Honoring Military Spouses

Dr. Ray: Hey, welcome to Self Talk. I'm your host, Dr. Ray Self. Today's show is interesting, it's different. Today's show is about the military but I'm taking a different angle, this is about military spouses. You know, we honor military, our military men and women and we should always do that and thank them for their service, but do we understand and honor their spouses? Which sacrifice tremendously for their husbands and wives to do what they do; and there's a lot of challenges being a military spouse and a lot of people couldn't do it. So I'm interviewing Melissa Caldie, my daughter-in-law who actually works for us but has been a military spouse for 10 years with incredible stories of the challenges and the blessings; and this ends up with a true miracle healing so stay tuned. This is Self Talk with Dr. Ray Self. Thank you for being a part of today's show, don't forget to share and tell your friends, thank you.

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Dr. Ray: Hey, and welcome to Self Talk; I'm your host, me, Dr. Ray Self. Thank you so much for being with us today and downloading the show. Hey, don't forget to share it with your friends, that really helps us a lot. The more you share it and the more- also, write, write a review, that helps us get this message out. But today, I'm excited. I have a very special guest in my enormous professional studio here, I have my daughter-in-law, Melissa Caldie, hey Melissa.

Melissa: Hello.

Dr. Ray: Now Melissa to me is a very, very special person to me, I mean, I love her as, as family but let me just introduce Melissa because the topic today is about military spouses, about being the spouse of someone in the military, and there's incredible challenges and blessings to that, okay? In your life. And what you do, to me is just, I'm just blown away by it and I just think that people are going to be blessed and may be encouraged to hear what all you do.

Melissa: Yeah.

Dr. Ray: You can, do, and been through, amen?

Melissa: Yeah.

Dr. Ray: So Melissa is um, married to our son Brian Caldie, this is Melissa Caldie and we love her very much. She also works for um, ICM, International College of Ministry. She is the editor of this podcast so when- whatever I say, if I get, you know, really bad or off-color or my jokes are really bad, she's going to cut it out anyways. So I'm really, I don't really…

Melissa: I have, I have that power. 

Dr. Ray: She has the power. So today, I was going to talk about military wives gone wild but she said being that this is for like, a Christian podcast that maybe that's not the best idea.

Melissa: Probably not.

Dr. Ray: And then we thought about confessions of a military wife. And you said nah, it's probably not the right…

Melissa: I don't have a whole lot of confessions.

Dr. Ray: No confessions. Well, what I want to talk about today was, we honor people working in the military, serving in the military. We're always honoring our service men and women and you know, you see them in the store, you see them at the airport, it's not unusual for somebody to walk up, walk up to them and go thank you for your service. And I do it a lot. You know, I might be sitting on an airplane next to somebody in, in the military, I would say thank you for your service. But, I know you've been through a lot as a military spouse, and it's amazing, the sacrifices that you have to make, you've had to make, you know, for your husband. And the incredible challenges and blessings of being uh, you know, a spouse in the military. And, and I don't want to say that that's what you are, you're just a spouse, you are Melissa, called a child of God who's incredibly gifted, okay? So anyway, being- So you, you marry Brian, and how long have you guys been married? I forgot.

Melissa: Almost 10 years.

Dr. Ray: And you have two children…

Melissa: Two kids, yeah.

Dr. Ray: Jackson…

Melissa: Jackson and Adeline.

Dr. Ray: Adeline. They're with us now, actually.

Melissa: Yeah, very quiet.

Dr. Ray: Which is really a miracle. So you know, Charisma likes to talk about miracles, we have a miracle because the kids are like, right in the room next to us…

Melissa: Yep, you can't hear them.

Dr. Ray: And we can't hear them, it's a miracle. So you're from Kissimmee. Were you born and raised in Kissimmee?

Melissa: I was born in New York and we moved to Kissimmee when I was about five, so…

Dr. Ray: Okay, so…

Melissa: Basically lived there my whole life.

Dr. Ray: So, we were, as a, as a family we were very excited when you met Brian and Brian, met you and he introduced you to, to us. And me I'm a little bit prophetic, it was like the moment I met you I kept thinking oh, finally.

Melissa: Well thank you.

