yeah....Things will only get better

Wow... I'm touched.. absolutely.

How many of us can actually do this? Do we really have the love, the finances ??



June 10, 2007
While he was sleeping...
Polish man wakes up from 19-year coma and discovers a new world

IT SOUNDS like the far-fetched plot of a Hollywood movie - and has distinct echoes of the 2003 film Goodbye Lenin! - but it's far from fiction.

A man wakes up one day to find a world full of new colours, shops full of amazing new products, and everyone using communication devices once seen only in sci-fi films.

Not only that, but there are two decades' worth of extra wrinkles on the face of the woman he fell in love with, his children have become adults, and he has 11 grandchildren he knew nothing about.

Railway worker Jan Grzebski fell into a coma as still-communist Poland was suffering from food shortages and almost cut off from the outside world by the Iron Curtain, and did not regain consciousness for 19 years.

And, despite admitting that the changes make his head spin, he is very happy with the new reality he has woken up to.
As he puts it: 'The world is prettier now.'

Mr Grzebski lost consciousness in 1988 after sustaining head injuries in a workplace accident, and doctors treating him then found cancer in his brain as well.

Their prognosis was understandably bleak - they said he would not live.

But while the 65-year-old's recovery seems little short of miraculous, this was all due to the love and dedication of his wife.

Mrs Gertruda Grzebska, 63, refused to believe the doctors, and took him home to care for him herself. For the next 19 years, she turned him over every hour to ensure he would not get bedsores, fed him with a spoon, talked to him, and even insisted that he attend family gatherings.

The Associated Press quoted her as telling local daily Gazeta Dzialdowska: 'I would fly into a rage every time someone would say that people like him should be euthanised, so they don't suffer.'

Using an affectionate form of her husband's name, she said: 'I believed Janek would recover.'

Despite all her loving care, however, last October he developed pneumonia and was taken to hospital again. That proved to be a blessing in disguise, as his doctors saw signs of recovery and started intensive rehabilitation treatment.

Slowly, Mr Grzebski's awareness and speech returned to him. While he is still in a wheelchair, his doctor expects him to be walking again soon. 'This is my great reward for all the care, faith and love,' his wife told AP.

Meanwhile, her husband was amazed by the changes he saw the first time he was taken out for a walk in his home town of Dzialdowo in northern Poland.

Martial law has been lifted, the drab, grey streets he remembered are full of garish neon signs and billboards, and the communist ration queues have been replaced with queues at McDonald's.

'When I went into a coma there were only tea and vinegar in the shops, meat was rationed and huge petrol queues were everywhere,' he told Polish media last weekend.

But if there is one thing he can't understand, it's other people's negative attitudes. 'What amazes me today is all these people who walk around with their mobile phones and never stop moaning,' he said.

And despite being faced with such a mind-boggling array of changes, one thing impresses him more than anything else. Britain's Observer newspaper quoted him as saying: 'It was Gertruda who saved me, and I'll never forget it.'