear that he would intrude. Karen decided to buy a small old house closer to town and move there. We all spent many hours tearing down wallpaper, sanding floors, and painting. When she moved in, I moved in with her. We thought we were in love and wanted to be together as much as possible.

Why couldn't I see what I was doing again...both to her and to me. My counselors in Mississippi warned me very, very strongly not to get involved in another love relationship for at least two years. I had waited a few months at least!! I had paid over $60,000 for 6 months of treatment, and then pretty much ignored some of their best advice. I was going to AA meetings; I was "filling my squares" in Indianapolis; I was not practicing medicine; I was seeing both a psychiatrist and a PhD psychologist for therapy; I was taking my medicine and was not drinking. But, I still could not totally give up control. This would very soon cost me dearly.

My relationship with Karen certainly wasn't healthy. It was another impulsive, rebound love affair but I couldn't see that. I really had not learned very much. How painful and totally wrong to look back and say, "What if...." or "If only I...." Neither of us was healthy yet. I had been given some foundation to work with, but wasn't doing very many smart things. I was still frequently going to Bobbie's house to see her and our kids. I was trying to help Bobbie fix up "our" house with paint and wallpaper. I was spending much time and even more emotional energy in my "old life" instead of with Karen. I made all the same mistakes again, just with a different woman. This time, however, I was also financially destitute.

One very wonderful thing did happen thanks to my relationship with Karen. In Ohio, she and her children had been very devout members of a Nazarene church. While we were together she decided to start attending the Nazarene church in Brazil. I went with her every Sunday morning and really enjoyed it. She had introduced me to the Lord! It would be a long time until Christ and I had a close relationship, but at least I had made a start.

Sometime in mid-1998, I asked Karen to marry me...she said "Yes!" Very soon thereafter I had a thought -"Oh, my God, now what have I done?" We started looking for a larger house to buy. After finding one on a lake outside of town, I was suddenly struck as if by lightning and realized that I should not and could not get married again. I could not possibly, even with Karen's income, financially support her and her children. I had absolutely nothing to bring into a marriage except lots of baggage. I suddenly knew how wrong this all was...I suddenly knew what terrible mistakes we had both made by getting so emotionally involved. I was not healthy; I didn't know if I would ever really be healthy.

And once again, all this indecision and uncertainty and stress caused me to panic and then emotionally crash again. Without even explaining anything to Karen, I packed up my few things and moved back to my little rental house. I was so very sorry for how I was treating her, but my life was crashing down on me again and I couldn't think straight. I confused her and hurt her and angered her. She would never forgive me. My psychologist, Mike Urban, did what he could to help, but was forced to say to me, "Ken, I think I told you so!"

My new medical practice was doing wonderfully patient - number wise and income wise. But I was once again working very long hours and not taking care of myself. In addition, I was working for another locum tenens emergency department group both there at Regional Hospital and at another hospital in Sullivan, Indiana, about 30 miles south of Terre Haute. I was again working 60-70 hour weeks in the office and another 40-50 hours every month in one or other of the two ERs. I also still had the requirement to go to Indianapolis for mandatory counseling twice a month.

I was definitely not taking good care of my mental health. I was continuing to see Mike Urban and taking my medicine faithfully. But despite this, I was really struggling again. I was not drinking alcohol or using any other drugs, but my general mood was not good. My children were all involved in their own lives, and really didn't want to spend much time with me. I was all alone again. I wanted Karen back in my life, but she had already starting seeing someone else. She wanted nothing more to do with me or with my mood swings and emotional problems, especially after how I had treated her. I couldn't blame her! But I still felt that I was in love with her and wanted her to give me another chance. I was so lonely and becoming very depressed again!

My relationship with God was not going very well either...I had taken control back from Him and was running my own life again. And, again, I was making a mess of things. My staff at the Terre Haute office knew how depressed I was getting. They knew Karen and all about my relationship with her. Every time that she rejected me again, I would end up in tears, often while I was trying to work. Despite medication and psychological therapy my depression was again getting worse. I was slowly becoming dysfunctional again. I was starting to call in sick again. My addiction to the relationship with Karen (and Robin before that and Sherri before that and....) was the driving factor now. My brain was full of irrational thoughts..."stinking thinking" as we called it in 12-step terms.

Despite the help of the church, I still was not strong enough to cope with my psychological mess. Mike Urban and my private physician, Dr. Randy Stephens, decided to put me in the hospital to try to defuse the situation and, hopefully, keep me from collapsing. I agreed, right or wrongly, to be admitted to the Psych Unit at Regional Hospital, my "home hospital." During the 3 or 4 days there I slept a lot, ate regularly, saw my psychiatrist daily, read books and isolated. I refused to participate in the group sessions. After all, I had already done 6 intense inpatient months of therapy and hours of outpatient therapy. I didn't need more!! But this did keep me from being fired again.

Karen and her daughter surprised me by coming to the hospital to see me. She tried to keep from giving me any hope about a renewed relationship, buy how could I not have hope! She certainly cared enough about me to come see me. She even admitted to me that she was not seeing the other man anymore.

At the suggestion of everyone involved, I took another week off after I was released from the hospital. My mood had stabilized overall, but I still didn't feel very well. Unfortunately I spent a lot of that time in the hospital ruminating about Karen and our past together. I wanted her back so badly. Why, dear Lord, won't you just tell Karen to love me again and allow me back into her life? I thought that was what I really needed in order to be well again...I needed her to love me! Well, what a surprise, that was not going to happen. God didn't want that to happen, apparently. He had other plans for me....

A few more weeks went past. I was back working in the office and trying to decide how I could make Karen love me again, or at least like me more. One of her good friends suggested I be assertive--bring her flowers, make reservations for a hotel and dinner in Indianapolis for the weekend, bring her a card announcing my plans for "us." I took the card and the flowers to the attorney's office where she was now working. Instead of at least a "Thank you", she seemed embarrassed and upset by the attention she was receiving from her coworkers. She didn't want me to be there. Then she admitted to me that she already had plans for the weekend. She and the other man had plans almost identical to those I had. So, her other love affair was not finished!! I had no hope any longer--she and her friend/lover were going to have dinner and spend the weekend having sex in a beautiful hotel room. I just knew it!!

