A Miracle

When I put my post on here about making my blog private I had a couple people ask me why I was so freaked out. I've never considered myself to be a very private person. I don't like secrets, "hiding things", and I've pretty much always been an open book. I appreciate people who just say it like it is. I enjoy writing. When I sit down here to write something on my blog, I want to write whatever I want.

When Jay & I were on our trip to Hawaii, while we were waiting in line to get our rental car, I started talking to the lady in line beside me. She and her husband were there for a vacation as well, and they are from Colorado. They were on our exact same trip, same flights, same hotel, everything. We kept running into them at our hotel, met up for dinner, hung out a little bit, and just hit it off with them. It was almost eerie to me how comfortable we were with each other. While we did learn a lot about each other on our vacation, our conversation was pretty lighthearted and jovial. Never once did she mention to me "I had a brain tumor a year and a half ago and could have died." It wasn't till we have been home and emailing back and forth that she told me she had had a brain tumor. She is also LDS and I wanted to know more of her story. I'm always intrigued when someone tells me they have had cancer or a tumor and want to know how they knew they were sick, what happened, etc. What she told me was very touching and when I asked her if I could share it she said yes. It reminded me of all I have to be thankful for in my life, and that no matter what happens, the Lord is in charge. This is her story.

I started out having more and more headaches. I would wake up in the morning with headaches ( uncommon unless you get too much sleep) I lost my hearing in my right ear. I was very dizzy and at times could hardly walk. After a while I had a cloudy, confused feeling all of the time. I felt like I was going crazy to tell you the truth. I started off going to an ear, nose and throat doc. She ordered an mri. They found a pea sized tumor straight in from my eye, straight down from the top of my head (in the middle of my brain). The bottom of my brain that was out of my skull, was pushing into my neck and stopping the spinal fluid from flowing. That was the cause of most of my symptoms. We found the best neurosurgeon around and made an appointment. It took 2 months to get in to see him. We met with him, and he told us about the surgeries that I needed. We scheduled them and drove home. The next night our doctor called us at home. He said that Tim and I needed to come back to Denver as soon as we could. He said that he had a feeling and wanted all of my tests to be redone. During all of this was when Tim and my dad gave me a blessing, we had a family fast and the stake also fasted for me. (With the surgery, I would most likely go blind and the possibility of major complications was high because of the location of the tumor) It took us a couple days before we could get back to Denver. I had a full day of tests and the results are something that I will never forget. Doctor Lilleheigh loaded the results of the new tests next to my tests from 10 weeks ago. He looked, then looked again. He studied them with a troubled look on his face. Then he asked us to look at the monitor. He said: "Somehow during the last 10 weeks your brain has completely healed itself." He said: "I have never seen anything like this in my career as a doctor." Then he wanted to know what I had been doing. We told him about the blessing, and about all the people who had fasted and prayed for me. It makes me cry to remember how amazing all of this was. That was not good enough for him. He sent me to 2 other doctors for more tests. Test after test the results were the same. We told them that we believe in miracles (large and small). If we take the time to look at our lives, they are full of miracles. That is my story.