About Me

Sola Fide, Sola Scriptura, Solus Christus, Sola Gratia, Soli Deo Gloria

My Experience

My name is Jim Frederick, I live in the NW corner of Montana with my wife of 34 years (Rhonda).We have a beautiful daughter, granddaughter and a grandson. I am originally from Modesto, California where I attended Modesto High School, and Modesto Junior College. I worked for the Stanislaus County Sheriff's office from 1978 until 1983, at which time we moved to Montana. I am 55, and have been disabled since 1995 (THAT story to follow). I spend many, many hours on the computer and have become quite adept at repairing them. I took some online classes to further that goal. My home network currently consists of an Inspiron 546 with dual monitors, a thin client with single monitor (Use these for work), two laptops....also have a Inspiron Duo Tablet and a spare laptop for company !! I currently work as a DSL technician for a [http://www.windstream.net] Florida company. I get to work from home !!
I am a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ who came to earth as a man, lived and died for all of our sins, and was resurrected on the third day. And upon repentence, ANYONE who may, can ask Him into their lives. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me on Yahoo Messenger. My username is nightstkslaptop@yahoo.com.

The Story of How I Became Disabled

Opening day of hunting season, 1995 a friend and I decided to go hunting in the Stryker area, about 60 miles away from home. The Stryker mountains are up in the boonies, and the last house we had passed was about a mile down the road. It was a remote area, but fantastic for hunting deer and elk. We parked the truck, got out locked and loaded, and started the hunt! We were about 1 mile away from the truck when we saw a couple does jump up in front of us. They were about 75 yards away. I quickly raised my rifle (7mm Magnum) , released the safety, and took bead on a nice fat doe running away from us. I fired and the doe went down. My friends (Noah McConnell) also raised his rifle, it jammed on him so I slammed another round in my Ruger, handed it to him and he shot his also, his mark was also dead on. So we started up the hill to claim our kill, and dress them. Noahs deer had run off (after I shot mine) in a different direction than mine was lying so he headed up the ravine in a different route. About 10 minutes into my trek up the incline, my legs began feeling very heavy and I became winded. So I sat my rifle down, sat down and that's all I really remember until 4-5 days later.
Noah eventually found me about 45 minutes later. I was laying on the ground and pretty much unconscious. Noah kept asking me "whats wrong, whats wrong Jim". I could not answer him, I just mumbled gibberish. Noah, of course was kind of freaked out about this turn of events but he knew I had a radio phone in the truck (remember this was the 90s cell phones in Montana were pretty much new fangled things!) Since I weighed about 280 at the time, Noah quickly decided that getting me back to the truck was not gonna happen without a front loader !! So, he gathered up his rifle and mine and ran the mile and a half back to the truck..left the rifles, grabbed my radio phone and headed back up the mountain to where I was laying. The terrain,( while not very wooded) was very rocky, making it hard to walk on let alone run on.uphill no less! When he reached me I was in worse shape than when he had left. I was babbling incoherently. The radio phone was kinda tricky to use, and Noah had no idea how to get a phone line on it.so he handed it to me hoping I could do something to get an active phone line. I made several attempts at trying but to no avail. Noah, realizing that this was completely a worthless endeavor, ran all the way back to the truck, jumped in and drove back to the only house that we had passed in miles and miles. The people were at home and gladly let Noah use the phone to call 911. These folks had just gotten the phone installed the day before. ( Praise the Lord!!)
The medivac helicopter came up and got me and took me to Kalispell regional Hospital. Dr. Rock Boyer was the attending physician in the emergency room that day, and I had the entire emergency room stumped, they had no idea what was wrong with me, and I was so out of it they could not ask me any questions. What they DID know was what Noah could tell them and the fact that I was incoherent and both of my legs were swollen up almost twice the size of normal.and I was screaming in horrendous pain. Eventually Dr. Boyer figured out that something had blocked my femoral arteries from getting any blood supply and they immediately did embolectomies and facetectomies on me..meaning they open up my femoral arteries and found a mass blockage in both of them. So after cleaning the blockage out they had to restore the circulation back to my lower legs,... they were so badly swollen that the blood flow was being choked off to my legs in other words my legs looked like overstuffed sausages.about ready to bust wide open. So they had to make incision on BOTH sides of both legs to ease the pressure and get the blood flowing again. After a battery of tests and scans they discovered that I had a myxoma tumor (a gelatinous tumor shaped like a tennis ball on a big golf tee) growing in the left atrium of my heart. When I fired the rifle, the concussion and recoil broke it loose and it metasticized to my legs and my brain causing a small stroke, and blocking off virtually all the circulation to my legs. The Drs told my wife that you can only go for an hour to 2 with no circulation to your legs before its causes irreparable damage. From the time I went down on the mountain until the time they opened my legs up was almost 6 hours. After they cleared out the blockages and opened my legs up (they had to span the incisions with rubber bands to keep my legs from splitting wide open. They left them open for two weeks until the circulation was restored fully), there was the problem of the golf tee stem part of the tumor that was still inside my heart.. So once I was stabilized they sent me to Missoulas St. Pats hospital where Dr Ourey performed open heart surgery on me to remove the remainder of the tumor (I have a DVD of the surgery!) My legs became horribly infected, with a gangrenous type infection, and they started me on Gentimicin and Rocefin in IV form. I ran an incredibly high fever for a couple days; at times I was very delirious. After about 10 days I was transported back to Kalispell Regional hospital to face several debridements, which are surgeries to remove the dead and rotten muscles from the infection in my legs.at one time, the doctors gave me little hope for keeping my legs and even told me prior to one debridement that if they had to remove too much muscle, and an artery would be exposed they would have to amputate my right leg. One of my doctors (Dr. Iwerson) was sure that I would lose my legs and at the very least I would not have the ability to walk anymore. (There were more prayers bombarding heaven than you can imagine!!) I still had the strong antibiotics being pumped into me via IV. In the end I had 8 surgeries in 4 weeks then another 2 weeks in rehab, so I could learn to walk again..yup, God is good. I kept my legs!! I eventually got to go home, and faced several more weeks of physical therapy. The Gentimicin was still being pumped into me via a pick line in my upper chest. I was so glad to be home with my wife and child I was euphoric! However, I woke up one morning and I immediately realized that something was NOT right.. I tried to get out of bed and I just fell over I was soooooooo dizzy. After several visits to the Drs and an audiologist, they discovered that the Gentimicin had completely burned the fine hairs in my inner ears that determine my balance (vestibular function). It was irreversible. They would not grow back.
What determined how I kept my balance from here on out, was the muscles in my body....they would tell me which way I was leaning.or falling.... and my eyes (as long as I had a horizon to see). The problem being, I am legally blind in my right eye (I do wear glasses) and my legs muscles were so fouled up that relying on them to help me with my balance was iffy at best. I was fitted with leg braces from the knee down to help me with foot drop. I wore those until I could get around fairly good without wearing them. But my ankles were so weak from losing so many muscles that I rolled my ankles quite often causing me to fall down. So I was then fitted with ankle gauntlets ($1000.00 a piece!!) I wore them for about 2 years, but then they started bothering my feet.my nerves in my legs were so messed up that my right foot fell asleep continually while I was wearing the braces. So I quit wearing them and I am just very careful when I walk. I have some feeling in my feet but for the most part you could run a truck over my foot and I really wouldn't feel it.
I praise God for bringing me through this ordeal, and I thank my wife. There never has been a woman more understanding, caring and gracious than her.