I was devastated! I, again, was so tired of fighting everything and losing. I had been rejected again. Apparently, I was still worthless. I couldn't work...I didn't want to work...I was totally burned out...it hurt so very much!!! The only way the pain would ever stop would be after I was dead. My children and Bobbie didn't really seem to care...Karen obviously hated me...I had no friends to talk to or loan me a shoulder to cry on. I saw no reason whatsoever to go on living.

I went to Bobbie's house on a day when I knew she was working and the kids were either in school or gone. I knew Matthew had purchased a shotgun. I searched until I found it in a downstairs closet and took it with me in my car. I had not been able to find any shells, so I went to Wal-Mart and bought a box of 20 gage shotgun shells. I certainly didn't need an entire box for what I had planned. I don't suppose they would sell me just one shell, would they? No, I guess not.

I hid the gun and the shells in the trunk of the car and went aimlessly driving. Did I really have the courage (guts?) to follow through? But I couldn't stand the thought of trying to face any more pain. I ended up on a gravel road about 5 or 6 miles outside of town. This was a very rarely used road - just perfect for me. I loaded the shotgun with a few shells and "test fired" it twice into an empty field. I hadn't fired a shotgun in many years. Yes, the gun worked perfectly. And, yes, I could reach the trigger and still put the barrel under my chin. Fortunately it was dusk so I really couldn't be seen by anyone unless they happened to drive by. I was sitting on the ground between the car and the empty field, leaning back against the front wheel. Could I really do it? Did I have the "courage" to pull the trigger? My own selfish feelings were the only ones I could think about. I didn't want to think about anything any longer...I didn't want to hurt any longer...I didn't want to feel the need to keep going any longer. I WANTED IT TO BE ALL OVER!!!

A prayer came into my mind. What a time for that!! I prayed out loud, "God, please forgive me and please give me the courage to pull this trigger! I can't go on!" A few thoughts then came to me. First, I thought it would be a good idea to not point the gun towards the car when I pulled the trigger. After all, I didn't want to damage my beautiful Chrysler 300M. I also didn't want my body to lie out there for days undetected. I didn't want some unfortunate passerby to find me. I decided to call my friend, Sheriff Rob Carter, at the Sheriff's Office, and ask for someone to come pick up the pieces.

Then another thought came to me...Karen was usually home by this time of evening. I would make my next to last phone call to her. I wanted to say "Good-bye!" What was I thinking? I knew that she didn't want to talk to me or particularly care about me. The straw that broke my back had been her trip to Indianapolis. Did I forget that so quickly? Where had this completely irrational thought come from? Oh well, why not?! The phone rang two or three times and she answered. I said, "Hi...." What a great comment! She recognized my voice and then said, "I am really glad you called. I wanted to ask a big favor of you." What was she doing to me now? "Susan just called me and is terribly depressed. Do you remember that you talked to her for a long time and gave her antidepressants about a year ago? I know she never followed up as you told her to do. She took them for awhile and they really helped. But she never called you for a refill. Well, I have never heard her so 'down' as she is tonight. Please call her and talk to her. I know that you can help her...you have always been able to help both of us." She continued, "Ken, after you talk to her please call me back. I want to know what Susan says and if she will get some help. I also want to apologize for what happened last week." Was this turning into "a God thing?"

I quickly thought back to my prayer asking God for courage. He must have completely misunderstood me. I didn't ask Him to put up a roadblock to my plans...I wanted courage to pull the trigger. What in the world did He think He was doing...trying to give me some reason to go on living for at least a bit longer? My cell phone would go dead (great choice of words) any minute. I would need to find another phone somewhere if I were to call Susan. Not surprisingly, I was excited that Karen would ask for my help and then ask me to call her again. I unloaded the shotgun shells, put the gun back in the trunk, and drove home to call Susan. I guess that defused things at least that night!

I had an excellent phone interaction with Susan about her depression. In return for a promise to call me back within a few days, I agreed to refill her antidepressants. No matter how terrible things were in my own mind, I never lost the ability or desire to help a person really in need of help. Neither Karen nor Susan ever knew how God had acted through them that night in order to save me...to give me a reason to keep on struggling.

I related this story to Mike Urban during my next session. I had never lied to him or kept any secrets from him. I ended up admitted to Regional Hospital again, but this time stayed for 2 weeks. Mike forced me to tell Bobbie and our children, all in person, exactly what I had nearly done. With Mike's encouragement they all really unloaded on me, telling me how incredibly selfish I was and how stupid I was!! I had never stopped to really think how my suicide would affect them. Bobbie again told me how painful it was when she remembered finding her father after he committed suicide when she was 16 years old...nearly 40 years in the past. I had forgotten all about that. All the rest of their lives my children would have to live with the fact that their Dad had chosen the easy way out and had not stopped to consider their feelings. How could I possibly think that they didn't really care?! I came out of that interaction feeling beaten and bloody, but maybe for the first time I realized just how much each of them, including Bobbie, still cared for and about me.

I also resigned my position working at Regional Family Medicine. I realized I was unable to keep going again in the direction I was going. If I wanted to avoid an inevitable suicide I had to give up the control I had tried to take back after my return from COPAC over 2 years before. I would not be able to start taking care of me again if I continued trying to practice family medicine. I wasn't even close to being healthy yet!!!!

# CHAPTER TEN

I looked out the window of our plane and saw the refueling trucks driving away. One of the flight attendants announced in German, English, and then in Arabic to fasten our seat belts and make ready for another takeoff. Despite being physically exhausted and not knowing what time of day or night my body clock was set on, I knew that very soon I would "really" be in Africa--Addis Ababa, Ethiopia!!

