A FULL THURSDAY MORNING OF GOOD NEWS AND NOT SO GOOD NEWS...........

I just finished my two therapy sessions for today, in O.T., further practicing my using the board to transfer to and from the wheelchair to the shower bench; at which I am improving each time - and in P.T., in addition to my daily exercises on the new stationary machine cycling with my hands; I also used the parallel bars with the help of my therapist and stood on my left foot and leg for as long as 2 minutes and 45 seconds. The not so good news is, as of 10 a.m. this morning Mercy General Rehabilitation Center has turned down my request for a lateral transfer to their facility, due to my Insurance refusing to pay for it, there; although I would be receiving the same level of intermediate therapy and skilled nursing that I do here, only at a higher standard of facility, and quality of care, over this outdated, behind the times, facility. My diocesan priestly colleagues, Reverend Father Brendan McKeefry, Pastor of Our Lady of Assumption Parish, Carmichael; and Reverend Father Patrick Lee, retired and Pastor Emeritus of St. John the Evangelist Parish, Carmichael and formerly Chaplain at the U.C. Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, made individual visits to me back to back, just after lunch, with the past ninety minutes. Like Msgr. Ed Kavanagh, who visited me here last night, these fraternal and interpersonal visits; upwards of thirty priests and Bishop Soto have come to see me over the past six weeks; make me feel a further sense of continuing connectedness with my priestly vocation as a diocesan priest, even while temporarily in rehabilitation after my amputation. I am hoping and praying that Mercy General Rehab, will find a way to allow me to transfer in the next few days, as the twenty four days remaining before my schedule Discharge back to the OLOL parish rectory, on March 19, is 5 days longer than the entire time I was in the acute rehabilitation at Sutter Roseville. I believe that setting is the best place for me, not only in regards to my personal and social well being, but my spiritual, psychological, and physical progress, healing, care, and comfort, during this intense, post amputation, pre prostheses, period of rehabilitation therapy...........Please God, It Will Happen As Our Lord Jesus Christ Desires For Me And The Priestly Ministry To And With The People Of God I Am Blessed To Share, Fr. Troy