Dr. Ray: It’s not that Brian was not seeing, you know, dating some really nice girls but you know, as a dad you go no, no Brian, no, she’s, no Brian, she's not, you know. Brian, that's not the one, that's not the one, and then all of a sudden you come along and I'm thinking, okaay.

Melissa: I made the cut. 

Dr. Ray: Yeah, way above the cut. So then, so Brian decides to go in the Air Force and so here you are, you're in Kissimmee, Florida, so what happens now? Here you are, a spouse. Listen folks, I want to tell you something, I think what Melissa has had to do in… the way her life, what she's had to live, is pretty amazing and I don't know if a lot of people have the grace to do it. So you meet Brian, so what's the first- and you get married- and so what's the first challenges that hit you?

Melissa: Well, he joined before we got married and I guess boot camp, and he had a long training school before his first duty station. So I think the challenge of a long-distance relationship for in total, probably about a year, um…

Dr. Ray: So you were, so you met and you were married before he went in, or right after he…?

Melissa: He joined, he joined first…

Dr. Ray: I forgot.

Melissa: …and then we got married after…after boot camp, in the middle of his training, we got married.

Dr. Ray: And folks, I should know these things.

Melissa: It was a while ago, it's fine. It was a long time ago.

Dr. Ray: But you were separate; so you, you get married, he joined the military, I know he, he did basic in uh, San Antonio.

Melissa: In San Antonio for about, what was it, 8 weeks or so?

Dr. Ray: And you were separate. Now you were married, were you married when he was in San- basic?

Melissa: No.

Dr. Ray: You got married shortly after basic, right?

Melissa: Uhh, maybe like four months after.

Dr. Ray: Okay. Then he's in training. Now did you say you has- you lived apart for how long?

Melissa: In total, including boot camp and the training, probably about a year.

Dr. Ray: You lived apart for a year. You’re newly weds and you live apart for a year. 

Melissa: Mhm

Dr. Ray: Okay, then listen, this is one of the points I wanted to make. I think that we need to thank the military spouses for their service because the sacrifice that you had to make in order for Brian to serve our country is you know, incredible. So then, all right so he's, you're, you're separated for about a year and because he goes to boot camp and he has to go through training, he's in the Air Force by the way, and then you get your first assignment. And where is that? Tell us about that.

Melissa: Our first assignment was to Hawaii, Oahu, which, didn't complain about that. Um…

Dr. Ray: So you go from Kissimmee, Florida, you're apart for almost a year and then you're with, you’re with Brian in Hawaii.

Melissa: Yeah. He moved out there a few months before I did because I finished coll- I graduated college and then right after I graduated I moved out to Hawaii. So we were there for about four years.

Dr. Ray: And, that to me, I mean, I know that just sounds amazing and beautiful and wonderful but still, you're away from your parents…

Melissa: Yes.

Dr. Ray: You're away from your friends, you're away from your home, uh, you're far away from everybody you know, everything you grew up with, I mean, that to me, that's just, could not be that easy.

Melissa: Yeah no, it, it definitely made it hard being- Hawaii was almost as far as you can get from Florida.

Dr. Ray: Right.

Melissa: Um, so just being so far away and having our first baby in Hawaii, that, that was challenging, you know, being a new parent, a new mom and you, your support is more limited in the military. Fortunately we've, we've met a lot of very great and amazing people that have become great friends and you kind of build your own support system but it's a little different when you start having kids and you don't have your family close by and so that that was definitely a challenge, having our first kid in, when we were in Hawaii and so far away and nowhere near family and so that was…

Dr. Ray: I mean, your newly weds, you're apart for almost a year and then you're together but you are halfway around the world practically from everything you've ever known,

Melissa: Right.

Dr. Ray: And you have a child. 

Melissa: Yeah.

Dr. Ray: I mean, I mean…

Melissa: After three years, we had him, after three years of being in Hawaii then Jackson came around.

Dr. Ray: Yeah, three years being in Hawaii. And to me, I've often said in this podcast that you know, we talk about God's purpose and God's call and also God's grace. I mean, apparently God gave you the grace to do this but I bet you a lot of my female listeners listening here say there's no way I could get married, be separate from my husband for a year, and then move halfway around the world practically to another place and leave everything that I've known behind and that's just not easy. But you, you just, you just did it. It's like you just flowed right into it.

