(The core letter covers or reviews events from late May '06 to July '07. I've also left fwding notes here too. Any photos you see were added only after all letters were put on this web site.)
From: Tom Cook
To: Judy Funaro
Sent: Monday, August 27, 2007 11:33 PM
Subject: Fw: Update on my job and health
Judy (& Pete),
Read this after 'Crisis review and update'. I think I told you that Karin read both of these. I'd particularly like to encourage you to eventually click on the link provided to read Dr. Heise's amazing testimony (if you haven't already read the blue version I gave you). His website has other valuable info also.
~TLC
----- Original Message -----
From: T Cook
To: Charlotte Sicurello ; Sue Myers
Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2007 9:00 PM
Subject: Fw: Update on my job and health
Charlotte, Sue,
Here is the 7/14 update. You can see from the header below that you know most of these recipients. Most of these folks (but not all) have received the long Dr. Heise email earlier. In general, I don't mind anyone reading the Heise email, nor this one.
Thanks again to both of you for your prayers. :)
~TLC
----- Original Message -----
From: T Cook
To: Virginia Knowles ; Tom Walter ; Todd Twining ; Tim Smith ; Tim Gray ; T Cook ; Sarah Williamson ; Robin Ceballos ; Rick Cook ; Patsy Luther ; Mike Nash ; Matthew Brice ; Marsha Morgan ; Marjorie Murphy ; Lourdes Muniz ; Liza Brightman ; Lisa Smith ; Larry Purvis ; Larry Cook ; Kyle Luther ; Josh Phillips ; Joseph Watler ; John Hellein ; John C Morgan ; John & Kathy Morgan ; Joey Phillips ; Jesse Phillips ; Jermaine Bryant ; Jeremy Williamson ; Jeff Taulbee ; J J West ; Greg Hickok ; George Ludwig ; George Delaney ; Eric Mendez ; Don & Tammy Lanzi ; Debi Walter ; Dave Jones ; Daniel Howell ; Chris Owen ; Chris McKelvey ; Chris Kniedler ; Chris & Carmen Heath ; Chip Chew ; Carl Finnell ; Beth Harvey ; Alan & Diane Ratcliff ; Ryan Tindale
Sent: Saturday, July 14, 2007 9:51 PM
Subject: Update on my job and health
To my friends who've prayed for me during any part of these last troubled 7 months:
Here's a very short version: Please pray for these urgent needs:
-- a car;
-- a job (and if you know anyone hiring, please forward my resume to them that I'm attaching. It needs to be low stress work, and not too far from where I am-- Maitland/Altamonte/Casselberry);
-- successful health treatments.
If you have time and inclination, read on for more detail as to what's been happening. And if you do, thank you very much for your patience! (As well as your prayers!)
~TLC
Last time I sent out an update (May 23rd), I reported how I had gotten a part-time job out of the blue doing data entry at home for a fellow who handles the business side (billing) for his wife's medical practice and a small group of associated practitioners. The work was very stressful, as well as was coping with his extremely odd and unpredictable behaviors. While things continued to be roller-coaster-like, overall it became less stressful and more predictable; a *little* closer to the way all 'normal' employment arrangements are. It never, though, got above $8/hr, nor 20 hrs/week.
I have been striving to be grateful for this unique job. And I'm learning better how to respond to and cope with his difficult communication manners. I have hoped that the workload would increase. It fluctuates, but has been painfully low the 2nd half of June. (Only 9 hours/wk vs 20.)
Several of you have asked me what happened with Liberty Counsel after they interviewed me. Over time, I concluded they must have hired someone else. I got curious recently, called and asked if they had hired someone. They said that due to a drop in donations, they decided to hold off hiring anyone right now--maybe in the fall they will reconsider the matter. So at least I didn't get rejected as I had thought.
On to the serious health matters...
