A fantastic and funny story!!!

[Kevin H]

I know this may be a bit long to read but it is so uplifting and so funny that read it in sections if you need to but read it but also please keep the young man in your prayers. He is a Christian but not an Adventist.

As most of you know I'm a psychiatric nurse with the Air Force Reserves aeromedical evacuation system. Recently we had special guest with an amazing story, a young man named Kenny Lyons and his mother Gigi Windsor. Kenny was a Marine and in 2006, at age 20 he was attacked in Afghanistan loosing his left leg and has multi scars from his wounds. While still getting surgeries and treatment Kenny and his mom are very upbeat and starting to be motivational speakers and they are so funny!!!

His mom tells how as children Kenny and his sister refused to eat vegetables except for zucchini, which they both loved. Well his mom started telling them things like when serving mushrooms that “This is French prepared zucchini” or green peppers “This is German prepared zucchini” and they believed her and would thus eat other vegetables. She also told them that there was a law that they had to pick up their room at night before they go to bed because if there was a fire and the firemen had to go in the room to rescue them and there was toys or other stuff on the floor that it posed a risk to the firemen and that they would have to go to jail for breaking that law. Well when the daughter was 16 she joined the fire department and came home one night and informed her mom that there was no such law. The mom said “Oh, I knew that, but I never had to yell at you to clean your room like other parents do, and I only told it to you once when you were real small and it was you and your brother who continued to believe that there was that law.” Or when she and her husband would have lobster or other expensive sea food she would tell them “You and your sister don’t like seafood, so I only got this for daddy and me and I got you and your sister hotdogs and macaroni and cheese because you like them but don’t like seafood.” Then said “Today they still don’t eat seafood saying that they don’t like it, but they have never tried seafood.”

She told how the kids were calling her at work about every little argument they were having and finally she told them that they could only interrupt her at work if the coroner or a lifeline helicopter was on the way. Well, one day she got a phone call from Kenny and she wondered what the emergency was. He said “You know that commercial about the dishwasher where you can bake a cake and put the pan with the entire cake into the dishwasher and it will still get that pan clean, well that commercial is so true!!! [the family had just bought that dishwasher] today I baked a chocolate cake and put it in and sure enough it cleaned it!” The mom was still upset about her job being interrupted much less what they were doing with her new dishwasher, and reminded them of the phone rules. Well a few days later she was interrupted with a phone call from her out of state mother. The grandmother said “Gigi, first you need to ease up with the kids about calling you at work second you have to call home. The toilet is overflowing and flooding the house, they were afraid to call you so they not knowing what to do called me.” She then called home and they told her the same story and Kenny added “I’m glad to tell you that it was not me who did it so let me hand the phone to sis!”

She also told how she loves to sing but has a horrible singing voice but the kids always had to put up with her singing at home and in the car and hated it. Well, after Kenny’s injury, while in a medically induced coma it was his 21st birthday. She said to him as he was laying there in the coma “Happy Birthday! I’ll sing happy birthday to you” and his face went from relaxed to tense, his eyes opened and he lifted his head to shake it “NO” then relaxed back into the coma. There was a medical staff member in the room and he just started laughing saying “He is so deep in coma that you must be a horrible singer for him to choose to fight it off long enough to tell you not to sing.”

Kenny told how although he’s been starting to go places and tell his story and to motivate others, that the VA thought that he would make a good peer counselor for others with injuries. He said that he soon learned that this does not work because all those they assigned to talk to him only wanted to whine about their disability and he discovered that he does not have sympathy. That when a patient would say to him that he is discouraged because he is just laying around at home all day not feeling like doing anything Kenny’s reply was “So what if you don’t feel like doing anything, I could sit around all day like that to. You need to choose not to let your feelings control you. If you have to go to the gym, get yourself over to the gym, If you need groceries get yourself to the supermarket, whether you feel like it or not just do it!!!” Once he was in an elevator with a boy who was crying and the boy said “I fell down and it hurt” Kenny said to him “Well, I see you have both of your legs so I don’t think your injury is too serious you’ll do just fine.’ With this attitude I don’t think that I make a good counselor, even though the VA keeps inviting me back to talk to these people, but also I know that for myself it’s not healthy for me to just listen to these stories because I want to get well, not sit around feeling sorry for myself.” But he did give an exception to that policy. He says that he loves parking in handicapped parking spots. That sometimes he calls his mom and says “Mom, Guess what I’m doing? I’m pulling into a handicapped parking spot!” Making that phone call never gets old. Although once he was going to dinner with one of his other buddies from the attack, this other buddy was a double amputee. Kenny goes “There I was parked in my handicapped spot and my buddy drives in and parks in a regular parking spot on the far end of the parking lot. After walking across the parking lot Kenny said “dude, why did you park way over there when there was a handicapped spot right here.” And his friend said “I leave those spots for people who are truly handicapped, I’m not going to be one of them.”

For the injured vets who need several surgeries, at certain mile stone numbers they give them some prizes and gifts. When Kenny reached one of these numbers and was offered the prize he turned it down saying “Hey, you can’t bribe me to get more surgeries, what do you think I’m gona do just walk away and you loose my business?”

Now Kenny still does need our prayers. He is still a young man with many challenges and looking for a career. While he is growing a reputation as a public speaker, he is still quite unknown. I talked to him about the fellowship of Christian magicians, and how it is actually a Christian performing arts group with 9 fields, chock art, face-painting, balloon art, juggling, puppetry, ventriloquism, clowning, drama and story telling, and magic. Told him that with his story that he could mix it with one or more of these arts and maybe even build a career with these, so he is interested in possibility attending the conference and learning more about it. I hope you find his story as inspirational as I did and please keep him and other wounded in our prayers.

[Naomi]

Thank you Kevin for sharing this story. Yes, it is both uplifting and funny, Kenny and his mother sound like very special people who are working through their problems in a positive manner. Yes, I will keep Kenny in prayer ... I include all of our military personnel in daily prayer. They give so much .....

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

. I talked to him about the fellowship of Christian magicians, and how it is actually a Christian performing arts group with 9 fields, chock art, face-painting, balloon art, juggling, puppetry, ventriloquism, clowning, drama and story telling, and magic. Told him that with his story that he could mix it with one or more of these arts and maybe even build a career with these,

That's a GREAT idea!!!!

[phkrause]

Kevin that was a fantastic and funny story. Will definitely be praying for them. Thanks for sharing.