Melissa: Yeah. I feel like I've always been interested in travel and I mean, one way to do it is being in the military. We've gotten to Hawaii, we've been able to travel from there and I think both of us, Brian and I, enjoy living in different areas and kind of learning where we like, what we don't like, so…

Dr. Ray: And then you take a vacation to New Zealand.

Melissa: Yep.

Dr. Ray: From Hawaii.

Melissa: Yeah, when Jackson was not even a year old.

Dr. Ray: That's so incredible.

Melissa: Yep. We've done a lot of traveling.

Dr. Ray: That's so, that's so amazing. Again, it's just, I mean, it sounds exciting but also it sounds like a huge challenge. You're in a whole- and Hawaii of course, there's a completely different culture.

Melissa: Yes.

Dr. Ray: And a different way of living…

Melissa: Yes.

Dr. Ray: …and everything but in the midst of all this, you're not just, oh you know. I'm a full-time wife; you're doing other things.

Melissa: I try to.

Dr. Ray: You've got businesses, and, tell us a little bit about what you do.

Melissa: Um, my main business now is a cookie business. I do decorated sugar cookies with one of my friends, Haley, Rooted in Sugar, um…

Dr. Ray: It's organic though, I'm sure.

Melissa: Oh yeah, you know that's sugar, 

Dr. Ray: Absolutely,

Melissa: Yeah, very… 

Dr. Ray: It's probably brown sugar not white sugar

Melissa: Mhm.

Dr. Ray: That it makes it okay.

Melissa: Yeah.

Dr. Ray: Okay, yeah.

Melissa: Slightly healthier.

Dr. Ray: Right.

Melissa: Um, and then and I, I work like Dr. Ray said, with ICM. I've been editing the podcast for what we're doing, been doing this three years now.

Dr. Ray: Three years, mhm. Yeah. And you did social media for us too.

Melissa: Yeah.

Dr. Ray: So, this cookie business folks, this is just not somebody who makes cookies, these are beautiful cookies made for special events, for weddings and graduations and uh, corporate events, and they’re, every cookie is like designer decorated beautiful cookies. I've seen them, they're gorgeous.

Melissa: Yeah, thank you.

Dr. Ray: Uh, and then, now you also wanted to pursue education. So here you are, the other side of the world and you've got your cookie business, you’re editing the podcast, you also were doing some graphics work, you know, you were doing graphics for social media. 

Melissa: Yeah.

Dr. Ray: You did social media graphics but you were also doing uh, uh, t-shirts.

Melissa: Oh, yeah.

Dr. Ray: You did t-shirts and caps and all kinds of stuff like that.

Melissa; Mhm.

Dr. Ray: Okay. And then is this about the time you maybe, later on when you started studying to be a dental hygienist, or is that…

Melissa: That's my um, it was probably about a year, two years ago where I really got into it and started going back to school for uh, dental hygiene, that's the goal.

Dr. Ray: Did you do that in Hawaii, go to school for it?

Melissa: No, no, in Wyoming, now, yeah. Just about a year ago. 

Dr. Ray: So this to me is where it gets really interesting, so you're in Hawaii for four years and you buy a home.

 Melissa: Yes.

Dr. Ray: Which is pretty amazing.

Melissa: Yes.

Dr. Ray: That on a military salary, you buy a home which quickly rose in value, a really nice home in Hawaii, on a VA loan, whatever, it's a great investment. So then you get called back to the states, right? And you get stationed in…

Melissa: In Florida, the Panhandle. Um, Navarre area.

Dr. Ray: Yeah. Navarre, folks, if you, if you're familiar with Pensacola and Panama City, it's about halfway between, or between Pensacola and Destin Florida,

Melissa: Yep, right in the middle.

Dr. Ray: And there's a Air Force Base called Herbert Field, I believe.

Melissa: Hurlburt.

Dr. Ray: Yeah, I never can get that out.

Melissa: Hurlburt

Dr. Ray: Hurlburt Field, okay. So, so you go from Kissimmee, Florida, all the way to Hawaii, halfway across the world, all of a sudden, you're back in your home state but not quite.