I had so very many questions. I would soon become the medical director of a medical clinic in a village named Chiri. This village was about 300 miles south and west of the capital, Addis Ababa. I would be working with 2 other Americans there, administrative people, also involved with a mission group named Lalmba. I would be the only American physician working with and helping several Ethiopian nurses. How long will we stay in Addis Ababa before leaving for Chiri? Will the other two Americans living and working at the Chiri Health Center like me? Where is Chiri really?? Am I now healthy enough to do all this? My Lord, I finally gave up all my control to you...please take care of me now, OK?? This would be so very different from anything I had ever done long-term before.

The year 1999 was not that very long ago. The events of that wonderful year happened in those "first days of the rest of your life." Only when looking back can I see how often God blessed me and how well He took care of me that year! Soon after resigning from Regional Hospital and going home from the hospital I decided I really did need to move far away from Terre Haute and Brazil. I really don't remember who put the idea into my head to look into becoming a physician on a cruise ship, but I decided to do an internet search. I didn't even consider contacting the big and famous cruise lines-- Carnival, Disney, or Norwegian Lines. I saw a web site address for a company based in Port Canaveral, Florida named Premier Cruise Line. Their most famous cruise ship, the Oceanique or "The Big Red Boat", needed a physician to fill in for several months that winter. I decided to apply...they could only say "Yes" or "No." "Yes" was their answer!

Most people think that being ship's physician on a cruise ship would be a glamorous, easy job as the character Dr. Adam Bricker portrayed on the television show, "Love Boat." That character spent his time socializing with the passengers and with Capt. Merrill Stubing, Julie McCoy, the ship's social director, and Gopher Smith, the Chief Purser. I don't remember ever seeing him do any real medical work. That image could not have been much farther from the truth.

The Oceanique was scheduled to do 5-day circuits to the Bahamas, the Virgin Islands, and St. Lucia...then back to Port Canaveral. In the real cruise ship world, most of the the crew members (even the ship's physician!) were given very specific instructions not to interact with the passengers. I would not be eating in the dining room with passengers. All crew were to stay off the passenger decks unless going there on official business. With the money the company was going to pay me, I needed to purchase (rent actually) 3 uniforms. One was a beautiful, very formal uniform. I looked fantastic wearing it! However, I was able to wear it for about 1 hour each 5-day cruise, the night of the formal "captain's dinner." No, I didn't get to have dinner with the captain and passengers in this beautiful uniform. Once during each cruise, all the ship's officers were formally introduced to the passengers in the dining room. Then it was back to the real world of the ship.

I was able to see some of the beautiful places in God's world...but usually from the deck of the ship. A cruise ship usually sails at night from one port to another. During the day, in port, the passengers disembark and enjoy themselves. Those hours in port were my very busiest time in the clinic. On paper my job description said that I would care for the medical needs of the passengers and certify each evening that it was medically safe for the ship to sail from one port for another. However, about 90% of my work time was actually spent caring for the ship's crew. These folks usually signed a 6-month contract and were expected to work 12 hours on and 12 hours off...7 days a week...for those 6 months! A crew member could only be excused from work by a medical problem diagnosed and treated by the ship's physician. So guess who formed long, long lines into my clinic daily while we were in port. I was allowed to leave the ship and see the port and the island, but only if there were no patients to care for in the office. Obviously I did not have very much free time visiting off the ship.

At several times in my life, and in the future, I would realize that the Lord had done something very specifically to affect my life. One of those times was to occur the last week of my time as ship's physician. I had been scheduled to leave the ship and be replaced by another physician as soon as the passengers had disembarked in Port Canaveral and before the next group came on board. I was in "civilian clothes", had bags in hand, and had actually left the ship when another crew member came running up to me. He said that the ship's captain wanted to see as soon as possible!

Well, I put down the bags in a safe spot and went back up the gangway and onto the Oceanique. The Captain met me at the top of the gangway and asked me, "Doc...will you do one more big favor for us? Your replacement did not bring the correct paperwork with him and cannot be certified by the company or allowed to cruise with us. Without a ship's physician, we cannot leave port! Can you do one more cruise with us?" After thinking about it for a minute or two I answered, "Yes, I will. I have nothing else I really need to be doing." He was delighted!

I was about to become very excited also when I saw what would be happening on this next cruise. The entire ship had been chartered during this 5-day cruise by a Christian cruise group named Templeton Cruise Company. I saw and quickly skimmed through one of their brochures. The primary guest speaker for the 5 days was Dr. Charles Stanley! Dr. Stanley, the pastor of a huge Baptist church in Atlanta, Georgia, was one of my favorite Christian authors, a Sunday morning TV preacher, and the leader of a Christian organization named In Touch Ministries. I was almost equally excited seeing that many Southern gospel singers would also be on the ship, including several I loved hearing sing with Bill Gaither.

Dr. Stanley gave one sermon each of the five days. They were all based on concept of wisdom...what it is, how to find it, how to use it. Each of the talks was excellent. One of the things I really appreciated about his books and sermons was the way they were always so well organized and easy to follow. He obviously wrote and spoke very compulsively from an excellent outline.

After one of his discussions, I went to the area where his books, tapes and CDs were being sold. One of the gentlemen working there, a man about my same age, looked at me for a few seconds and then approached me. I was in uniform, so he obviously knew I was part of the crew. He asked me if everything was OK with me that day and in my life. "You look a little down in the dumps." I told him, "No, I am having a lot of problems...I am struggling with some very difficult things right now." I then told him just a small portion of my story...it was very easy talking to him. I felt safe opening up a bit to him about my problems. He turned back to the table for a moment, picked one up of Pastor Stanley's books, and said to me, "Ken, I know that Dr. Stanley would want you to have this book as a gift. Please read it tonight and come back tomorrow. I would like to talk to you some more."

I looked at the book. Its title was The Blessings of Brokenness, and had been written by Dr. Stanley. This book was exactly what I needed to read at that moment. It was life-changing! One of the lines on the first page said, "Broken... blessed. The two words don't seem to go together." Dr. Stanley says that we all know what it means to be broken...to feel like our entire world has fallen apart. "Nothing feels blessed about being broken. But one of the things I have discovered through being broken, however, is that after brokenness we can experience God's greatest blessings. After brokenness our lives can be the most fruitful and have the most purpose. A blessing can come in the wake of being broken."