Some of you have seen a long email containing a letter I wrote to a friend who is my Christian chiropractor whom I've patronized since 1975 when I was 22. I described to him the horrible times I had beginning in December. Those of you who've seen it, know that Dr. Heise was involved in the terrifying incident of me being hauled off to the ER against my wishes (Thurs. Dec. 7). You also know that due to severe financial pressures and an undetermined mood or anxiety disorder that I was ignorantly experiencing, my fear of a horrible death was so great and continuous, that I had, with great anguish, started examining suicide (the following week) as a means of escaping what seemed like a certain and more horrible death. You know that one of our pastors, Mike N., lovingly heard my woeful decades-long story and successfully talked me away from the suicide path. By end of Feb., God mercifully allowed me to get out of the bad home situation and move in with Dave an old Christian buddy.
In the meantime, my herbal consultant has been great. I resumed contact with her in January, not having seen her since the summer. Between her and a new occasional associate who has special test equipment, they were able to identify many of the bad things that were going on inside me, and set me up with the right supplements for what my body needed. One major problem identified is an apparently genetic predisposition to bipolar disorder (or some other psychological disorder of many out there), and I hadn't known that I have been so close to the edge of a collapse like this for a long long time (years).
Circumstances in May prompted me to renew contact with my old friend and chiropractor, Dr. Heise. (He had a "Patient Appreciation Day" - free adjustments to existing patients.) I did see him again, and though subliminally painful for me at first, we did embrace and I almost cried a little. (And his dear wife was there and gave me words of encouragement and compassion.) Here are parts of what he wrote back to me in response to the long email I sent him:
Tom.. Thanks for your comprehensive letter. If you felt better getting it out and expressing it...great!! ... I suspect you have a significant chemical imbalance which has affected the neurotransmitters in the brain, so when under stress, everything gets severe and you lose direction or hope for a solution, creating even more neurologic episodes. Stress can affect each of us in significantly different ways, because we are individuals, biochemically. So, I agree that there is some underlying chemical imbalance.
I would like to offer to test you, using the QRA technology I am trained to use. May find some things that will allow you to cope with daily tasks and increase your concentration and cortical functions. If you would like to consider this, please check with the ladies first. [Referring to my consultant and her associate...TC] Sounds like they are sincerely wanting to help you and this may add some insight. Perhaps they are already up on these issues and therefore can put this off for now. ... I would encourage you to talk with the ladies first.
Thanks Tom. God bless you as you go thru this Job experience. I'll be praying for you. I have placed you on my prayer list. Dr. Heise
Both of the ladies are familiar with Dr. Heise; one of them is currently a patient of his, is extremely familiar with the great work he does in alternative medicine, and can't praise him enough. When I saw the ladies for a checkup and told them of my renewed contact with Dr. Heise and his willingness to minister to me with a charitable exam, they said "Take him up on his offer!"
On May 29th, I did so. The QRA technology he uses is fantastic! (I've studied it a lot since then.) Using QRA, he diagnosed the top 3 problems and the proper priority for treating them.
1. I have a severe infestation of flukes in 4 organs, the liver, gallbladder, spleen, and pancreas. This is a direct cause of the brain's chemical imbalances. (Don't ask me how; biologists and doctors understand all this.) This is the cause behind my severe need for the expensive seratonin booster.
2. Parasites. [The other direct cause.] So severe that while milder infections reside in the colon, these harmful critters have *breached* the colon walls and scattered around my abdominal cavitity. (Please bear with me as I give a little more detail. This is all very important to me getting well.) They have been laying eggs. At the right time in the near future, I have to exert some draconian efforts involving a heating pad and castor oil against the abdomen to force the eggs to hatch and drive them back into the colon where other draconian (and expensive) treatment can kill them.
3. Bacteria.
4. Other items identified but not prioritized yet: Yeast infection (which I've battled for years), kidney stones, gall stones, liver stones, adrenal exhaustion, thyroid imbalance.
I was startled to hear about the flukes. [You may have heard of liver fluke infections.] I knew of the other things already, but I didn't even know what flukes were really, other than some kind of parasite. (They are a catagory of flatworms.) I've done a LOT of research on them since. They have got to be among the most insidious creatures on the earth. They are parasitical, but they are much worse in how they operate and in the greater difficulty in killing them.
