This post has been on my heart and on my mind for a few months now. I don’t know why.
But the Lord has whispered something sweet, something bold. And I’m not even sure how this ties into the World Race, but I have a feeling I might discover why by the time by fingers stroke the last keys of this post.
So. Here it is.
~
I had a brain tumor when I was five years old.
It was the size of a baseball.
It was benign. It was removed.
Everything is fine now.
These are the words I tell myself to let reality sink in. It’s been over 18 years since it happened, and I have to remind myself that it did.
For awhile, it was my *fun fact*. It was my secret weapon when my class played the “Two Truths and a Lie” game. “A brain tumor?? What?! That can’t be real!” It was a novelty thing about me. It was an astonishing fact. “WOW. Look how far you’ve come! That’s amazing.”
It’s still all those things, but it’s also so much more.
Junior year of college, I had a seemingly small health scare. For a couple weeks I had felt exhausted. Like more than your typical college student craves a mid-afternoon nap. I constantly felt too tired to function. I had vertigo. I lost my appetite, and my headaches were more frequent. My parents finally convinced me to go to the student health clinic, and I went in and got my blood drawn, talked to the doctor, all your standard stuff.
Doctor, *flipping through my paperwork*: “Ok Katie, we’ll call you with your blood test results. Maybe you’re anemic, or it could quite frankly just be a virus.”
“Ok, sounds good. Thank you!”
Doctor, *pauses while looking intently at a page where I see my surgical history listed*: “Oh. You had a brain tumor? Oh. –We better get you in for an MRI. I’ll schedule you an appointment as soon as possible and see if we can get your scans transferred from Children’s Hospital.”
“Oh. Um yeah, ok.”
Fast forward through a sobbing phone call to my mom in the parking lot, my friends coming in with me to get my MRI after my Wednesday afternoon lecture, having to step out of class to answer a phone call I knew held my results, breathing a MAJOR sigh of relief when they said nothing’s changed since the operation.
I went back in for a consultation with my doctor to talk about my MRI and blood test results and how completely normal they were. She said I probably just had a virus and advised me to keep taking the anti-dizziness medication she had prescribed after my first visit.
“Ok. Um, the tech on the phone the other day said nothing in my brain scan had changed. What does that mean exactly?”
She went on to explain that yes, one of the left caverns of my brain was enlarged because that’s where the tumor had been. This doesn’t affect things too much, but it can create a slight internal imbalance in my body. Which isn’t a big deal. And I don’t have anything to worry about. Nothing’s changed since I was five.
I left her office relieved but with a new perspective in light of that tumor in my head all those years ago.
~ ~
I’ve always known that my tumor was a big deal. I’ve seen my kindergarten school picture where my head tilts drastically to one side and my face is swollen. I vaguely remember the inside of the school nurse’s office where I spent hour after hour laying down, complaining that “my head hurts”, throwing up. My mind flashes to memories where I saw things in pairs, my vision doubled and blurred. I see the neurologist who asked me to “follow his finger” and the look of concern on his face when he saw my eyes couldn’t do it. I remember IVs in tiny hands and feet. I seldom feel like those were my limbs. Waiting in a chair on my parents’ laps before going into surgery. My anesthesia smelling like bubble gum as they placed the mask on my face. The feeling of duct tape on the back of my head. Practicing walking in the hospital hallways with the nurses and my new yellow grippy socks. The book from the kind nurse about a Jester who lost his Jingle. Being moved to a hospital room with more sunlight. Riding in a wagon down to the food court to get pizza.
It hurts my heart that I don’t remember more. It hurts my heart when my parents remind me that I could’ve died. I laugh when we all can’t agree on what size the tumor was. “I thought you said golfball!” “No, it was like a softball!” “WHAT? A softball?! No, more like baseball-sized.” Whatever size it was, I’ve got a big ol’ scar on the back of my head to prove it. I’m missing a small sliver of skull. Tears slip out when my parents recount how scared they were or how I spent my kindergarten Halloween too dizzy to successfully trick-o-treat, gripping handrails just to go down the neighbors’ front porch stairs.
It’s a lot, honestly. It feels like a different Katie experienced all of those things. But at the same time, I know I’m still that girl. And I feel braver because of it. Stronger. Astonished. Proud. In awe of all that God has done in and through that situation, as well as in these past 18 years.
~ ~ ~
I’ve never felt like God spared my life. I’ve never felt like He gave me that test to see how we’d get through it. No. It’s not anything decisive or manipulative like that.
It’s part of my story, and I think this blog post needed to happen to honor that. I don’t share these stories for pity or attention or to be seen in a different light. I share them because my brain tumor is still relevant, and for so many years I pushed it aside. It doesn’t dictate how I live my life now, but I’m beginning to think maybe it inspires it. Inspires me to say yes more and adventure more and have less fear to do big things. Inspires me to know the fragility of my being while encompassing its strength. And I think that’s pretty cool.
And the World Race is a big, scary, exciting adventure thing for Jesus. And I’ve said yes. Because I’m the same Katie who survived a brain tumor at five years old. Because I know who I am even if I don’t know where I’m going. And I think that’s pretty cool.
here’s to owning our stories,
K