Sometimes in difficult times we wonder if God knows what we are going through or if He really loves us. But as Dr. Stanley reminds us, "The fact is...God knows. And God loves." He goes on to make some very important points:

  * God wants what's best for us.

  * God always acts out of love.

  * God does not want to break our spirit.

  * God does not delight in causing us pain.

Reprinted by permission. The Reason For My Hope, Dr. Charles Stanley, copyright 1997, Zondervan Publishers, Harper Collins. All rights reserved.

I think each of us would fight against being broken. I certainly had. Only when I look back can I see how important it was that I was completely broken. I fought against it...I wanted to maintain control. But God knew that the only way I could survive, the only way I could avoid suicide was to be broken and then to let Him make me whole. Dr. Stanley describes that, "We must recognize that we have three aspects to our being-- spirit, soul, and body. The body is the way we relate to our environment. We also have a soul--a mind, will, emotions, conscience, and consciousness. We also have a spirit--the inner person that can relate to God." All three aspects must be made whole. With prayer, with the council of friends, with the passage of time, with the help of the Holy Spirit, with help of Bible reading, and, with many other sources of help, I was finally able to become well. Thanks be to my God!!

The next day I did return and talk to the same gentleman. I told him how wonderful a gift that book was. He commented, "When we were talking yesterday, I felt that God was telling me to give you that very book and to be here to talk with you and encourage you." God was at it again!! I asked him if he thought Dr. Stanley would autograph it for me. He said that it would indeed be an honor for Dr. Stanley to do that. He took me by the arm and led me over to an area where Dr. Stanley was sitting. After being introduced, I related just how much I appreciated his writings and his preaching, and what a blessing his book The Blessings of Brokenness was to me. He said, "Do you have a few minutes, Ken? Would you like to share a cup of coffee and talk with me? And please call me Charles!" Wow...I probably would never have had the assertiveness to ask that myself.

What a wonderful discussion we had! I gave him a synopsis of my testimony including the times when I nearly committed suicide. I then told him of my great uncertainty about the future. In line with his discussions with the big group, I told him how much I needed to have the wisdom to know how to make the proper choices. He relayed to me just how much God would help me with each and every decision and every problem in my life and just how much He would love doing it...all I had to do was ask. He also told me of some very personal and serious problems in his own life at that moment in time. Charles summarized some powerful scripture that discussed that God would not remove us from all trials and tribulations...just that He promised to help us every step of the way. With His help, nothing could ever harm us. Nothing could ever stop Him loving us. With His help..."ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE!"

Another of Dr. Stanley's books had been very important to me a few years before. The Source of My Strength, was my first introduction to his writings. I read this book soon after coming home from treatment in Mississippi. The introduction, "Setting Down Our Emotional Baggage", contained some thoughts that were fantastically enlightening and helpful to me. The very first sentence of the introduction says that "One of the most powerful statements that Jesus ever made was that He came 'to seek and to save that which was lost.' "(Luke 19:10) I certainly knew that I was lost and that I had a large amount of baggage that I just couldn't carry by myself. That book explained that I must get rid of baggage...these emotional burdens. Dr. Stanley made it so simple. "True freedom and release are possible only in Christ Jesus." As John 8:36 says, "If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed."

We ended our conversation with Charles praying for me and asking God to be with me every step throughout my life. When I was leaving I felt like I was walking on air instead of the floor...and I felt that God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit had been there with us and in me during the entire time I had spent with Charles. What a wonderful feeling!!! At that specific moment, I made the commitment to somehow, somewhere, in some way put my life in God's hands totally, to seek out His will for me, to obtain the strength I needed in the future to do His will. I remembered a saying from the 12 Step meetings that said, "Let go...and let God!" In other words, let God take care of us and solve our problems for us.

Something else truly wonderful happened during early 1999. One morning my daughter, Laura, called me and asked if she could have lunch with me. I was pleasantly surprised! That had never happened before. A senior in high school wouldn't do that...would she? We had a delightful lunch at a nearby restaurant. After driving back to my office, she got in her car and drove away. Then I found a card that she had left on the seat in my car. "Dad," it said, "I couldn't tell you this in person, but I want you to know how very much I love you. I also want to tell you that I am pregnant. I don't know what happened...I must have messed up taking my birth control shot. I want to keep the baby and we can all work together to care for her or him. OK? All my love, Laura Sue."

I certainly was not happy with the timing of this, but we would all do this together just like she asked. She, at first, wanted me to deliver the baby, but I decided I would rather just be a grandpa. We chose Dr. Everett Conrad, a good friend of mine in Brazil, to be the obstetrician. Bobbie and I traded off accompanying Laura to her prenatal office visits. It turned out to be a really happy time for all of us. Laura, with Dr. Conrad's help, delivered Brodee Kenneth in late July 1999. Bobbie and I, along with both our sons, were there in the birthing room the entire time. Bobbie "worked" as the circulating nurse...I "worked" as the pediatrician for Brodee after he was born. Michael and Matthew just acted like silly uncles!

God was, once again, blessing each and every one of us by giving us this wonderful person to love. Ever since he was born, Brodee has had numerous family members to love him, for him to love, to help care for him, to play with him, to read him stories at bedtime, to change dirty diapers, to feed him formula and then chocolate milk, to take walks with him, to show him the "moon sky" and "star sky", to take him to T-ball or soccer practice or basketball games, to try to "coach" him when he decided it wasn't really important whether he dribble the basketball or kick the soccer ball towards the other team's goal, to play "adding" games with, to listen to his silly knock-knock jokes (the ones he makes up), to give him bathes or take bathes with him, to work on the computer with him, to read "I Spy" books with him. Thank you, my dear Lord!!!

Well, back to 1999...soon after returning home, I asked both my sons to fly to Myrtle Beach and play golf with me during their spring break from college. How delightfully pleased and surprised I was when they each agreed to go. We had never done "a guys" thing like that before. I did some trading with some of the other condo owners so I could use that specific last week of March. We flew down to Myrtle Beach from Indianapolis on Saturday morning, rented a car, and made it to the condo by about noon.