But let me step aside... The stresses I was going thru plus the chemical imbalances caused by the flukes were wisely discerned by the ladies. They knew I could handle knowledge of the parasites. I had been studying them in connection with mood disorders. But they knew I was under too much stress to absorb and deal with the knowledge of the flukes. But they later told me they had earlier identified their presence and in the same 4 organs as Dr. Heise!! This was thrilling to me as now two different parties with different methods identified the same problems! Real comforting to my troubled soul! The ladies felt I should stick with a sole expert now, Dr. Heise, as being best equipped to deal with my severe troubles. I am now under a severe (and sorely expensive) treatment program. Dr. Heise has been very generous in discounting me due to my severe financial hardship.
But I have to tell you some things about these flatworms called flukes. In my research, I found this link to a layman's description about the lancet liver fluke. It's pretty short, so please read it if you can. (If the link doesn't work, I've included the text after my closing.)
When I found out the author was a writer and not a medical or health expert, I played the skeptic. I searched the web for more objective and authoritative sources about lancet flukes. My jaw dropped as I found many clinical writings conveying the same things!! The flukes want to get back to a particular host. They can adapt to thrive for great lengths of time in an intermediate host (in larval stage), even years. They seem to have some sort of *scary* collective intelligence allowing them to mess with the brain of their current host to get the host to act in a way that will allow the flukes to migrate to the next level host. This is so even if it causes the death of the intermediate host.
We don't know what varieties of flukes are in me, but Dr. Heise's diagnosis was that they've been in me for DECADES! (Wow!) I've recently found out that many decades-long acquaintences have been surprised that I've stayed alive this long. There's no telling what kind of changes and improvements in my body and mental attitudes might happen! One thing that seems very likely... These parasites and flukes have been absorbing my food for decades, and now maybe for the first time in my 53-year life, I can gain meaningful weight! I haven't been eating just for me; I've been eating for me and thousands of enemy critters (I like nicknaming them "evil alien invaders")!!
Here's another observation I made as I've studied flukes. NONE of the clinical descriptions of fluke behavior or of ways humans get infected have reported what I'm about to tell you. Only those who love God and are open to respect Him for his wisdom in laying down His health laws for us, will appreciate this. Each of the different ways flukes invade humans involves a violation of one of God's health laws!!
This is very stunning to me, but not totally surprising. Some of you know that in the mid 80's, I wondered about and gained a great deal of knowledge and understanding about the wisdom of recognizing that God's health laws in scripture were meant to be practiced always. (I have tapes I can give you.) I gradually embraced a lifestyle of eating the things that God said to eat and abstaining from the things he said would cause severe problems. (And there are a handful of other health areas beyond diet that God tells us to follow.) If these flukes have been there for decades, that very well could *antedate* my journey to embrace God's health laws.
I may not ever find out just what I did (although I have hopes). But I'm praising God that almost by a divine fluke (no pun intended) I re-connected with my old doctor and friend who *happens*, as of the last 2 years, to be the best help in the area that I could get! To read his amazing testimony, including his recent brush with death by cancer, click on this link:
I will try to wrap up this lengthy talk about flukes and parasites shortly, but I must say just a couple more things. Mental disorders are skyrocketing in this country. Practitioners of alternative medicine have been demonstrating more and more that mental conditions and many other ailments that result in hospitalization are directly or indirectly caused by parasites and flukes. I have a friend, an expert in alternative approach to disease. She has a neighbor who's been a nurse in a local hospital for 18 years. This nurse has wondered why the mental patients are supposed to have their meds increased during a full moon. The nurse knows that without increased meds, they tend to go a bit crazier, but never knew why. (A nurse I know in my church confirmed this.) My friend knew why, and shocked this nurse. These mental patients all have parasites interfering with their brain chemistry, and during the full moon, the parasites go into an egglaying FRENZY!
I have a checkup with Dr. Heise this Wednesday, to see if the flukes are gone yet. If you will, pray that God honors my diligence in following the rigid treatment so that the flukes are gone. Especially as there's very disturbing news back on the job front...
I said earlier that my work hours were painfully low, 9 hours/wk instead of 20 for last half of June. I truly expected the work to pick up, and desperately needed it to. I found out Thurs. July 5, that not only is the work not increasing, but he has NO MORE work for me for the time being, so I'm out of work again! :( He's said all along that if I have full or part-time work elsewhere, I can still do occasional work for him. PLEASE pray that God will lead me to the right job. And if you know anyone hiring, please forward my resume to them that I'm attaching. It needs to be low stress work, and not too far from where I am (Maitland/Altamonte/Casselberry).
