Joe Kennedy

Joe Kennedy is routinely named the region's best writer by readers of The Roanoker magazine.

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The last hands-on electrical work that Mark Seidell actually performed took place in Blacksburg during the taping of the "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" television show that brought Carol Crawford Smith and her two sons a fabulous new house and a much-improved dance studio.

Shortly before Christmas, Seidell, an electrician since 1976, worked overnight to help install the home's electrical service. Then, on his way back to Roanoke, his family practice doctor called and said that a magnetic resonance imaging that had been done on Seidell "had found something," Seidell said.

Before long, a Roanoke neurosurgeon examined him, and on Jan. 2, Seidell went through surgery on his upper spine at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville. A few days later, he had more surgery followed by radiation.

Then came five weeks of rehabilitation, and finally, on Friday, he returned to his parents' house in Southwest Roanoke County, paralyzed from the chest down, unable to work or walk, and with numbness in his hands, but filled with an unshakeable faith.

Out of his hands

Until his surgery, Seidell, 50, led the music at Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Rocky Mount. For Newcomb Electric Co. in Roanoke he had worked on the improvements to Virginia Tech's Lane Stadium, and he was involved with the construction of the new Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke.

Doctors haven't predicted what outcome to expect from their treatments for the malignant tumor -- an anaplastic meningioma -- they removed from his upper back.

"Because of my faith," Seidell says, "I haven't let it get me down. I'm taking it all in stride."

Only a few times have his emotions gotten to him, he says, and not because of his health.

Until you face a crisis, he says, "You don't really realize how people care."

The response -- calls, prayers, e-mails -- "overwhelms me," he says.

The future does not.

"Having true faith means you need not ever worry," he says.

"Everybody here was just dumbfounded, shocked that this occurred," says Tom Orlando, safety director for Newcomb. People ask about him on job sites every day, he says.

Seidell is "incredibly positive," says Paulette Martin, a fellow parishioner in Rocky Mount, "because he knows God will take care of him."

Keeping the faith

Church members have donated more than $5,700 toward the improvements necessary to make his parents' house accessible to him and his wheelchair, for a vehicle and for other needs.

In a few weeks, Seidell expects to travel to the Woodrow Wilson Rehabilitation Center in Fishersville, to see how far his therapy can take him.

He realized that something serious was wrong with his legs in November, and figured it might be related to all the time he spent on his feet at Lane Stadium. In no way did he expect to learn that a tumor -- and a rare one, at that -- was to blame.

The first day after surgery, he walked a bit. His legs worked but were unimproved. A few days later, he lost the use of his legs, and felt a kind of powerlessness creep up his body.

"I'm watching this stuff go, but I'm not powerless," says Seidell, who has three children and had separated from his wife before his health issues started.

He just figures, "Lord, it's in your hands."

His perspective comes from knowing that other people suffer and suffer more.

"He's one of the most dedicated therapy patients I have ever had," says Annette Dusenbury, a staff physical therapist at UVa-HealthSouth in Charlottesville for the past five years.

Even now, when he feels "weird all the time," he doesn't falter.

"Christianity is not just believing," he says. "Christianity is a way of life."

Donations to help Mark Seidell may be made to Francis of Assisi Church and marked "For the benefit of Mark Seidell," and sent to the church at 15 Glennwood Drive, Rocky Mount, VA 24151.

Joe Kennedy's column appears on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.