They call me a miracle!

They call me a miracle!

Kim

I am a newbie which means I’m only 10 weeks post operative of my craniotomy. Eleven weeks ago my life could have taken so many different turns but through God’s blessing the path I am now on is a path of healing and recovery. I’m a Christian, a wife, mother of three with 2 teenage girls still at home, and a registered nurse with your typical 2 job work schedule, and a runner. My life was busy 24/7 and dealing with my constant headache were a nuisance that I tended to ignore. However, five weeks prior to my diagnosis in June, my migraine headaches began to turn into a sicking headache that would wake me up every morning at 2-3 am with a pure wave of pain. I would get up and go get on the couch, take a headache medicine and basically just sit up straight. That seemed to help for some odd reason(later discovered why). And eventually my pain level would drop from a 12 to a 5 and I would head off to work. It began to happen so often that I finally made a appointment to see my ENT because I had a history of sinus infection and a MRI 5 years prior showed sinus infection damage and no tumors.

That ENT visit never took place. On a Monday morning, I once again was awakened by such severe waves of pain and nothing I did helped. I was scheduled to be a work at that point could not even get dressed. My husband who is also a nurse was sitting beside me and said he really thought I was just having another sinus infection. And as I struggled as of what to do, God spoke to me as he has few other times in my life in a authoratative loud voice and said,” Kim if you don’t go to a hospital right now you are going to die.” and I looked at my husband and repeated what was said to me and off we went to the ER. And from that point, my life changed. CT scan showed a 8mm shift in by brain from fluid and a large tumor. I was taken by EMS to a level three hospital. I was told either cancer or benign but either way it had to come out and the fluid shifting my brain had to get leveled out. I had my surgery 11 days later once the fluid and shift had resolved. And was found to have a atypical benign meningioma that was larger than a golf ball. It was growing on the left side of my brain behind my ear. The muscle to my ear and jaw had to be cut and repaired. My tumor was completely removed after a 5 hour surgery. I had no deficits and after 4 weeks of recovery was able to return to work. Had I not listened to God speaking to me that morning, my outcome would not have been so great. I still have a lot of discomfort at the incision site and I have told by my neurosurgeon that my healing/recovery time is 6 months to a year and he reminds me that I was blessed with a miracle. I hold that close to my heart because I never want to forget God’s blessings!

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