Faith in Jesus: My tumor story

Here is a story I want to share with all of you about a rare tumor I had and the faith I needed to get through everything. I wrote this paper and also gave this speech at EIU last year in two different classes except I had to add some information to the end to make the story up to date.

Having Faith in Jesus

               People put their faith in so many things. Everyone has faith in something. Sometimes people have faith in sports, relationships with friends, various religions, amongst other things. I however believe that having faith in Jesus Christ is the most important.

                I have been raised in a Christian home. Throughout my life I have been taught to have faith in the Lord, knowing that He will always be there for me no matter what. There are several things that God has done and provided for me. The Lord has shown Himself to me in so many areas of my life. He has answered so many of my prayers. I have also been healed several times.

                 Throughout my life, my faith has been tested. I remember one instance so clearly where I was faced with a serious life situation. It was three weeks after my Grandpa had passed away. I was two weeks away from turning thirteen years old. I was rolling on the floor in so much pain. I went to the doctor’s office. There were three different things going on. I had a touch of the flu, and getting ready to start my first menstrual cycle. One of the other things was that I had was this strange knot in my belly button. It caused the doctors to do a cat scan. It was at that moment I was told that I had a very rare tumor called angiomyolipoma that was located on my left kidney. The knot on my belly button was not related to the tumor. The doctor’s did not know what it was and why it mysteriously came and went away. It was a miracle that it was even discovered. This particular type of tumor consisted of fat, muscle, and blood supply. The blood supply feeding this tumor was very serious because they told me I could “bleed out.” That basically meant that I could bleed to death internally. My tumor turned out to be non cancerous.

               We then started having check-up in Springfield, IL which is over 2 hours from where we live. Sarah Bush Hospital in Mattoon IL. did not want to take my case and neither did the hospital in Champaign, IL. I got to have the best specialty doctor around this area that was familiar with this type of tumor. At first they said I was going to have to be cut from naval to back and have part of the kidney removed. The doctors, however waited for a new surgical technology to come out to try and remove this tumor. It is called, cryotherapy. It had never been used to treat angiomyolipoma in a pediatric patient. They told us time was on our side and to wait for the tumor to grow a little more while they did more research on my case. Of course this all did not make sense to us why we should wait for it to grow. We had several check ups then one day we went for another 6 month appointment and were not expecting to hear that my tumor had kept growing and the time had come to remove it. When my Mom asked the doctors, “Will she survive?” they replied saying, “Mrs. Callaway, we can’t promise you anything. This is something we have not done on a pediatric patient with angiomyolipoma. We will just do our best.” It was so hard and scary to hear those words that I might not survive. I knew that every surgery had risks involved, but in my eyes this surgery was going to be much more complicated. I needed to have faith that the Lord would be with me and that I would survive.

          I was on every prayer chain imaginable. There were so many prayers to the Lord going up for me. It was during this time that my faith was made stronger. I had to put my life in His hands and just trust in Him. I know I would not be here today if it were not for the Lord.

              When the day of the surgery came, we were all a little worried. I knew however, that I would be okay.  I had a team of five surgeons and the Lord was also with me. There were two main surgeons and three either assisting or observing. The surgery was very long and I had a lot of pain, but I came through it. My surgery went great even though I did have a small amount of bleeding. The bleeding did stop and was very minimal. The new surgical procedure that they used even caused less of a scar. Now I only have three very small incisions, which is amazing and it can hardly be seen now. I had a long road to recovery, but through faith and all those prayers, I did survive.

               I am now written up in the National Medical Journals. I have been studied for years and will continue to be studied for years yet to come throughout my entire life. The doctors said there is a possibility that more of these tumors could form.

               I am now twenty years old. I had another routine check up a few months ago and the doctor told me that it looked like my cat scan showed another tumor had came back, but they were not for sure. All the doctors and radiologists were conferring with each other and then told me I needed to have an ultra sound. The technician scanned and then the pediatric radiologist wanted to also scan me. They tend to think that what they found was just cysts that formed, but they plan to keep a closer eye on it. So far, things seem good and I know that I am a living miracle.

            Having faith in life is sometimes hard. Through my life experiences, I believe that Jesus is real. He has shown Himself to me in so many aspects of my life. By believing in the Lord my faith has been increased. I must continue to have faith in Him.

Update: August 7, 2013
Next week will be 22 (on August 15th). Had a check up yesterday. A new tumor has appeared. Awaiting final results from radiologist.

Update August 22, 2014
I turned 23 years old. My doctor said the tumor has not grown in size. Will follow up in another year. The doctor's have said during this entire time that they would have to figure out a different kind of surgery since the first type of surgery I had would not work. This different surgery would be more invasive and risky since they would have to work on the kidney and the heart. They would have to figure out what blood vessels and arteries in the heart are feeding the tumor and get rid of those in the heart while making sure they don't cut the wrong ones that the rest of my body needs. God has this in His hands.

Update August 25, 2015.
My mom, dad, and I drove to Springfield to have my ultrasound/testing done this morning and then we saw my surgeon, who is a great specialist in the afternoon. My doctor came into my patient room and couldn't believe I was already 24 since I still looked to be 14 years old. Lol. He said my bladder, uterus, ovaries, and kidneys looked good. I did have a cyst on my right ovary, but nothing to be concerned about. He said there were no changes in size to the lesion tumor he was looking at so no surgery necessary at this time. He said if we are lucky it might even be scar tissue or mesh from the first surgery, but it could be a different kind of tumor; however he is unsure. He said the type of tumors are slow growing so we decided that I will be go back in 18 months. Thank you Jesus for a good report.