Published: November 20, 2009 12:06 pm      

'We've been blessed' | Famiy credits faith for help over life's bumps

BY RUTH RICE

RRICE@TRIBDEM.COM

From their family’s health to their home, Jim and Tammy Fiffick have a lot to be thankful for this year.

Thanksgiving morning will find their two daughters, Annie, 16, and Gabby, 11, attired in their pajamas and stationed on a blanket on the floor of the Fiffick’s living room, watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade while the aroma of roasting turkey wafts around them.

“This is a tradition with them,” Tammy Fiffick said. “I can’t get out of it.”

Even though the family is going elsewhere to eat, Annie and Gabby insist their mother prepare a traditional meal at home.

“I’ll be cooking the night before with my mother, Lee Miller,” Tammy Fiffick said. “We’ll end up eating twice.”

The Fiffick’s meal will feature turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, green-bean casserole, sweet potatoes, rolls and pies.

“It’s the whole nine yards,” Fiffick said. “I thought I could get out of it this year.”

Fiffick added that the family is very thankful for her mother, whom her daughters call “Amsey.”

“She’s one of those people you just always know will be there for you, at least you pray they will,” Fiffick said.

“She’s 70-plus and lives on her own, very independent and feisty. We are so blessed to have her.”

The Fifficks also consider their Southmont home a blessing.

“When the company we both worked for downsized in 2003 and I lost my job, we wanted to stay in the Westmont Hilltop School District,” Fiffick said.

“We went to 60 percent less income.

“We didn’t want to relocate. In our hearts, we wanted to be home.”

Jim Fiffick continues as a warehouse technician at Mosso’s Medical Supply Co. Inc. in Latrobe, a position he has held for 10 years.

Tammy Fiffick has held various part-time jobs, including medical transcriptionist.

She has worked as financial secretary at Oakland United Methodist Church for the past five years.

When they moved from their much larger Westmont home, the Fifficks gave away a truckload of possessions.

“We had the world’s largest garage sale, and we don’t miss anything we gave away,” she said. “We feel blessed that we got a house in the same district.”

The Fifficks wanted to stay in the Westmont Hilltop district because of the special programs and opportunities available for Annie and Gabby.

Annie is in advanced placement, while Gabby is in a special-needs program.

Gabby has been diagnosed with pediatric Bechet’s disease, a rare autoimmune neurological ailment that pits the body’s systems against themselves.

The disease affects her skin and joints and produces mouth ulcers, fever and fatigue.

Gabby also has arthritis, lupus and asthma.

“She’s been sick since she was 18 months old and wasn’t officially diagnosed until she was 8,” Fiffick said.

Gabby has not been attended classes at Westmont middle school since Oct. 1 because of the threat of the H1N1 virus.

“It’s been a blessing how the doctors and school have coordinated,” Fiffick said.

“The school sends a tutor to the house.”

The Fifficks are thankful they were referred to the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Md., where doctors diagnosed Gabby’s condition.

Gabby goes to the National Institute of Health every three months to have her condition evaluated.

This year, she is participating in a cutting-edge study to identify the gene that causes pediatric Bechet’s.

Gabby is on 14 medications a day, including an oral chemotherapy drug.

“We’re thankful there have been doctors humble enough to say they can’t do anything,” Jim Fiffick said. “We’ve always been provided for. God puts people together, and that’s no coincidence.”

The Fifficks are grateful for Dr. Barbara Ostrov, Gabby’s pediatric rheumatologist at Hershey Medical Center, who has continued to have a hand in Gabby’s care even after accepting a different position.

“I take a digital picture of Gabby and

e-mail it to her and she diagnoses and gives the local ER instructions,” Tammy Fiffick said. “And she doesn’t get paid.

“She treats Gabby like her own child.”

Ironically, many of the Fifficks’ blessings have come from Gabby’s illnesses.

They include the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Best of Friends therapeutic horseback riding program in Hooversville and Camp Sunshine, a respite camp in Maine for children with life-threatening diseases and their families.

Other members of the Fiffick family have had their health concerns the past year as well.

Annie encountered some persistent health problems while on a mission trip to Peru and had to have her gallbladder removed when she returned to the states.

She recently learned she has been chosen as a finalist in the Outstanding Young Woman Scholarship Program.

Jim Fiffick experienced a ministroke at work, but he has suffered no residual side effects.

“His co-workers were a blessing because they brought him to the Sheetz in Latrobe for me to pick him up,” Tammy Fiffick said. “He didn’t want to go by ambulance to a Latrobe hospital. In a couple of hours, he rallied and was feeling better.”

The Fifficks also are gracious to belong to a good church family at Oakland United Methodist.

“All the people God has put in my life have been there when I needed them,” Jim Fiffick said.

“They know what you need before you do. They’ve brought us meals and prayed for us.”

The Fifficks consider their faith to be their No. 1 weapon against whatever comes against them.

“We depend on God first, each other second and our church family third,” Fiffick said.

The Fifficks continue to focus on the positives rather than the negatives and believe there are others with bigger problems than theirs.

“I still have days when it’s overwhelming,” Tammy Fiffick said. “I take a breath and ask God to help me. All our needs are met.

“God definitely takes care of us.”

The Fifficks are thankful that no family members will be missing this year as they sit around the Thanksgiving table.

“We’re blessed to have each other in the first place,” Tammy Fiffick said.