MY SISTER’S TRIUMPH
I come from a big family with 5 brothers and 5 sisters. I’m the fourth youngest child. When I was 15 and my baby sister was10,she started to drop things and was losing the strength in her arms. My parents took her to a couple doctors, but they didn’t know what was wrong. They took her to another one and he knew right away, that there was some kind of growth on her spine, and sent her to get it checked. The x-ray showed, she had a tumor on her cervical spine.
She went for surgery and had the tumor removed, and because of the doctor having to cut away a bit of her spine to get at it, we had to teach her to walk all over again. She was ok for a while and walked again; but then she started to have fainting spells and was losing the strength in her arms again.
When she was 13, she had to have another operation and they removed the tumor again; but the roots were gone farther into her spinal cord and she has never walked since. They kept her on a cot, on her stomach for months, in the children’s hospital and we visited her often. It was so hard seeing her lie there and not able to move.
She was sent to the
During those seven years the tumor came back again, and she had to have another operation and survived that one also. Her lungs became very weak and they found a huge ball of fluid in her neck and they operated and one of her lungs collapsed. She ended up on life support and there was nothing else they could do for her.
The doctor told my sisters up there that if any of us wanted to see her anymore, we had to go up. Some of the family went but I didn’t, because I had a small baby at the time (my youngest who’s now 16). I called her the night before they were going to unhook the life support and said my goodbyes and that was one of the hardest nights of my life. The doctor said there was no way she would live.
She had her funeral all arranged, from her hymns to the pallbearers, and there were people praying for her all over the world. The prayers must have worked, because when they called the next day, she was sitting up in a chair eating a hamburger. I had never been so relieved in all my life. She came home again shortly after that, because our parents weren’t getting any younger. She went to a home in
She learned how to write with her mouth and does that well. She has her own computer and is really good at that too. She has her own apartment and staff comes in to take care of her needs. She manages the home and hires people to work there. Because of her weak heart and lungs, she can never have any more surgery. She is on oxygen 100% of the time, but she still manages to make the scattered phone call.
That’s pretty good for someone who was supposed to die 16 years ago, isn’t it? My sister is taking a lot of drugs because of her being paralyzed from her neck down. She has put her life in God’s hands and has so much faith. She knows, she could die at any time and she does get scared about that.
She always says to me, how she never had the chance to get married or have kids and she adores all her nieces and nephews, all 30 of them.
My sister is a survivor and I’m so proud of her and know how lucky we are to still have her with us. The doctor told us that she will not suffer when she dies, but will go into a peaceful sleep and she’ll be with the Lord. She says, then she'll walk again, up there and she’ll have no more suffering . My sister's an inspiration to us all. She’s been paralyzed for 29 years. I hope you don’t mind how long this is.
Meg