There was a quite new and very beautiful Presbyterian Church about a block or so up from the ocean near our condo complex in North Myrtle Beach. I saw on the sign in front that they had church services on Saturday evenings. I really wanted to go! Again, little did I realize that God was going to do an early April Fool's Day surprise. The sign said that the service started at 7pm. I walked up to the church about 15 minutes early and was surprised that there were no cars there. I knew that the permanent North Myrtle Beach residents would not all walk there. However, I was disappointed to also find the front door closed and locked.

There was a small garden just to the side of the church. I sat down on a cement bench near the fountain and just let my mind wander. There were beautiful flowers and shrubs as well as a small fountain there. I remembered the happier times when Bobbie and I had come down to the beach with all three children. I also remembered when Robin and I had come down for a medical meeting...and went back home married! I thought how nice it would have been to have been able to have a healthy relationship with Karen and to have her there with me. I quickly realized again how many unhealthy relationships I had been in. Then, very pessimistically, I thought that I would very unlikely have another opportunity to have a healthy relationship. Those thoughts made me very sad and I began to cry.

About that time I noticed a few cars driving up to an older building attached to the rear of the new church. I was curious, but didn't really care too very much what the people were doing there. I decided to walk back to the condo to see what the boys were up to. To get to the sidewalk I needed to walk by a few of the other cars. I did ask one gentleman just getting out of his car about the Saturday night church service. He said, "That only happens in the summer when there are so many people here at the beach visiting." He then told me that a regular group of church friends met here every Saturday evening for a prayer service and that I would be very welcome to come with him. I thanked him but said that I would go on back to the condo. He quickly introduced me to another man nearby. They really wanted me to be a part of their group that evening. Was this about to be another God thing??

After a cup of coffee and a discussion among the regular members of the group about some church issues, the prayer service started. There were about 15 men and women in the prayer circle. Each of us around the circle voiced our major problem or prayer request at that moment. Mine involved my loneliness and worries about the future. Then the group leader asked that each of us, aloud, offer a prayer for the person to our right in the circle. The man on my right had discussed that his daughter was having a very serious relationship with a man who was using drugs and was in and out of jail. He didn't know what to do. I could certainly relate to that. My daughter, Laura, was already starting to struggle with drug use. I was not accustomed to praying at all, least of all out loud. But when my turn came, I just let my heart guide me in conversation with the Lord and I did rather well. But, then the man on my left starting praying for me and I started crying. His prayer was so wonderful and so very touching. I could not control my emotions or my tears. Soon the entire group had gathered around to touch me and to pray for me. Then, suddenly, this wonderful, warm feeling came over me...a sense of peace overwhelmed me. Just as Moses had a "burning bush" experience somewhere in Egypt, this was my "burning bush" time. I knew that Christ was there in that group touching me also!!!

The remainder of the week together was wonderful for me. No matter how well or poorly I played golf, I was there with my two sons. Each of them still remembers that time together. I think of it as the time when I really and truly was born again!!

Soon after going back to Indiana, I was hired by a locum tenens company based in Atlanta. They were looking for board- certified family practice doctors to go to South Dakota and work on various Sioux Indian reservations. This was to very soon be my first long-term experience working with a group of people who had been beaten down by others, who were struggling in various ways, who were poor and hungry, who had little hope for the future. I spent the next 10 months or so working on the Rosebud Lakota Sioux Reservation in southern South Dakota. I loved being able to work with and to become friends with many Sioux Native Americans. Although alcoholism, diabetes, and depression all occurred in epidemic proportion, the people themselves were warm, loving, kind, and family oriented. I was welcomed into their homes. I also was welcomed to observe and participate in several of their most sacred traditions--the powwow, the sweats, and the sun dance ceremony. After those 10 months, however, I felt it advisable to move on to something else. I prayed I could return to visit sometime in the future, but I could not live and work there indefinitely. I didn't feel healthy enough yet. I wanted to get back to my family, my church and my friends.

As I was leaving the Rosebud Reservation, I drove south just across the state line into Nebraska to a small town named Cody, population 100. I remembered visiting my father's cousin, Doyle Fullerton, and his family near there many years before. I still remember helping Doyle brand calves that summer we visited. My job, as I recall, was to catch the calf in the corral, throw him (or her) on his side, and stretch him out so another cowboy could put the branding iron, red-hot from the wood fire, onto the calf's flank. Then, and only then, could I let go of this screaming calf!

Doyle and his family still lived there on a 10,000 acre ranch which actually has a common border with the Rosebud Reservation. They still raised cattle and horses. He took me out in a truck to a grassy area near a very old windmill and a rather nice-looking pond. He walked around a few minutes and then motioned me over to a spot by the windmill. "Kennard," he said, "this is the exact spot where your Grandpa and Grandma Sproul built their sod house when they started homesteading here back about nearly a hundred years ago. My parents and two other uncles and aunts also had property right here." My father's mother and father had homesteaded there starting in the early 1900s. My grandfather had attempted to farm their 160 acres by planting corn and beans just like back in Illinois. But this failed...the "sand hills" as they are called will not let corn grow properly. The soil there just wouldn't hold the roots of the corn plants and let them grow to maturity. There also was never enough rain. Water was later found to be readily available below ground and is accessible now for use with elaborate irrigation networks. But that technology was not available in 1910! Doyle pointed to another nearby spot and said, "Kennard, this is exactly where I was born! My mother and father had a very small house just about here...I was born at home." Later, he showed me that same house. He had moved it intact about a mile back to near his own house so it could be preserved. It felt very special to share in this part of my own family history!!

