I know that some readers still don't know me that well, but for the ones that do, you know my wonderful mom has had some problems recently. If you can call a green walnut sized tumor in your brain a "problem".
Anyway, I've been asked by several to tell her story, and why she is "a miracle". So I've decided to do that right here, because I want to tell as many people as I possibly can what happened to my family. I want people to know that God's still performing miracles......every day......even if they aren't as obvious as the one I'm going to tell you about.
I've experienced many miracles in my life. Some I recognize, some I don't, but the biggest one I've had, I want to tell you about now. I'm going to do it in two parts, because the story starts a long time ago.
Rewind the clock 8-10 years.
Mom has always been a hard worker. She'd held a job since before she and my dad married until I came along. Then they were in a financial state to where they felt like she could be a stay-at-home mom. So she home-schooled me, kept the house, cooked all the time, took care of my grandparents, ran errands, mowed the yard........she not only mowed for us, but for others as well. As I grew up, it was just part of my summer routine.
One day, we were mowing for my grandma and I couldn't get the trimmer started. I was getting pretty frustrated, which is the normal for me (especially at that time), so mom came over to help me.
After she had pulled on the cord a couple times, she rested, then gave one really REALLY hard pull. It started right up that time, but she had hurt her right shoulder. She said that she felt like she'd pulled something out of place, but we needed to finish the yard, so the pain was shoved to the back of her mind. Her arm was never the same after that. Her shoulder pain was almost constant, and no matter what she did, it just didn't seem to go back in to place.
Not long after that, she developed a knot on the front of her shoulder. We all thought it was from the shoulder being out of place, but no matter what happened the knot wouldn't leave. It stayed that way for several years, relatively small in size, but it hurt all the way down her arm. At times it even hindered her from playing her guitar.....which she loved.
In 2007, the pain was so bad there were times she couldn't raise her arm, so we convinced mom to see a chiropractor. The knot had grown since it first appeared, but we were all trying to talk ourselves in to thinking it hadn't.
She started seeing a local chiropractor, who told her the knot was a calcium formation, stemming from when she had injured her shoulder with the trimmer. He explained that, even thought nothing was really out of place, there had been a small fracture there, and her body was trying to heal it by sending calcium to the bone, but after the fracture had healed, the calcium hadn't stopped building.
This did make sense, and after all, he was the doctor. He'd taken X-Rays and everything. He started treatments to break loose the calcium 2 times per week. Mom would have a treatment (which hurt so bad it would bring her to tears), then the pain would be gone for a day or two and she would feel normal again. She did that for several weeks, but the relief wouldn't last over 2 days. Nothing ever worked for a long period of time. The knot grew.
Mom had an indication that something else was wrong besides calcium build up, but she never said until years later. I'm pretty sure it was dad that convinced mom to go to an actual doctor (not that chiropractors aren't doctors.......you know what I mean.) I believe it was early September in 2007 that she went to her normal physician to ask about the shoulder. They took more X-Rays and said there was definitely something there, and scheduled her an appointment with a specialist. Dad was working, so I drove mom to her appointment later that same day. I was newly engaged, to be married the following year, and the thought that something serious could be wrong with my mom had never hit me. I just thought she had a shoulder injury that she was too stubborn to see about. When the doctor walked in to the exam room and said he thought it was a tumor, I felt hot fear. The kind that starts at the top of your head and slowly pours down your whole body. We called dad to come up, because mom needed him for support, and he brought my fiance' because he knew I would need his support. She had the MRI and we were called with results that night. It was definitely a tumor that had developed in her shoulder, and she would need to go to Kansas City, KS to KUMED and see another specialist; Dr Kimberly Templeton.
