EPONYMOUS, COLORADO — “Shhh!” says 39-year-old Cy Chevsky, crouching by candlelight with his ear to his front entry door. With wild eyes and wilder hair, he listens for noises from outside. “They’re still there. Yesterday it was Maury Povich.”
“Maury Povich!” I say in surprise.
“Shhh!” Chevsky says, but it’s too
late: The paparazzi begin shouting and banging on the storm door. Chevsky
covers his ears and yells. “My life now is a living hell.”
A frame d photo on the foyer wall above shows a complete contrast: Chevsky
smiling and stylish, sitting arm-in-arm with a beaming young woman and a gray
poodle both seated on his lap. His wheelchair from the photo now sits empty in
a far corner of the room, no longer needed since the day last April when Chevsky
suddenly and unexpectedly rose out of it, never to return.
“It was the BEEP-BEEP-iest day of
my life,” he says. “It ruined me.”
Doctors were as baffled as Chevsky was,
so he began his own search for the cause of what the Internet was calling a “miracle.”
But in the meantime his girlfriend left him over trust issues, his friends
became unreachable, and traffic to his websites and social media accounts
cratered when he was denounced as a fake.
“I worked for years after my spinal
cord injury to build myself back up,” he says, “and while I did, I also built
up a brand as a disability influencer. I put in so many hours. I believed in
what I was doing — helping others — and it was a revenue stream for us. Now
they call me a grifter.” Even his old dog, Muffin, who had cataracts, would
growl whenever he stood up. Eventually she ended up spinning around and around
in one spot until animal welfare could cart her away for her own safety.
Bewildered, Chevsky flailed around
for answers until he was contacted by Dr. Victor Petroculus of Palm Beach,
Florida. Petroculus took a particular interest in the outraged headlines coming
from the tabloid press, because the same thing had happened to him 15 years
earlier. His career as a premier ballet dancer had been cut short by a spinal
cord injury he sustained while skiing, but he had successfully pivoted to a
second life as a sought-after fundraiser and motivational speaker. Then, like
Chevsky, Petroculus, for no known medical reason, spontaneously rose from his
wheelchair. “I lost one career to the accident,” he said, “and another when I
stood from that miserable chair. … I remember thinking, I have to get the
remote.” In a template for what would happen to Chevsky, Petroculus met with
rage and ruin. And like Chevsky, he’s none too happy about it. “Worst thing
that’s ever happened to me,” Petroculus says, “bar none.”
Petroculus used his contacts from
the fundraising world to gather information and look into similar cases he found.
He consulted with medical experts and others over five continents. It led to his
founding The Research Center for Unwanted Healings, operating in a
state-of-the-art ADA-accessible cardboard box in Palm Beach. “We’ve got Wi-Fi,”
he says. Work at the center reveals a startling phenomenon: Globally, one to
three people with disabilities are healed spontaneously and inexplicably every
year. And the cause? “Our best knowledge in the field says it’s from old
prayers by third parties. There must be millions of them up there, swirling
around like moths.
“Just as well-meaning bystanders
sometimes give unwanted help without asking — or too much help,” Petroculus says,
“so it’s common for people with disabilities to be prayed over even when it’s
not wanted. We’re finding that a small but devastating number of these virulent
prayers are circulating for years, decades, maybe even centuries. And occasionally
one will find home even after its been long forgotten.” The results, he points out,
are devastating.
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| Mothy prayer says, "I'm coming for you." |
In Chevsky’s case, the devastation
comes with a frozen Gofundme account, the loss of his disability-based remote
job for a government agency, and vandalism on his home, where neighbors did a
surprise home-makeover accessibility renovation 13 years before. He may lose his
Medicaid benefits too, and that agency further warned in a letter that it could
claw back benefits already paid.
Even worse, he says, is his loss of
identity. “I don’t know how to do anything,” he says. “So much of my life’s
work was oriented toward dealing with my disability. In that realm I was an ace.”
In his darkened home, Chevsky says,
“Even my dog left me.” He admits that sometimes, he curls up at night in his
old wheelchair. But his whisperings are interrupted by more sharp banging
directly on the front door. Chevsky jumps, as intense shards of light penetrate
his home from around the edges of the door.
“Cy Chevsky! Mr. Chevsky, I know
you’re in there,” says a voice booming through the door. “Mr. Chevsky, it’s
Maury Povich! Come on my program, submit to a lie detector test. I’ll make it
worth your while. I won’t go away without an answer, Mr. Chevsky. Mr. Chevsky!”
