Eight years ago today I was given a second chance at life. I do not remember many details of February 9, 2006, but I remember enough. This was the day that I had brain surgery to remove a malformation that was causing major issues and if left alone could have led to my sudden death. Let me take you back and tell you the story.
It was Halloween of 2005. I was sitting in my junior history class in high school. I was perfectly fine one moment and the next I was as sick as could be. I had a chronic migraine, dizziness, full body weakness, went completely pale, and was on the verge of passing out. By the time I reached the doctor’s office most of this had tapered off, but my doctor wanted to find the cause of it. She sent me for a CT scan of my brain the following day. I sat in the waiting room joking with my mother after the scan was done while we were waiting for the results. When the technician came around the corner, Mom and I both knew something was not right. They had found a spot on the scan and wanted to get a better picture of it, so they immediately set me up for an MRI. It was at this moment that mom began calling our family, friends, and church to have them all begin to pray.
It was determined that I had a cavernous hemangioma. In English, this is a knot of blood vessels. The next day we began the long journey of visiting brain surgeon’s to figure out what course of action would be taken. After visiting one surgeon and not being at peace about him, we chose to get a second opinion with Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital in Nashville, TN. When my parent’s and I left after our first visit, we were completely at peace. Two months later, we were back in his office preparing for brain surgery.
I had to be at the hospital around 5:30 a.m. on the morning of the 9th. I went back to pre-op around 6:00 a.m. and was taken back to surgery around 6:30 a.m. with my surgery beginning around 7:00 a.m. This was the last thing I remember until about 4:00 p.m. God had given me a peace going into the surgery. The kind of peace that is mentioned in Philippians 4:4-7 “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
The first thing I remember after surgery has come to be a funny story within my family. The first thing I remember is the nurse standing over me with my chart and asking her fellow nurse at the nurse’s station what the lobe of the brain above the temporal lobe was. I had just studied this in A&P and so I knew the answer. So I told her it was the parietal lobe. She gave me a very quizzical look, and then jokingly said that if I could spell it I would be doing good. I spelled it perfectly. She then went and got my parents. I walked out of the hospital on my own feet 4 days later without any lasting side effects or issues.
This was Thursday, February 9, 2006. It was the day that God gave me a second chance to live and work for Him. He used this experience to get my attention and prepare me for my call into the ministry. I can honestly say that I do not believe I would be where I am today and doing what I am today if it were not for this experience. God has even allowed me to share with students at camp about this experience and even put a student in my path who had recently been diagnosed with a brain tumor. I was able to share my story with her and pour into her the truths that God showed me during this time.
While I did not understand it to begin with, I am extremely thankful for this experience God chose me to go through.