God was soon to nudge me in a direction in which He wanted me to go. Very soon after I arrived back to Indiana I received a phone call from my good friend, Jim Evans, welcoming me home and asking for my help. "Ken, do you remember meeting Beth and Willem Charles and their two sons when they were staying at my home last summer? Willem started the mission group named Mountaintop Ministries just a few miles outside of Port au Prince, Haiti. I am now on their board of directors. Keith Taylor, the pastor of the Terre Haute First Assembly of God Church, and I are taking a medical and work team down for a week in January to help Willem up on the mountain at their school. Dr. Marcia Favali is going and will do clinics, but I would love it if you could go with us. That will effectively double the number of patients we can see." Of course I went! I could never say "No" to Jim when he asked me for something.

I had an absolutely wonderful week - meeting and working with Beth and Willem, working with Keith and his folks from his church, and, most of all, working with and helping the Haitian people up there on the mountain. After working with the native Sioux Americans in South Dakota and then with the Haitians there near Port au Prince, I knew absolutely now what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing. I didn't know how I was going to do it yet. But, with God's blessings and strength, I was going to use my medical skills and knowledge helping people in the rest of the world.

# CHAPTER ELEVEN

The captain's announcement woke me again out of another daydream. "Sorry about the air turbulence we just started flying into. Please take your seats and fasten your seatbelts again. The good news is that we should be landing at the airport in Addis Ababa in less than 1 hour, about 30 minutes before our scheduled arrival time!" I did a 1-week trip to the mountains of Haiti a year or so before... but now I was just about to land in Addis Ababa to start a 2-year mission as medical director of a medical clinic in the highlands of southwestern Ethiopia. How did this happen? When I returned to the U.S. after the week in Haiti, I remember thinking of somehow finding a way to return to Haiti for a longer time period. Mountaintop Ministries hoped to build a clinic with living quarters attached sometime in the future. But, at that moment, it was not possible to work long-term with Willem and Beth.

Beth suggested I try to find information about a mission group named Lumiere Medical Missions. She had heard that they had a hospital or clinic in southern Haiti. A web search enabled me to find their web site. LMM was based in North Carolina and had 2 separate medical facilities in Haiti. A clinic staffed mostly with Haitian physicians was located in the city of Les Cayes, on the southern coast of southwestern Haiti. The clinic had an American physician working as director, but most of the health care was given by Haitian physicians and nurses. Lumiere also had a hospital in the mountains near a town named Bonfin, about 40 km north of Les Cayes. One American internist worked there with at least 3 or 4 Haitian surgeons and other physicians. The hospital averaged 40 or more inpatients at any one time and was very busy.

The folks at LMM were delighted by my call asking for more information. I completed a basic application form and sent that to North Carolina along with my CV. Very soon afterwards I received a return phone call asking if I wanted to fly to Haiti to work for several months at the hospital and several months also in the clinic in Les Cayes. "You can get to know us and we can get to better know all about you. Before you would ever want to permanently join us, we want you to be absolutely certain that it is the best thing for you."

In the spring of 2001 I flew to the airport in Port au Prince for a second time and was met by a driver from the hospital at Bon Fin. We arrived at the hospital about 6 hours later...after a drive through the unbelievably dreadful slums (or "shantytown") of Port au Prince, through some truly beautiful mountain and valley countryside, along the Caribbean coast of the southern peninsula of Haiti, and then over 40km of the most absolutely rough and rocky road imaginable! I was given a room to live in with my own bathroom there on the hospital compound. I would share 3 meals a day with the Haitian physicians living there in the same building.

With the aid of a full-time interpreter I was able to start seeing patients in the out-patient clinic. All the physicians and administration staff were at least tri-lingual...English, French, and Haitian Creole. I love the sound of Haitians speaking Creole...a dialect which is a combination of French and West African. Nearly 95% of the people of Haiti are direct descendents of West African slaves brought to Haiti by the French in the 1600's and 1700's. If I decided to stay and work long-term, I wanted to learn to speak Creole. I also eventually started taking regular hospital and emergency call as well. This was much more stressful than out-patient clinic, but I did my best.

After about a month at the hospital, I decided to move down to the Southern coast and work in the clinic at Les Cayes. Dr. Steve Anderson welcomed me with open arms. He had already decided that he would be able to convince me to join him full-time. He and his family had been there for several years. Steve was very tired of being the only non-Haitian on the clinic staff. The clinic had an old, but functional, X-ray machine, a very good ultrasound machine, a reasonable good laboratory, and a very well-stocked pharmacy. They also had an in- patient facility capable of doing obstetrics and of keeping 6 or 8 patients overnight or for several days. Once again, with the help of an interpreter I started seeing patients rather soon after arriving.

I always knew I was best suited for doing out-patient work so I liked working there in Les Cayes. Steve estimated that there were over 250,000 people living within a 10 km radius of the clinic. There was a government-owned hospital in Les Cayes. There were also several private physicians in the city. However, these quarter million people needed more than all of them together could provide. Steve showed me some plans he was developing to expand the clinic so that Lumiere could better serve these people. I was given a small house to live in and provided with food and a lady to come clean the house, do my laundry, and cook 2 meals a day for me. Something I didn't understand until much later was that I needed to pay LMM $30 per day in order to be a "volunteer" working with them. That amounted to over $5000 for six months. I certainly didn't expect to get paid to be a "medical missionary" but I didn't quite understand why I had to pay $5000 to be a volunteer!

The plans and dreams that Steve had for the clinic were inspired and I wanted to be of some help. I contacted Lumiere Medical Missions by email to tell them of my interest in working in Haiti with them on a full-time basis. There was another, much more involved, application to complete this time. Fortunately I could do that on the internet. I had shared my testimony and medical history with Steve. He talked at length with several of the members of the board of directors in the U.S. I then accomplished a 30-minute interview on the telephone with 3 of the board members.

After a very few days, I received an email telling me that LMM would be delighted to have me working with them there in Haiti full-time. Then this $30 per day fee came up again in my mind. I knew very well that, almost certainly, no mission or clinic in the world was or could be self-sustaining financially. I had no idea, nor was I interested in knowing, what the annual budget was for LMM. I had researched only what my living expenses would be if I lived in Les Cayes. My estimation including rent in a small house, utilities, food, transportation, and pay for a cook/house-cleaner/clothes-washer, was about $500 a month. Even without use of a calculator I knew that I had just paid nearly $1000 a month for several months.

