Nigel and Karen Farrow had just welcomed their first child into the world…
The plan was to raise their new family in the South Australian state where they had grown up … Upon arriving in their new home, they received a call from their doctor telling them there was a problem … On the other end of the line was every parent’s worst nightmare, their ten-week-old daughter had been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis.
“Immediately the world as we knew it was gone, ripped out from under us,” Dr Farrow told NEWS.COM.AU. Within days of the devastating news, Ella’s lungs collapsed and she was rushed to intensive care. “It was all getting too hard, very quickly,” he recalled. “We didn’t know if she was going to make it, and if she did, we didn’t know what kind of life she was going to have.”
It’s important to take note of the fact that Nigel Farrow, at the time of this interview, is referred to as “Dr. Farrow.” That’s not who he was when this story began. When their daughter was first diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, Nigel was a musician. But he felt compelled to do whatever he had to in order to help his daughter. That’s when he and his wife decided to do the most amazing thing. “My instincts were telling me that it was my role to fix this for Ella,” said Nigel, “So I did what I thought had to be done, and became a scientist.”
That’s right, Nigel would become Dr. Farrow, a scientist and researcher, dedicating his life to finding a cure for cystic fibrosis.
“I’m not one to sit back and wait for others to do things,” he said. So nine years and three degrees later, the professional musician gave up his music career and became a scientist. He is now a member of the Adelaide research team, on the verge of offering a new stem cell therapy that promises to correct cells damaged by the disease. The research shows that the new procedure works, it’s now just a matter of funding the project. [1]
How is it possible that a professional musician could do what the entire scientific community was not able to do? The answer is the motivational power of love. When the motivation within us matches the mountains in front of us, mountains move. No matter how desperate the need or how difficult the challenge, love finds a way. Love moves mountains!
“[Love] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails…” (1 Corinthians 13:7-8).
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1. “What this Aussie father did for his daughter is amazing” by Nick Whigham, NEWS.COM.AU, September 27, 2015.