The car in Dec. '04 after I got it.
Click photo to see all 4 photos
Just this Wed. another crisis happened. My old car ['82 Dodge] blew it's head gasket. Many hundreds to fix it... No money for it. And car's not worth it. But God may be working in this. My boss, who has dealings and connections with the Forest Lake Academy car donation program, MAY be giving me a car better than any I've ever had! (He made the offer the day before my car died.) But the transfer hasn't occurred yet, and has been fraught with painfully stressful communication problems between me and my boss. (Eric and Chip are aware of these and are coaching me.) I'm really hoping that by Monday night, I'll have a 1986 (approximately) Lincoln Mark VII! I've learned this is a very good quality car. But until it really happens, I'm carless.
I need a car, I need a job, I need money to continue my health recovery. Please pray for God to give me and my spiritual leaders wisdom for how to deal with these multi-crises.
And again, thank you (!) for your friendship, and prayer support. Please feel free to forward this to others as you see fit.
Sincerely,
Tom Cook
(407) 671-1224
tcmullet @ cfl.rr.com
[To those reading this on the web, this email address and other's you'll see are usable if you simply remove the spaces. The spaces keep me from getting email spam. If you've read the whole website & have questions, I'll be happy to try to help you, time permitting. TC...9/2008]
Layman description of the life-cycle of the liver fluke:
A Fluke of Nature
Written by Alan Bellows on 22 March 2007
Dicrocoelium dendriticum
As the ingested eggs slide into the snail's belly, the moisture and digestive juices coax the occupants from their shells. Propelled by the minuscule hairs that line the flukes' bodies, the infant parasites grope their way through the darkness to the hapless host's digestive gland. There they establish a makeshift home as they mature into tadpole-like adolescence.
Once they're ready to venture out on their own, the young flukes leave the warm comfort of the snail-gut. They make their way to their host's respiratory chamber, where they gather in groups along the inner wall and wait. Their presence irritates the inner lining of the breathing cavity, which tries to rid itself of the foreign invaders by coating them with a thick mucus. When these slime-pearls reach a sufficient size, the snail coughs them out, ejecting the sticky groups of flukes out into the world. Lying there, sealed in their moist protective cocoon, the young parasites bide their time alongside hundreds of mucus-mates. The snail meanders off on its own, having suffered no harm aside from a particularly phlegmy cough.
The next evening, as the armies of ants file back to their colony after a long day's work in the hot sun, those who partook of the sweet slime uncharacteristically break ranks to wander away in a daze. Acting out the demands of the unwelcome guests lodged in its head, an infected ant penetrates the jungle of foliage and selects a random blade of grass. It clambers up the long, thin leaf and crawls out to the tip, where it obeys a powerful urge to secure itself in position with its clamp-like mandibles.
Each dangling, stupefied ant-zombie remains paralyzed on its perch throughout the night. When the light and warmth of dawn reappear, the compromised insect comes to its senses and climbs back down to return home. During the day it rejoins its working comrades as though nothing happened; but as evening approaches, and temperatures cool, the parasitic flukes will once again urge their host to venture alone into the wilderness. A new blade of grass is selected and scaled, and the ant once again positions itself upon the tip.
Once the fluke warriors have succeeded in entering this, their final quarry, they burst from their trojan ant and use their mighty tails to swim through the maze of organs. Eventually they arrive at the quiet suburbia of cow guts– the bile duct– where the well-traveled adults settle down and abandon their host-hopping ways. The lancet flukes live in quiet parasitic happiness within the wet tubing, and before long the little bundles of joy begin to arrive. The mothers' eggs are released into the bile duct, and they are whisked along through the cow's plumbing. Eventually they are deposited into the intestines, where the eggs hitch a ride out on the slow-moving train of digested grass fibers.
There, as the sun rises over the grassy pasture and the light glints from the countless clinging drops of dew, a single snail resolutely inches toward a mound of steaming nourishment.