Now, I was very surprised to discover that Lumiere wanted me to be able to provide support money in the amount of approximately $2000 monthly!! Steve explained to me that this was a very similar method used by nearly all mission groups supporting long-term volunteers. It was planned that each volunteer, if not able to pay the $2000, would need to find family, friends, and churches to pledge the remainder. I was unhappy and very discouraged hearing this...I didn't think, even with the Lord's help, that I could find that amount of financial support. I had absolutely no money of my own.

Many months previously I had made reservations to attend a two-week medical missionary conference in London, England. I also already had plane reservations. This conference was given by the Christian Medical Fellowship of Great Britain. I flew back to Indiana from Haiti after telling LMM that I would need time to determine if I could find financial support. After two weeks in Indiana and a good visit with my children and grandson, I flew to London for the conference. I was the only "representative" from the Western Hemisphere! All the other attendees were from Europe, Africa, India, Sri Lanka, or Japan.

The conference was wonderful - extremely informative about medical skills and information needed "out in the world", about the types of work and projects many of the attendees were doing, about the countries in which the attendees were working now or in the past-- Nepal, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Kenya, Uganda, Chad, Nigeria, and a few others. I was able to hear dozens of stories about experiences of being a full-time medical missionary.

I discussed my financial dilemma with several of the people there. Many of them were very surprised that this amount of money was demanded of me as a volunteer. The situation in their countries was totally different. I told them how very discouraged I was. Several told me of various websites to look at to find out very specific information regarding other medical mission groups. I still remember sitting down at the computer to do this project. I had some optimism again, at last.

After getting online there in the college at which the conference was being held, I typed a suggested address: www.medicalmissions.com. A very, very long list of organization names was presented. A short paragraph or two explanation of the organization was given. One group wanted dentists only for a 2-week trip to Guatemala. Another was looking for an optometrist to go to Argentina in the summer. Many wanted general practice physicians, but only for one or two week trips. Several were hoping to find female OB physicians to work in Nepal. Some of them then gave their own website address.

One listing caught my eye..."We have an urgent need for two experienced general practice physicians to serve as medical directors of our primary care clinics in Africa." The name of the organization was Lalmba. I clicked on the website link and was immediately "hooked." Another part of the information stated, "We provide room and board as well as airline transportation to and from Africa if you agree to stay at least 1 year." I wanted to find out more about Lalmba. I sent an email stating, "I am a 55+ year old retired family physician with emergency room and obstetric experience. I have some experience working in Haiti, Madagascar, and Dominica. I am at a conference in London now, but if you are interested in talking to an old fellow like me, please email me."

By the end of that very same day I received a return email from Hugh Downey in Denver saying, "Are you kidding, Ken? I am over 60 and I am not an 'old fellow.' Of course we are interested in talking to you! As soon as you arrive back home give us a call!!" This was the kind of friendly, personal contact I liked. Ten days or so later I arrived back in the U.S. The next day I called Denver and talked for 30 minutes to Hugh Downey and his wife, Marty.

They related their testimony to me...how Hugh, while on active duty with the U.S. Army in the early 1960's, had fallen in love with the people in the African country now called Eritrea. When he returned home he continued to dream of returning to Africa and somehow being able to devote his life to helping the people there. Shortly after that, he met and soon afterwards fell in love with a nurse named Marty. She had also had dreams of working in Africa. This, indeed, turned out to be "a marriage made in heaven."

They described their organization Lalmba as being a "Mom and Pop type organization." They had a presence in three different countries: (1) A clinic in western Kenya, on the shore of Lake Victoria; (2) A clinic in southwestern Ethiopia..."at the end of a long and dreadful gravel and mud road." (3) An orphanage in Eritrea. "Ken, we want you to go to Ethiopia and work with us. But first, make airline reservations to come to Denver and spend a few days with us."

Within a few weeks I flew to Denver and spent three wonderful days with the Downey's as well as visiting several of my Air Force Academy squadron mates who now live in and near Denver. Just above the Downey's front door is a sign, "Through this door pass the most wonderful volunteers in the world!" I went through that door and within less than a day indeed became an official volunteer with Lalmba. I asked them very pointedly about finances, because I really had very little money of my own. "Well, Ken, we can't pay you anything. But we will provide you with a very nice room to live in, including your own bathroom and electricity. We also will provide all your food and laundry needs. And, of course, we will pay your airline transportation to Ethiopia and back home after a year." God was indeed doing some really good stuff for me again. This was precisely the opportunity I had been praying for.

It took several months to acquire a work visa from the Ethiopian embassy in Washington, D.C. and for permission from the Ministry of Health to practice medicine in Ethiopia. In the meantime, I had been in email contact with the other Lalmba volunteers in Chiri in order to find out more specifics. Then I made out a packing list, found some suitcases, and waited for my visa and permit to practice medicine. When all the necessary paperwork was completed and my passport, with the necessary visa, was back in my hand, Marty and Hugh made airline reservations for me. In late 2003, I would be leaving for a 1-year stay in Ethiopia...the biggest adventure of my life...and one of the most wonderful blessings God had given me so far!!!

# CHAPTER TWELVE

My life thus far has consisted of a meaningful pattern of events. It has certainly been unique. My story was not any more unique than anyone else's story...just different. Accomplished writers have offered many different reasons for writing one's memoirs. I have chosen four:

1. I want to make an honest and complete confession.

2. I want to make good use of my past life as I prepare for whatever might be in my future life.

3. As the end of my life approached, I want a better understanding of what really happened to me...and to share with others what my life has meant.

4. I sincerely pray that my experiences might help relieve the loneliness, fear, or desolation of others who might find themselves in a similar situation to the one I have been through.

I pray that my children and grandchildren will read this. By doing that they will then know and understand me better. If others wish to read it, that's wonderful. My life is God's doing and I pray He is now proud of His work.

In the beginning I thought that my "accomplishments" were the primary reasons for my actions. The happier I would be, the more successful I would be, the more I would be loved or liked or appreciated if I had more and more accomplishments. I know now just how wrong that is. I do, however, have many things to be proud of...many good things that I did in my life.

