It’s been a while!
First, Harrison and I went to New York. A crazy storm last Sunday evening left us without electricity for the majority of the week, so it’s just been a little crazy around here.
While Harrison and I were in New York, the Southern Baptist Convention met for their annual meeting. During that meeting, the convention made great strides toward removing women from ministry positions. I followed along through live stream, Twitter, and other news sources. Evidently, they can’t pass such a significant amendment without having a 2/3 majority vote two years in a row. I’m sure we will hear a lot on the subject during the next year.
I plan to continue my studies on the topic this year as well. I’m learning a lot and definitely asking questions. Still, I’m not ready to write an opinion on the subject yet. Don’t mistake that to say that I don’t have an opinion on the matter, just that I’m not ready to articulate that opinion.
Last week my whole family participated and helped with Vacation Bible School in our new church. When we walked away from Tree Town, I never thought I would want to be part of a VBS again. Even though it was always one of my favorite things, too many memories were attached. But this week was good. The pastor asked me to write something different than other VBS programs. They wanted to reach the kids in the community, but not with a boxed VBS. It pushed me outside of my comfort zone, allowed me to write a program from scratch, and allowed me to be creative in a way I had never done before.
It was also fun to serve with my entire family. Jeremy and the kids helped with the skits, my parents were there helping with the food, and my in-laws helped in the nursery and with security. All our friends were there. It was like old times. It was comfortable, exciting, and just what we needed to realize that we could move forward. It wasn’t hard or exhausting, which was different for us. It was only 3 nights, and on top of that, only 1 1/2 hours each night. I’m learning that bigger isn’t always better.
I would like to write more about that subject and probably will soon, but today I wanted to complete the series I started on miracles.
The last surgery I wrote about was the one I had to correct my spinal curve when I was 12. I spent my 13th birthday in the hospital, recovering from that surgery.
One thing I should have mentioned when writing that post was this…
By December of 1990, we had begun the process of leaving my childhood church. We had been attending since things had fallen apart almost 1 year before. My daddy felt like we had stayed long enough, that we had repaired the relationships that needed to be repaired, waited while the church found a new pastor, and then quietly slipped away.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, we visited every church within a 30-mile radius of our home. We visited every Missionary Baptist Church near us, and we were faithful visitors… we visited Sunday morning (Sunday School and Worship), Sunday night (Baptist Training Union and Worship), and also Wednesday nights as well.
I don’t mean for this to sound prideful, and I don’t even think much of it now, but at the time, in the small circle of rural churches, my family was well-known. My dad, aunt, and grandmother sang as a group for many years, and they had been in all of these churches to sing. I joked that my parents and grandmother were like church celebrities. Now that they were on the move looking for a new church, every local church wanted to be the one they chose.
By the time I had surgery that year, we had visited numerous churches. Therefore, all those pastors came to the hospital to sit with my family while I was in surgery. Those pastors, along with my grandfather, who was a pastor, and my uncle, who was also a pastor, filled the waiting room.
All the pastors introduced themselves when the chaplain came to check on my parents. The chaplain said he had never been less needed in a situation. It was a funny moment during an otherwise scary day.
Also, that day, Jeremy remembers his youth group attending an after-Christmas youth event in Little Rock. At this time, we hadn’t met. But Jeremy’s uncle knew my family and knew what about my surgery.
Jeremy says as they were headed home, his uncle asked the group if they would mind stopping at Arkansas Children’s Hospital to check on us. He remembers him saying that there was a sweet little girl (his words, not mine) having surgery that day who had been through a lot, and he thought they should stop by.
I always thought that was the sweetest story. We didn’t even know each other yet, and he was there on one of the hardest days of my life.
We ended up visiting that church in late January of 1991 after my surgery. Jeremy and I were “going together” by April of that year, and the rest of our relationship is history.
I felt like 3 surgeries were enough, but it turned out that I would need one more.
Sometime in 1993, all of the things they fixed in my previous neurosurgery in 1990 would need to be repaired yet again.
The bone grew back again, but this time, my spinal cord looped over the bone. Surgery was necessary and once again risky.
By this time, Jeremy and I had been together for quite a while, and he had given me a promise ring. We were in love. Young, for sure, but we knew we wanted to be together for the rest of our lives.
Until then, our “dates” had only been with a chaperone or at one of our houses with our parents there.
I wasn’t allowed to go on an actual date until I was sixteen years old.
But I would be in the hospital for my 16th birthday. This was becoming a theme.
Daddy let me go on a date with Jeremy a month early. And let me tell you it was a fancy date.
We had dinner at the local Western Sizzlin’, went bowling, and returned home. It was amazing and wonderful. It was simple but perfect.
This surgery would be a little different. My neurosurgeon was moving to become the head of neurosurgery at a Children’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. He gave me the option of traveling to D.C. for the surgery or staying in Arkansas and having the doctor who trained under him do the surgery. We opted to stay in Arkansas. And it was a good decision.
A special thing that happened before that surgery… my orthopedic surgeon knew I was nervous because I didn’t know this new neurosurgeon very well. He came to the operating room and held my hand as the anesthesiologist put me to sleep. I will never forget that act of kindness.
The surgery went well. I recovered quickly and saw that doctor every year of my life until he retired last year.
I was blessed with amazing doctors. And Arkansas Children’s Hospital was a godsend.
I don’t know if I quit growing or if the bone that grew through my spinal cord just decided to give me a reprieve, but the bone never returned.
The fluid pocket they repaired came undone about a month after the surgery. It has never been the same.
I recently had an MRI, and the doctor showed me my two spinal cords. You can clearly see where it is split to this day. It’s a chilling thing to see.
You can also see where a large portion of spinal fluid has leaked out around my tailbone and toward the center of my back. The fluid still moves in and out of my spinal column at will. When too much fluid moves, it renders me almost useless. I can’t get up and move around much, I get a spinal headache, and it feels like a trailer truck is sitting on my tailbone. Those days are hard. I can control it a little by not overdoing it, not lifting anything too heavy, not bending over too much, and not being on my feet for too long.
A day never goes by that I don’t hurt. I’m in pain most of the time, but it is bearable until it is not.
I consider the fact that I walk, function, had babies, and live a relatively normal life a miracle. Most people never even know that I have had so many surgeries and a severe birth defect. Most people don’t know that I almost died at the age of 10, that I should never have walked, that carrying a child in my womb could easily have paralyzed me, that I hurt all the time, that there’s literally nothing any doctor can do to help with that pain… and I don’t tell this story now for people to feel sorry for me. I tell it because I want the world to know that we serve an amazing God, one who still works miracles, and I’ve witnessed those miracles and continue to do so to this day.
My neurosurgeon told me one time that my MRI and X-ray films are now in the rotation of things they use to teach new doctors. They will allow the doctors to study these films and then ask them if the patient is able to walk or if the patient is paralyzed. Their answer when looking at mine is that I am paralyzed. You see, my spinal cord is very distinctively in two separate pieces, and that usually means paralyzation. In fact, they say that I never walked. The doctors have always told me that, based on my condition, it is a miracle that I was ever able to walk… ever… I should never have even taken my first steps as a baby. My anatomy says that is impossible. But God had a different plan.
I can walk, I carried two babies almost to term, I have bowel and bladder function, I swim, I travel… I was a children’s minister for 3 years and never missed a beat. In fact, I doubt many people at Tree Town ever even knew the severity of my condition. It wasn’t something I shared very often. I now work with our farm and continue to do things I never should have been able to do. I have lived a life full of miracles.
And I am thankful.
Until Next Time,
Whitney