From: Tom Cook
To: Recipients
Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2008 1:33 PM
Subject: Tom's praise/prayer update - Apr 2008

Dear prayer friends,

I've told you my letters would get shorter. I'm now able to make good on that promise.

Little in the way of major events have happened in the short time since I mailed the "Best of HealthLine" list. Thank you to those of you who replied with encouragements and gratitude. Yes, it was a lot of hard work, but it was (and is) so valuable a resource, that I just had to put it together for you.

I do have major news of some startling developments. Things happened almost by a series of "semi-accidents". This started in January and reached a pinnacle yesterday. But a little background...

December '06 was the time of deep despair and desperation leading to the anguish of suicide planning. Many of my thoughts at that time went back to the days of '91 when a whole bunch of problems collided even way back then to cripple my life. Nothing close to suicide, mind you. I had girl problems, church problems, my father died, and my mental abilities were seemingly breaking down to where I couldn't do computer programming any more. I went into a strange quasi-dormant and seeking mode; I was still doing occasional work for my former employer, but was seeking other endeavors. I discovered and started working on health problems. (Yeast infection was messing w/the brain.) Living in a friend's spare room with most things in storage (kinda like now), I figured I'd be back on my feet in a year or three. While I've been through a LOT of changes in these 17 (!) years, I'm strangely in the same boat. And in Dec. '06, the weight of all the little (and well-intended) decisions that had kept me back all this time, together with the seeming impossibility of resolution and survival, made me (along with the unknown infections) desperately seek that unthinkable escape (suicide).

The most major of the problems underlying everything else has been my obsolescence as a computer programmer. I had always thought, after about '99 or so when I grasped the painful realization that I was obsolete, that I could pick up newer languages on my own after I could get ahead a little to save up for books etc. to study on my own. But one of the realizations gained in this last year is that I really don't have the discipline to retrain myself on my own, as I might have in the 80s. And yet, struggling to stay afloat has been hard enough by itself making saving extra for college expenses impossible. [Another humble realization gained is the scads of time mis-spent on "good" endeavors when I should have been studying textbooks for newer computer languages.]

The strange set of semi-accidents that began in January was my interactions with the Fla. Hospital Hearing Center and then the V.R. (Voc. Rehab. or Vocational Rehabilitation). The short but great news is that V.R. is going to help me in two ways: They will pay for 2 needed hearing aides (which I've always shunned, not thinking I really needed them that badly), and they will pay for expenses to take computer courses to become employable as a programmer once again!! Yesterday I successfully registered at Seminole Community College for 2 programming courses this summer, and will continue on into the fall and spring for a total of 6 modern computer programming courses! (3 languages). Then they will give counselling for helping me get a real job once again!

So this is a very scary time, as I haven't taken a course in 30 years (!), but also very exciting. With God's help, I will do great in those courses, and get my decrepit life out of the pit I've been caught in, and back into the realm of real life again! 15 months ago was a severe wake up call. The severe physical and mental health obstacles which tied into all of it are now behind me to a significant extent, I still have 1 1/2 parttime jobs to keep me afloat, and now I'm going to be very very busy as a college man again! Please praise the Lord with me these amazing things! (I'm almost breaking into tears as I write this.)

One aspect that is scary is that even back when I was a fulltime student (B.S. computer science, UCF), I seldom took more than one computer course at once, as each course is a humongous drain on time/energy. When I ever took two simultaneously, it was really rough. In two weeks, I'll be taking two! One thing that should make it easier is that the courses (at least this summer) will be "distance learning", that is, mostly online.

For those of you knowledgable, I'll be taking 3 languages, each taking 2 courses. This summer I'll do level 1 of C++ and Visual BASIC. In the fall, I'll start C#, and by May '09, I'll have done both levels 1 and 2 of all 3 languages. It is my belief that having these computer languages under my belt will make me employable once again!

I ask you to pray that I will have the strength, discipline, and energy to get through these next 3 months. Also for great wisdom in balancing the various unusual priorities I sense from God in my life.

One of them is that even though I've elected not to pursue the web-programming educational options, I've GOT to get cracking on learning enough on my own (using user software) to building my own website to get my painful but amazing story online so others can discover how to get the "outrageously" great health in which I'm progressing, and that everyone can have.

Once I get the website up, I don't plan on sending any news to you anymore; only a short note with a link to the current news on the website. Even there, the notes should be a lot shorter, as (praise God) so much of my life's healing has been accomplished. Thank you all SO much for your prayers these many troubled months!!! It's now (and has already been) MY privilege to begin praying for many of YOU.

And with that in mind, for those of you who might have been on the edge of deciding to confidently beat your own health problems with a QRA but have been hesitant, Dr. Heise once again is running a generous sale, expiring end of April. Go to the homepage of www.DrHeise.com for details.

Sincerely and gratefully,
Tom Cook
(407) 671-1224
TomCook @ TomsGoodFiles.com