I am very proud of being a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy. I am proud that I was able to serve my country however I could. I am proud to be a part of the "Seagram's Seven '67 Brotherhood." One of the 25 glasses in the Class of 1967 7th Squadron Memorial has my name on it. Five of these twenty-five wonderful Academy classmates and friends are gone now. Several were killed in Viet Nam. My friend, Kent O'Brien, was killed in Florida in an auto accident very soon after coming home from flying F-4s in Thailand. Someday, hopefully many years from now, the last two of my mates still alive will open the bottle and use their glasses to toast the others gone before. I am blessed to be a part of such a wonderful group of lifelong friends. I love each and every one!

I feel that I really was a good instructor at the Air Force Academy. I tried to make learning fun for the cadets in my classes. I hope that some of my students went on to study more engineering and become fine young Air Force officers. Later I tried my best to teach mathematics and science in a public high school in Arizona.

Despite the fact that I didn't learn until almost too late the things that are truly important, and despite the fact that I didn't take good care of myself, I became a very good family practice physician. I enjoyed caring for people; I used my very best judgment and did the best I could do most of the time; many patients liked, respected, appreciated, or even loved having me be their family doctor.

Bobbie and I have three wonderful children that we love dearly and unconditionally. We are extremely proud of each and every one of them. God and Laura Sue blessed us with one of the most loving, fun, happy, beautiful grandsons imaginable. Brodee was, and continues to be, a blessing given to us by our wonderful Lord to be with and love and care for and get chocolate milk for! I tried to provide for my family as well as I could despite my problems...even though I was estranged from them for so very long. I wish I could go back and be a much better father and grandfather. But God has blessed me by giving me back the friendship and love of Bobbie, of Michael Monson, of Matthew Kenneth, and of Laura Sue.

Despite it being a terribly difficult struggle, I have been able finally to control my addictions. I will always consider myself an addict...but I truly am "in recovery." Being forced to go to Mississippi for six months during the hot, humid summer was probably one of the absolute best things that happened to me. What I did there, the things I learned there, the friends I had there, the caring and love between friends I made there have helped make me who I am now. Having an addiction is a disease...not a character flaw! An addiction must be treated as you would treat diabetes or hypertension.

I can truly believe the statement that it is never too late to learn something new or for something wonderful to happen. My absolute most important accomplishment is that I am a man who God loves and blesses every minute and every day. It was Charles Stanley's book, The Blessings of Brokenness, that finally made me give up all my control of my life and turn it over to God.

I was completely broken and at the point of suicide several times in my life, but God had other plans for me. He has other people for me to love; he has other people who He wants me to help; He has other people who want to learn from me; He wants to have me loving Him. I praise Him and thank Him for who He is and for what He has done to me and for me.

I certainly have many regrets and many "What if...'s" as well as "If only...'s". But they don't control my thinking as they once did. I have faced them and learned from them and have been forgiven for them. I regret that I lived so many years of my life without the peace, joy, and contentment offered by Christ. "If only" I had turned to Him earlier. I regret the pain and suffering caused by my addictions...to others and to me. "If only" I had recognized and admitted my problems earlier in my life, and had let someone else help me. I regret how unhealthy I was when I had the love of others and consequently how unhealthy those relationships were. "If only" I had been open and sharing and more loving with others. "If only" Bobbie and I, or Robin and I, or Karen and I had really worked as hard as we could to make our relationship healthy. I do regret that now I do not have a companion to share of my life with. I am alone, but not lonely. I have the Holy Spirit in me!

The apostle Paul was one of my favorite people and probably my favorite writer in New Testament times. He made it all so very simple! He told the Philippians that "I can do everything through Him who gives me strength." My favorite verses in the entire Bible are Galations 5:22 and 23 which list the qualities that God makes available to me to help me to be "more like Jesus." The verse says, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." The editor of my Bible calls these "The by-products of living for God!"

I finally accepted the fact that I needed to "Let go, and let God!" When I was at the bottom, I asked Him for His help. I imagine that He said, "Well, Ken, now that you finally asked, I would be delighted to help you." The third part of the trinity, the Holy Spirit, came to me and is now the very center of my life. He filled the big hole that existed there for so many years.

God has blessed me by letting me now be available to go out into the world and use my medical talents to help others. I have tried to help Him in South Dakota, Madagascar, Dominica, Haiti, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Ecuador and Swaziland. What will I be doing next? Where will I be living next? I don't know and I don't worry about it! With the strength and fruit He has given me, I don't have a single worry in the world. I am very curious however....

Even though I was not one of "the ninety and nine" that were safe in the shelter and under the care of the shepherd, God never once gave up on me. Those 99 were not enough for Him. He found me out there alone and lonely in the desert. He found me "sick and helpless and ready to die." I really did want to die, but He had plans for me. And I know that He cried, "Rejoice I have found my sheep!" The angels in heaven are still rejoicing that "The Lord brings back His own!"

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### About the author:

Kennard B. Sproul, M.D.

Dr. Kennard Sproul is now in his "fourth career." He served in the United States Air Force and the Indiana Air National Guard for 25 years. He was a family physician and emergency room physician in central Indiana for nearly 20 years. He then served in 5 different countries overseas as a long-term (6 months to 1 year) volunteer/missionary physician. Now he is "back home again" in Indiana teaching Human Anatomy and Physiology for an online university, home schooling his oldest grandson, tutoring other children, and helping whoever he can whenever he can. His second book, which describes many experiences he had working in Africa, Haiti, Central America and South America. If you go to Facebook and search for "Ken Sproul", you can see many, many photos of his military life and of his year spent in Ethiopia. He is writing his third book now and hopes that he is able to complete it before the Lord calls him home.....

Please note that the cover photo was taken in at the Chiri Health Center, Chiri, Ethiopia looking west towards Sudan. This was a spectacular view at sunset nearly every evening...from Dr. Sproul's porch outside his small, 1-room, cement block home.