Melissa: Yeah.

Dr. Ray: You're still…

Melissa: Still about seven hours away.

Dr. Ray: Seven hours away. And there you, you buy another home. You sell your home in Hawaii, buy another home, to me this is all just amazing. And, and you know, Brian is doing an incredible, incredible job in the Air Force, we're very, very proud of him. Right now I think he's been 10 years?

Melissa: Almost, yeah.

Dr. Ray: Almost 10 years.

Melissa: Yep.

Dr. Ray: We're still extremely proud of him. But again, what I'm trying to get across to the listeners here is the challenges and the sacrifice that Melissa made. You know, as, as a wife and as a mom and leaving everything that she knew and going halfway across the world and then coming back to um, to Florida. It was still seven hours away from your mother and your father and your friends you grew up with. And so how long were you in uh, lived at Navarre?

Melissa: We lived there about a year and a half. Not very long.

Dr. Ray: Not very long. So, year and a half, things, everything's going great. Then all of a sudden, you get the call and you're called to go where?

Melissa: Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Dr. Ray: Cheyenne Wyoming. It…

Melissa: Did not even know that existed.

Dr. Ray: At the time I heard him, I thought well, so much for the tropical lifestyle. You’re rai- you're raised in Florida,

Melissa: Yeah. You're, you've been to Hawaii, you come back to Florida, all you've known is, is beach.

Melissa: Yeah.

Dr. Ray: Florida and humidity and palm trees and alligators and dolphins and all the Florida stuff, and then…Cheyenne?

Melissa: Yep.

Dr. Ray: Wyoming?

Melissa: Yeah. Yeah, that was a bit of a shock.

Dr. Ray: And so you, you transfer to Cheyenne,

Melissa: Yep.

Dr. Ray: Uh, to a base. And all of a sudden you got a whole nother, another, another culture you're living in and that's got to be a challenge. And then, you live on base in Cheyenne, right?

Melissa: Mhm.

Dr. Ray: And tell us about living in Cheyenne. You have a, is that when Addie was born or was she born in Navarre?

Melissa: She was born in Navarre, yes, but she was three months old when we moved to Wyoming so she basically is from Wyoming, we, we just say she's from there.

Dr. Ray: Okay.

Melissa: Um, but the biggest challenge I feel was the weather. We went from sunny, warm, humid weather to…

Dr. Ray: Which is what you've known your whole life.

Melissa: Yes.

Dr. Ray: Your whole life.

Melissa: Yeah, I, I had never really seen snow until we moved to Wyoming I was like 29 when we moved there, so…

Dr. Ray: Never seen snow…

Melissa: I've never seen snow, yeah. And, just the challenge of the cold, the snow, two little kids, the wind, the wind in Wyoming is intense. Um, we get 85 mile per hour gusts of wind on a regular basis.

Dr. Ray: So the - folks, if you don't realize that, that's hurricane strength wind on a regular basis. So much so that you cannot even go outside. 

Melissa: No.

Dr. Ray: I mean, you can't let your kids outside.

Melissa: No.

Dr. Ray: Your kid the kids would literally blow away.

Melissa: Yeah, I've had to hold on to Adeline, the littlest one, before she blew away, blew over sometimes, and that mixed with 20 degree weather is challenging.

Dr. Ray: As a matter of fact, um, just before you came back to visit, uh now right now we're visiting from Winter Park Florida, uh, I think it was just a couple of weeks ago I was looking at the temperature in Wyoming, it got down to negative 15 degrees and uh, it was negative 15 degrees. Now, and then I looked at the temperature in Winter Park Florida; was 86. And there was a over a 100 degree difference…

Melissa: Yes.

Dr. Ray: In the temperature.

Melissa: Yeah, it's, it's a big difference. Yeah. I don't, I don't love the wind in Wyoming, that could, if, if that could just go away then I can handle the cold but it's the wind that makes it a challenge. 

Dr. Ray: And while you're in Wyoming of course um, you know, you're still doing- you’re now, this is when you start becoming, work, studying to be a dental hygienist, right? Here?

Melissa: Mhm, mhm.

Dr. Ray: And you start working?

