Larry Norman: Health Update - Summer 2004

Three years ago, Larry was told he only had two or three days to live. He needed open-heart surgery but no doctors would do it because they said he would never survive the operation.

Almost two weeks later he was still alive and finally one doctor volunteered to do the bypass operation. Larry left the hospital in a wheelchair and ended up living in a nursing care facility with several hundred other people. He could not move but they would make him sit in his wheel chair for one hour a day, then carry him back to bed. His weight continually dropped off lower and lower.

The cardiologist told him that during the twenties and thirties people would be put in a sanatorium and just keep losing weight until they died. He seemed to have no alternate plan in mind. Larry keeps hanging on.

Since that time Larry has been unable to earn any income performing concerts but still remains positive in his outlook. His insurance company has continually refused to pay for medical needs like a neurosurgeon, a nutritionist and a physiotherapist, so that he can gain weight back and re-build his body. He will have to pay for all of these therapies himself.

Larry's record company Solid Rock has set up a way for people to donate money to Larry's medical needs as he has been forced to pay to go to different doctors for any medical help which falls outside the seemingly arbitrary limitations of his insurance policy.

Earlier this year he wrote, "The few of you who buy CDs from Solid Rock have really been a blessing. And the few who have sent donations have sent them in at exactly the right time for emergency situations which have come up. So thank you. Literally, you have been 'Life Savers' to me."

Larry himself says he is ready to go home, if that's God's Will. In the meantime, he stills fights for his life; studying medical books, paying for therapies with money donated to him, trying to build his health back up. He lives with his son who is old enough now to drive him to the hospital and Larry gets occasional help from his sister. He goes to a church near his home.

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