Archbishop stricken with Guillain-Barre Syndrome finds comfort in prayer

ARCHBISHOP Anthony Fisher sat down to breakfast and struggled to hold his knife and fork. By nightfall, he was paralysed from the neck down.

Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

ON Boxing Day last year, Archbishop Anthony Fisher sat down to breakfast and struggled to hold his knife and fork. By nightfall, he was paralysed from the neck down and the paralysis was creeping to his face.

He was diagnosed as having Guillain-Barre syndrome, in which the immune system attacks the nervous system. But the explanation made it no less frightening.

“I knew a little bit about it,” he said.

“And I knew it could sometimes become one of those locked-in syndromes, where you are completely conscious and lucid and cannot communicate with the outside world.

“That’s what I was thinking was happening to me, and it was very scary. By tomorrow, I might only be blinking.”

Archbishop Anthony Fisher: “In these situations, you feel very helpless, and you reach out to God.”Picture: Supplied

That night in intensive care, with his elderly parents beside him, he prayed. Not sophisticated, pulpit prayers, but pleas for help.

“It was directly speaking to God, saying: ‘I am scared, I don’t know what’s happening to me, help me’,” he said. “Which I think almost anybody would do, not even just very religious people like me.

“I think in these situations you feel very helpless, and you reach out to God. That was my experience.”

For the first few days in hospital, he suffered intense neuropathic pains across his back.

“It was much worse than I had ever felt before. One night, the only way I could deal with this was saying the Rosary out loud, sometimes even screaming.

“It helped me, as much for distraction as communication with God.”

Usually, as in Bishop Fisher’s case, Guillain-Barre sufferers recover, but the process is long and difficult.

After five months, and he is still shuffling rather than walking, and his hands are bloated and limp.

Archbishop Anthony Fisher celebrating Mass after nearly six months with his parents Gloria and Colin Fisher. Picture: Supplied

For such a powerful figure, the experience has been humbling and sometimes, he admits, humiliating.

“At times I felt like I had gone back to being an infant,” he said.

“The helplessness of it. I couldn’t feed myself, toilet myself, shower myself. I was completely dependent on the doctors and nurses looking after me. Then, gradually, I was learning to do little bits by myself.”

By the end of the first week in hospital, he could stand up. But over the next few months he needed first an electric wheelchair, then a manual one, then a large walking frame, to get around. Now he can walk, and climb a few stairs, but it’s exhausting.

Working hard on the rehab bike to get legs working again.

Standing for the first time unaided at Mt Wilga Rehabilitation Centre.

Presiding over masses such as a long ordination last Friday night is difficult, and requires careful planning. He is still having intense physiotherapy, and will be having it for many months to come.

But he is trying not to become frustrated by his plight. He draws comfort from the support and prayers of his parishioners, fellow clergy and other suffers of Guillain-Barre, who have written him letters of support. The papal nuncio also visited him on the Pope’s behalf.

And every few days there is a small breakthrough.

“Last week I was able to do my zip up and down on my habit,” said Bishop Fisher.

“I’ve done now four buttons. Each day I can do something.”

The experience has given him an insight into the lives of people who struggle and, unlike him, have no prospect of recovery.

“It might make me something of an advocate in the years ahead for the issues of people suffering one kind of physical limitation or  another.”