Melissa: I worked as a dental assistant for a little bit, yeah. Just to kind of get a feel for the, the environment, the um, the job and see if I actually liked that field and, I enjoy it a lot so the goal is to become a hygienist. Eventually.

Dr. Ray: And see, with me the way I look at life, I'm kind of a big picture guy and I'm looking at the big big picture: wait a second, how does, how does a young woman get from Kissimmee, Florida - which is just south of Orlando, folks - from Kissimmee, Florida how does a young woman, you know, get engaged, get to, get married and almost, and live apart from her husband and then leave everything she's known to move halfway across the world and you know, have a child, buy a home and then move back halfway across the world, have another child, and then get called to move halfway across - well, three-fourths, ninety percent - across the way the United States to Wyoming? And in the middle of all that, you're running a business, you are a mother, you're working on our podcast, you're doing social media, you're doing some graphics with t-shirts and very, you're very crafty, you do a lot of crafts, you have this designer cookie business, and you're studying to be a dental hygienist. Is there anything you do in your spare time?

Melissa: Uh, sleep.

Dr. Ray: Yeah, sleep.

Melissa. Maybe. Not even.

Dr. Ray: And so I mean, I just say we need to thank military spouses for their service, I mean, I mean, I think you have the grace for it and done an incredible job with it but I would bet you there's a lot of spouses out there that, that struggle, you know, with the constant moving and stuff.

Melissa: Yeah, it's, it's definitely a challenge; I mean, it's something that you, if you desire a full-time career, that's something you have to take into consideration…

Dr. Ray: Well that’s a sacrifice.

Melissa: …because you have to move every four, four or so years, you can't stay in one place typically. Um, so just a career itself is a is kind of a sacrifice that you have to consider if your spouse is or thinking of joining the military, uh…

Dr. Ray: So if you have a vision as a spouse for a full-time career, uh, any military spouse, that's going to be very difficult because of the constant moving.

Melissa: Yeah, I mean, I know plenty that do it, it's just you… typically once you get your job and you know you're there for a couple years, then you find out you have to move again and then you have to kind of start all over. You kind of have to start over every few, every four years or so.

Dr. Ray: See, I, I, what, what amazes me about you is you do all this with a smile on your face. You kind of enjoy it, and I'm thinking if I was in your position there's no way, there's no way I could do it and I think there's a lot of people that just no way they could do it. But what I see is just a lot of you, you've really sacrificed for our son, you've sacrificed for your children, and you have sacrificed just like our son is, is sacrificing and serving for our country, you also are sacrificing for our country. And so I'm saying that we should say hey, thank you for your service, Melissa, because I mean, I don't think Brian would have, could have done this without you, I mean, maybe he could have, I don't- if he did it he would have been unhappy doing it.

Melissa: Yeah, I mean it's, it's challenging but it's also fun. The, one of the pros of being a military family and traveling all over the country and, is that you meet a lot of really amazing people and you build friendships and relationships with those people that you take with you everywhere you go, so that's a huge benefit to me. I'm a, I enjoy having really good friendships with, with people and then you get to have friends all over the, all over the world really and um, keep in touch that way, and just being able to meet different people and enjoy different cultures and all of that is, is a really cool experience.

Dr. Ray: You said something that really tickled me about making friends. What was that you were telling me about? When you see a potential friend you said you, you go for it, right?

Melissa: Yeah, it's like you have no time as a military family to, to wonder who should I, should I talk to that person? I feel like we would get along. You just kind of have to go and be like hey, I see you have a kid, I have a kid, let's be friends.

Dr. Ray: Yeah, so you're an aggressive friend seeker. You have to be, yeah. Sometimes, I mean, I don't think I would have met any of my friends if I wasn't.

Dr. Ray: I mean, I never thought about that but in the military when you wouldn't have the opportunity you make friends. It's not like we're, down here, in, in Florida there's so many, two million people in this area and it's like you're trying to maybe get rid of some friends. Or acquaintances.

Melissa: Yeah.

Dr. Ray: Or whatever.

Melissa: No, I mean one of my a couple of my really good friends that I have now in Wyoming, we just met in this play area on base and we had kids around the same age and the kids started playing together so we just were talking and exchanged phone numbers and we've been friends for four years.

