Blessing in Disguise

I had no idea that a week after my 33rd birthday, I would wake up in the hospital and face the toughest year of my life. I remember waking up in a hospital bed and seeing my mother with tears in her eyes as she began to tell me that I had been diagnosed with a very large brain tumor. As you can imagine, I had a million questions. The tumor was so large that it took up pretty much all the space on the right side of my brain. I had so much fluid on my brain that I had to wait two weeks before I could have surgery so they could remove the fluid. My surgery took 10 hours and when I woke up, I couldn’t speak and I couldn’t walk without having someone hold me up. The Drs. told my mother that my chances of surviving were very low. I was really scared for my children who were 12, 10, and 2. The thought of them having to lose their mother terrified me.

Over the next 8 months, I had to have 24-hour care, radiation, physical therapy and I had to learn a lot of patience. Some days I wanted to just give up, but I had lots of people praying for me and I knew that there was something to learn from it all. Before I was diagnosed with my brain tumor, I spent lots of money on my looks and I was really selfish. A week before I woke up in the hospital, I spent $2,000 on hair extensions that I never got to wear because all my hair was shaved off my head. In the hospital, I had lots and lots of time to sit and think about my life, and the more I thought about how I had wasted money, talents and time, the more I got disgusted with myself. One morning at 4:30 AM a nurse came into my hospital room and she prayed with me. After she left, I rededicated my life to the Lord and I asked Him to forgive me of my past mistakes and I asked that He heal my body and make me new again.

Having a brain tumor has changed my life forever; most importantly, it has made me into a better person. I don’t take the smallest things for granted, it humbled me, I look around for ways to help others and I live every day for the Lord. There was a time when I didn’t know if I would ever be able to speak again and I could barely hold a fork on my own to eat and now I play the keyboard and sing in the praise and worship team at my church. There is never a time that I sit down at the piano that I’m not reminded of the time I thought that I would never be able to play and sing again, but here I am doing both! Pray and talk with God during your time of quietness and stillness and He will show you things that you’ve always been too busy to see. 🙂

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Opinions expressed within this story belong solely to the author and do not reflect the views or opinions of the National Brain Tumor Society.