Profile in Courage – Richie’s Battle with Illness        

My youngest brother, Richie, is a truly courageous man! There is no other person that I know who has borne more illnesses in his life and still has a positive outlook on life! It has to be his faith that has kept him going. As I always say, with faith, it’s difficult; without faith, it’s impossible! So why does one person suffer so much? Why does anyone suffer at all? We don’t have the answers to those questions, but we just find ourselves walking through this life by faith. Our faith is in God’s plan for us! Our faith means that God will be with us in our pain and suffering. Our faith tells us that suffering has redemptive value when it’s united to the suffering of Jesus on the cross. 

Richie was in relatively good health as a young man. It was at the age of 40 that he started to experience difficulty. Having suffered his first heart attack at the age of 40, he gave us a scare! And to be able to have five more subsequent heart attacks, a triple bypass surgery, two stents inserted, irregular heartbeats, and an ablation procedure would eventually follow! His heart is damaged, but his heart is filled with love for God, his family, his friends, and his wide world of sports! Truly an amazing human being! May God bless him and increase his faith! 

If heart disease were not enough to deal with, the dreaded disease of cancer has been part of his life as well! No one wants to hear the words “you have cancer!” It started in the prostate and spread to the bladder and the hips. Several rounds of radiation have been able to put things under control. We continue to pray that it does not spread any further. Thank God, doctors and good meds have been a large part of this ordeal. 

Three years ago, the Holy Spirit inspired Richie and his wife Carol to move from Orlando to Tampa. The main reason was to be geographically closer to their daughter, son-in-law, and two wonderful grandchildren, Sullivan and Callahan! One of the biggest dilemmas of moving was the realization that he would need a new medical team to aid him with his illness. Through careful research and good recommendations, he has found not only new doctors but also an excellent medical team to treat everything. As you can imagine, he spends a lot of his time at doctors’ appointments. We joke that “if he didn’t have Doctor visits, he wouldn’t have that much to do!” Not really true because he has a full life of family, friends, Facebook, and church activities! With the loving support of his wife, he continues to enjoy life to the fullest in spite of his ailments. 

All of his sicknesses have deepened his faith and strengthened his prayer. He has developed a devotion to Bishop Francis Xavier Ford, a Maryknoll missionary who died in China in 1952. I had given him a prayer card of Bishop Ford, and he has prayed that prayer regularly. Richie attributes a mysterious event in his medical history to the intercession of Bishop Ford! A stent put into his bladder to deal with a tumor was being changed when his doctor told him that the tumor was no longer there! Rarely heard of in the medical field! Bishop Ford’s intercession is our answer! Richie will be forever grateful to him and of course to God for the blessings that have come his way. Richie is using one of the gifts he received at confirmation: COURAGE! We pray that the gift of courage will sustain him.