Dr. Ray: So what about during this whole process about parenting? Was that, was it more difficult you think, being a parent, living in three different homes? I think, what was it um, at one time Jackson had had a birthday in three different cities?

Melissa: Yeah, three different years, yep. Um, every year his birthday was in a different state.

Dr. Ray: His birthday was in a different state every year. So as a mother and as a parent and with the kids, is that a special challenge or is it okay?

Melissa: Right now, so Jackson's six, Addie will be four in a couple months and I think when they're younger it's okay because they're little, they adapt really easily and they don't really notice when you, you know, when things are changing a whole lot so right now it hasn't been a huge challenge but I feel like as they get older and they're in middle school, they're in high school, they're building their friendships, they're really building their core groups, that might become more of a challenge for us as um, if we have to move like in the middle of the school year as they get older. So we haven't quite encountered those challenges yet but I, I do feel like I could see it being a challenge. And I've talked to a few um, a few older kids that you know, their parents moved around a lot and they were you know, in middle and high school at the time and, and some of them really enjoy it. Some of them love the fact that they get to move around a lot and meet new people all the time and, and some people just really wish they could stay put and build their, you know, their, their friendships and everything more um, in a, in just one spot but I think it could be personality-wise. Hopefully, hopefully our kids have the personality to where they're okay with moving around and but yeah, it's one of those where you kind of have to wait and see how they're gonna react to it as they get older and maybe because it- they're so young right now they'll kind of be used to it by that time. So yeah, I don't know. One of those wait-and-see kind of things for us because we haven't quite gotten to that stage yet.

Dr. Ray: Well speaking of kids, maybe before we close the show, to me there's a miracle, there's a God Miracle with Addie. I mean, tell us a little bit about Addie, uh, Adeline, that's the youngest daughter, and, how old is she?

Melissa: She's three, she'll be four in two months.

Dr. Ray: I wanted to call her four, she's three. 

Melissa: She's pretty much four.

Dr. Ray: Yeah, pretty much four. But there was a real amazing, scary, praise God but scary thing going. Tell us about what happened with Addie and maybe the, the miracle of Addie?

Melissa: Well, when Addie was about two months old, her pediatrician detected a heart murmur and sent us to a cardiologist to get testing done and we found out she had a large hole in her heart, a VSD, ventricular septal defect, and she um, we were told that she might need open heart surgery down the road and um, she was put on a couple different medications to help.

Dr. Ray: So she's two years old and the doctor…

Melissa: No, two months old.

Dr. Ray: Two months old.

Melissa: Yeah.

Dr. Ray: And he's already talking about open heart surgery.

Melissa: Yep. They just, were saying it's a potential because of how large the hole was. Um, when I got that news Brian was in training, he wasn't even home when um, I took her to the cardiologist to find this out so I'm, I have a two-year-old a two-month-old and finding out that she has a hole in her heart um, and she might possibly need open heart surgery down the road and trying to navigate how to help her health-wise and you know, what's going to happen. And that was- we were in Florida at the time when I, when we found out and about a month later we moved to Wyoming um, so that was the start of her, her health journey. 

Dr. Ray: So in Wyoming things uh, we… I know as a family we were hoping the heart was going to heal on his own, we prayed and prayed and prayed for the heart to heal which the doctor said was possible. We were thinking okay with God it's definitely possible but it didn't exactly happen that way.

Melissa: No it started to, it started to close on its own a little bit. Um, the elevation in Cheyenne is about six, seven thousand feet of elevation so somehow the elevation helped her specific condition and her heart did start to heal itself a little bit but after about six months, after they noticed the healing they saw that it wasn't changing much, it was still a pretty large hole and that's when they officially said we need to do surgery. 

Dr. Ray: So you take her to Denver, right? For surgery.

Melissa: Mhm, the Children's Hospital in Denver, yeah.

Dr. Ray: So she ends up having open heart surgery in Denver.

Melissa: Open heart surgery, two years old.

Dr. Ray: But there were some kind of miracles that were taking place during the open heart surgery, especially, um, was in the recovery process? How fast she recovered? And um, there was some, I mean, there was, it was very dramatic and I can't even imagine, you know, I mean, we, well, we were you know, praying from a distance but you're right there with your daughter in the hospital open heart surgery, and how old was she when the surgery was take-

Melissa: Two.

