I read a
talk on Miracles by Elder Dallin H. Oaks given at an LDS Church Educational
System Fireside back in May of 2000 recently and wanted to start this post with
a small part of it. He said a miracle has been defined as “a
beneficial event brought about through divine power that mortals do not
understand and of themselves cannot duplicate.” …….
He then said Although we are generally counseled not to
speak of sacred things like the miracles we have witnessed, there are times
when the Spirit prompts us to share these experiences, sometimes even in a
setting where our account will be published. The miracles written in the
scriptures were obviously intended to be shared, usually to strengthen the faith
of those who already believed. Modern servants of the Lord have also felt
impressed to describe miraculous events to strengthen the faith of believers.
Many of these have been published……”
I feel that I, Emily’s mother, need to share our Miracles with all
that want to hear and believe. First let
me thank all of you who joined with us in a special Family Fast and Prayer for
our Emily. And now let me share a bit of
our long journey (in as short a summary as I can) for those that are not aware
of our story. When Emily was 18 months
old she started to walk in a unique way and would have times where she acted
like things hurt. After a visit for her
18 month check she was sent to a Neurologist and that is when things got
scary. My mom said she had never seen a
Dr. with so much fear on his face and I had never had a Dr. ask if I had family
in the area (we were at Primary Children’s Medical Center 3 hours from our home
at the time). We then had 3 days of MRI,
C-Scan, blood work, and bone biopsy. The
doctors prepared us for what they thought to be a very hard to treat cancerous
tumor. Life seemed to stop and
everything went in slow motion for a week while we waited for a complete
diagnosis to come back. Our family and
friends together fasted, prayed, put Emily’s name in LDS temples, and she had
priesthood blessings. Our first miracle was then witnessed. Doctors could not explain why it was not what
they were so sure of at first. Instead,
we got to be thrilled when they found what was believed to be a tumor was
really Osteomyelitis (a bone infection) that could be taken care of with
surgery and IV antibiotics. That worked
for a bit, but flare ups kept coming and a decision of CRMO (chronic recurrent
multifocal osteomyelitis) was made.
Which we could still deal with, but meant many doctors, lots of different
medicines, lots of imaging, and many prayers.
She had another surgery when a flare up was showing a new lesion and
uncontrolled inflammation. That helped
and we seemed to have almost a year of remission. However, it was short lived and pain came
back with a vengeance and we hospitalized her for pain control and to look into
why she was not responding more like other patients. It was then found that she had another
diagnosis to go with the CRMO, LCH (Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis). This normally responded to CHEMO so then we
started on that. In the end it did
nothing to help and we lost a head of hair, almost a life, and were again
reminded that miracles do still happen.
Emily came back strong for a while, but was still having pain so we
started another new medicine after a time and all seemed to go well until it
was time to do another MRI and see how the medicine was working. It was done on December 27, 2013 a
Friday evening. I figured I would hear
all was okay and stable (as most of her latest ones had been) sometime the next
week. Imagine my fear when the call from
the doctor (not a nurse) came Monday early afternoon to tell me they found a
new lesion close to the spine where the hips meet that appeared aggressive. They needed to see Emily sooner than her next
appointment. A forum (group meeting with
Doctors and Radiologists on certain cases) would be meeting on January 8th
and an appointment was made for us on Friday January 10th. The tears came and I scared poor little
Emily, but I would not let this happen.
I asked for family and friends to join in a special fast and prayer that
the Doctors would see what they needed to see and that they would know what to
treat her with that would work for her.
I felt so lost, but I knew that we had been blessed with Miracles in the
past and surely we could get another.
Well we got our MIRACLE when I went with Emily and met with her Doctor
things could not be explained and were almost ignored because there was no
answer they could give for calling me earlier.
At the forum there was no new lesion mentioned and it even appeared that
things were looking a little better (a first in 8 years of imaging). We were told to keep with the medicine that
we are doing and to just keep following up as needed. There is damage from the first flare up that
is not repairable, but we all have our flaws that we can handle and live with.
We are just feeling so blessed to be allowed to be part of God’s modern day
miracles. I hope that this story may be
a testimony to others that God is still in charge, He does still listen and speak
to His children, and He does still perform MIRACLES. Again I want to say Thank you to all who have
prayed, fasted, put a name in the temple, and loved us—You helped to allow God
to perform our miracle—don’t ever forget the power and testimony you have—we
won’t.
Wow--almost a whole year without writing--too bad this is not something new for me. I just wanted to post this here to keep as record to truly remind me of our miracles. I wanted to put pictures too, but it is not working today--or maybe I just forgot how to do it right. I might just better get back to posting and keeping some family history.
