Dear Friends,

In case you missed it, I recently sat down with Scott Morris at the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, and I wanted to pass along the article.

Nunnelees keep blessings in mind

Posted on November 26, 2014 by M. Scott Morris in News, Politics

By M. Scott Morris

Daily Journal

U.S. Rep. Alan Nunnelee said one word can make a big difference.

“The Apostle Paul writes, ‘In all things give thanks,’” the Republican from Tupelo said. “I am so glad he didn’t write, ‘For all things give thanks,’ because I certainly couldn’t be thankful for a stroke.”

It’s been a rough year for the 56-year-old Nunnelee and his family. He was in Washington, D.C., in May, when he was rushed to the hospital with suspected heart problems. His daughter met him at the hospital.

“She said, ‘Mom, I think they’re going to discharge him because his heart was fine,’” said Nunnelee’s wife, Tori, a trained nurse who was volunteering with the Red Cross to help tornado victims in Tupelo.

When she talked to her husband on the phone, she noticed a slight slur in his voice that the doctors didn’t notice.

“Instead of sending him home, they did a CT scan in his brain and found the mass,” she said. “I knew on the phone something was not right. I didn’t know what it was.”

Nunnelee said the diagnosis wasn’t easy to take.

“It was traumatic to hear them tell me I had a mass the size of a golf ball in my brain,” he said.

Counting blessings

With his wife’s help, Nunnelee started counting his blessings. It was a life strategy he’d embraced after going blind as a student at Mississippi State University.

His first impulse in those days had been to focus on what he couldn’t do – “You can’t hit a Major League curve ball if you can’t see it,” he said – but he soon realized the better approach was to concentrate on what he could accomplish.

He recovered his sight thanks to cornea implants. He also remembered the benefits of a positive mental attitude, even if he had to be reminded by his wife after the mass was diagnosed.

“She’d say, ‘Tell me what you’re thankful for.’ Every day,” he said. “She didn’t bother me, but there were days I did not think I had the energy to answer, but she kept saying, ‘Tell me what you’re thankful for.’”

The blessings filled up poster boards that hang in Washington and Northeast Mississippi, but there was more trouble to come.

During brain surgery to remove the mass, Nunnelee’s blood pressure dropped and he had a stroke.

“When I woke up from the surgery, I couldn’t speak at all,” he said. “I couldn’t move my left arm, my left leg or anything on my left side, so I was very frightened.”

He clearly recalls those scary days when he couldn’t communicate, and his progress from there was slow at first.

“She continued the thank-you boards,” Nunnelee said. “It helped me see how blessed I am and I didn’t focus on the consequences of the stroke.”

The decision was made early to let his constituents know about his health issues. Tori Nunnelee said that brought unexpected benefits.

“It was the best thing to do,” she said. “If he hadn’t let people know, they wouldn’t have called or texted or emailed saying, ‘We will pray for you.’ I can’t tell you the amount of mail we get from people saying, ‘I’m praying for you,’ and it’s bipartisan. It’s not partisan at all.”

Nunnelee underwent radiation and chemotherapy, as well as physical therapy. U.S. Rep. Gene Green, a Democratic colleague, made regular visits when Nunnelee was in a Houston, Texas, hospital.

“People think Washington is a hellhole,” Tori Nunnelee said, “but there are good people there. We got texts and emails from members of Congress and their families, who sent their favorite Bible verses.”

Nunnelee has concluded his cancer treatment, and his doctors said it was successful.

His recovery from the stroke continues, but there have been humorous moments, like the time his children attended a therapy session.

“They were watching me relearn how to walk, and I said, ‘Hey, guys, I taught you how to do this,’” he said.

Not alone

One thing abundantly clear is Nunnelee isn’t alone with his problems. He heard from friends who’d had spinal cord injuries, and he knows there are people he’s never met who face similar challenges.

“In Mississippi, we have people who’ve had strokes. There are those who are involved in accidents that have brain injuries. There are soldiers coming home. They’re asking, ‘What is my future? How could I go on? What will I do?’” he said. “And their families are going through it with them.”

The doctors told Nunnelee that it’d take about a year to recover from his stroke.

“I’ve been blessed to have good treatment at North Mississippi Medical Center’s stroke rehab,” he said. “Your life can return. You may never be exactly as you were before the stroke, but there’s still a lot left you can do.”

Nunnelee has embraced physical therapy, which involves three visits a week and plenty of homework. He’s walking again, though it’s far from a smooth gait, and it takes conscious effort to speak. He’s also no longer able to write with his left hand.

“He has to write with his right hand – it’s still illegible,” Tori Nunnelee said, getting a smile from her husband.

Staying in touch

Throughout this summer and fall filled with personal challenges, Nunnelee has kept in touch with congressional business through phone calls and regular updates from his staff. He was re-elected to a third two-year term in Congress on Nov. 4.

He returned to Washington a couple of weeks ago, and his fellow Republicans gave him a standing ovation and played the fight song of his beloved Mississippi State University.

During another meeting, he was asked to lead a prayer.

“I talked about what I learned about being in the hospital, and talked about learning to focus on blessings,” he said. “The members came to hug me and said, ‘Alan, we’re so glad to have you back. God brought you back because we needed to hear what you had to say.’”

Nunnelee certainly has something to say on this Thanksgiving Day. Easy things became hard, and priorities shifted overnight for him and his family. He’s not thankful for the stroke, but he’s found the good that surrounds it.

“In the middle of tragedy,” he said, “if you can have an attitude of gratitude, you get through the bad times.”

“We have blessings upon blessings upon blessings,” his wife added. “There aren’t enough poster boards to hold all the blessings we have.”

Stay in touch and God bless,