Dr. Ray: Two years old, had an open heart surgery which is just, you know, parents just shouldn't have to go through that.

Melissa: Yeah. It was, it was rough. Not a, not the most enjoyable experience but um, she, after, after about a day of surgery she was ready to go, ready to run and get out of bed and she's still connected to machines and she still has like a drainage tube and all these things and it just, she was acting like it didn't even affect her.

Dr. Ray: That, that to me was the coolest part. To me, that's the miracle.

Melissa: Yeah.

Dr. Ray: One day after surgery,

Melissa: Yeah.

Dr. Ray: She's acting like a normal little girl, 

Melissa: Acting totally…

Dr. Ray: After open heart surgery.

Melissa: Yeah. She just wanted to get up and move and the nurses were trying to keep her down and saying hang on, wait, you're still connected to things. You gotta, you gotta relax a little bit. And, and fortunately yeah, she recovered really quickly and so far everything looks good. We um, she still has to see a cardiologist once a year just to um, kind of monitor and make sure that the surgery went well and that the repair still looks good. It's, so it's a patch over the hole that is supposed to grow with her and grow into the muscle as she gets older so as long as it, you know, grows the same way, no leaking happens, then she should be good to go and do whatever she wants for the rest of her life, so…

Dr. Ray: Well, to me there's a couple of praise reports there and I know that the Bible says all things work for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to his purposes. So here you have your daughter with a hole in her heart, you're in Cheyenne, Wyoming, far away from Florida. Florida's got great medical facilities, it's very famous for that, but it turns out here you are in Cheyenne and the altitudes’ hurting Addie but Denver has one of the best children hospitals in the world…

Melissa: Yes it was, I believe it was…

Dr. Ray: Which. Denver by the way, folks, is within two hours of Cheyenne.

Melissa: Yeah, it's about two hours away. I believe at the time. the children's hospital in Denver was ranked 10 in the nation but sixth for cardiology in the nation. So I think between the area we were in, in Florida North Florida and where we ended up for surgery, I think we were in the best location for her.

Dr. Ray: So you can see God's hand in that. It's like God will send you all the way to Cheyenne to get to this hospital, to Denver, for that particular surgeon maybe and the surgery is so successful that within one day she's ready to play. It's incredible.

Melissa: Yeah.

Dr. Ray: I don't know, I just, I think the drama of it, you going through that was, I can't even imagine...

Melissa: Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Ray: The emotions you felt. I know that was hard but I just look at Addie now and you just see just one little, little faint scar.

Melissa: Yeah, she does have her scar and she knows it. She knows what it is, she knows what they did, she said “they had to, they had to cut my chest open and fix my heart” and so she knows, you know, to an extent that a two, three-year-old knows but um, the hope and prayer now is as she continues to grow and get older, that the repair maintains itself and we won't need to do any intervention as she gets older. Um, they're hopeful and they were very - she had very positive feedback from her last um, checkup so in May will be one year, her one-year checkup so we'll go in and hopefully it all still looks the same and, and then we get to wait another year.

Dr. Ray: Well guys listening, y'all pray for Addie Caldie, okay? You pray that her heart will completely heal, the hole will completely- the muscle will cover the hole, correct?

Melissa: So the, the hole is covered, it’s covered with a patch. Um, it's just hopefully the, the patch will grow with her as she…

Dr. Ray: Right.

Melissa: Grows, yeah. Okay, okay, that's a prayer request for you… put that, put that out for you. So anyway, I just think that's an incredible miraculous story and even though, here you go from Kissimmee, Florida to uh, Hawaii to Navarre, Florida to Cheyenne which so happens to be right next to one of the best children hospitals for surgery in the nation, I mean, maybe God knew what he was doing and uh. Anyway, you're amazing, I really, we love you so much,

Melissa: We love you too.

Dr. Ray: our family. Thank you. Folks thank you for listening today and um, you know, this is Self Talk with Dr. Ray Self and my very special guest is our beautiful daughter-in-law, Melissa Caldie so thanks for being with us.

Melissa: Thank you.

Dr. Ray: Okay, goodbye everybody.

[Music]

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