The whole family went to this consultation. Dad, Russ (my brother) and me. Dr. Templeton, we feel, was the doctor that God led us to. She seemed to care, had a lot of smarts, and worked harder than we knew (during the time) to help us. When we met with her, we teased mom that she was the doctor for us because she carried a Diet Coke with her constantly. That got a little chuckle out of mom, but we were all so keyed up, we didn't have many more laughs for a while. Dr. Templeton met with us and explained that she was pretty sure it was a cancerous tumor and wanted a biopsy. The next few weeks are all a blur in my mind. I think it was so surreal to me that I just wanted to block it out. The main key points I remember; The biopsy revealed Chondrosarcoma Cancer at level 2 (with 1 being the best, 3 being the worst), the biopsy caused the knot in her shoulder to grow even more, if there was anything on mom's lungs......she wouldn't last but about 2 months because they couldn't do anything for it, and her arm would have to come off. The prayers started going heavy, even before they scheduled the scan for her lungs. One thing that drives me crazy about doctors is the fact that they know results of tests as soon as they see them, yet they don't want to reveal the results to you for days. We were scared to death after that scan, and we were just supposed to go get in a car and drive home. We did.....and prayed the whole way. About half way home, the cell phone rang. It was Dr. Templeton's nurse. She said she wanted to give us some good news; She had seen the scan, and mom's lungs looked perfect! Talk about a shouting meeting in the car! We felt so wonderful, we knew our prayers had been answered. Mom was still having to loose her arm, but we could keep her, and that's all that mattered.
November 6th, 2007 was surgery day. We didn't know it, but Dr Templeton had gone to Europe to see about an artificial shoulder she had helped develop. If she could have brought that back to the US, the could have saved mom's arm and just replaced her shoulder. But, the US wouldn't allow her to bring it back, so the arm had to go too.
More prayers.
The surgery was a complete success. The doctor said mom had done great, and didn't even need to be given any blood. She had taken biopsies of all tissue behind the tumor to make sure she got it all, and she had. We could see her in recovery in a couple hours.
I don't think I could ever forget seeing mom for the first time after the surgery. She looked really good. It was strange to me to see her right side all bandaged up, but I was just happy to see her. She stayed in the hospital for only 4 days and surprised us all by coming home so soon. As the weeks went by, we slowly got used to seeing mom with only one arm, and she slowly learned how to do things on her own.
We went back for her 3 month check up feeling positive that everything would be good. And it was. We were all on top of the world. But when we went back for the next 3 month check up, something was wrong. The doctor was taking way too long to come talk to us. We could just feel it, and I know mom could too because she hadn't really wanted to go back for this check up in the first place.
When the doctor came in, she said that there was indeed a problem. A couple spots had developed on the top of mom's left lung. They were roughly 1/2 inch in size and she was pretty sure it was the cancer. Once again I felt the hot fear pouring over me. This wasn't supposed to happen. Everything was supposed to be going good! I was getting married the next month, I needed mom to be OK!
Dr. Templeton said that there was nothing she could do except refer us to a lung specialist. Since Chondrosarcoma couldn't be treated with chemotherapy or radiation, surgery was the only answer. When we met with the lung doctor, he didn't really.......suit us. He said;
"Oh yeah. Pretty sure I agree with Dr. Templeton. This is Chondra......so we'll go in, do a lung biopsy, and when it proves I'm right, I'll go in and lop of the top part of that lung. No problem."
No problem. Sure. We just go through stuff like this every day! The odd thing is, the doctor didn't make an appointment with us before we left. He said that we needed to call back the following week to schedule it. We left that day with sad hearts and minds. Now, I know what you're thinking. God didn't answer your prayers because the cancer went to her lungs. Wrong. God did answer our prayers.......and in even more ways that we didn't know about until recently.
Dad mentioned what happened with the doctor at church the following Sunday. It was decided that we would do a healing service for her, and boy, was God there. Mom said she just felt like she had been touched and everything would be OK. After that day, mom called the doctor to make an appointment, and they just didn't have time for her. They promised to call her back the next day and didn't. This went on for a couple weeks, with mom calling every few days. After she called the 5th time, she did some serious praying. She prayed for a sign. If she called one more time and didn't get an appointment, she would know she wasn't supposed to go back. And that's what happened. She called and got put off again, so she didn't go back.
This is about half of the full story, so I'm going to take a break here. I'll be posting part two very soon, so I hope you will check back with me to hear the rest of our miracle.
No comments:
Post a Comment