Faith, Trust and Pixie Dust.

I’m going to be honest, this one is difficult to put in words, and there are going to be a lot of them. Sometimes I still have a hard time explaining it. Hang with me. There’s a lot of science, and a lot of God in this post and together, you get faith, trust and a little bit of pixie dust…magic.

“I grew up catholic. Cath-o-lic. Every Sunday, every Sunday my dad made us get up and go to mass and you had to get there what? Quarter of five in the morning. Ya know, because you wanted good seats.” One of my all time favorite Dane Cook skits. Christ Chex.

I did grow up Catholic, involved in the ministries at church as an alter server, youth group and went to Sunday school as a kid. I went to Catholic grade school and a Catholic high school and started my collegiate education at a Catholic University before I transferred. That’s a lot of religion for a long time. I really enjoyed church when I went to high school, the community services with other students and staff were always something I looked forward to. I enjoyed theology classes and studying the scripture as well as learning about different religions around the world. They all had one thing in common. God.

Everyone I think has a different definition of God, and my definition or perception of God has changed over the years. After Loren died…my relationship with God changed. I remember getting the message that Loren didn’t show up for work, calling the police asking for a wellness check and begging on my knees that she be okay. I remember getting in the car driving to my mom’s house while we were waiting for answers, silently begging and bargaining with God to let her be okay because I needed her and she had just turned 30. Ben and I had been married for three weeks and I needed Loren to talk to about all of the things that sisters talk about. When we found out Loren had died, I collapsed to the floor screaming and feeling so angry that someone “all powerful” let her die. I scoffed at this man that gave his only son to die for my sins and thought “well he didn’t care enough about Jesus, why would he save my sister”. I stopped going to church for a long time because I blamed God for letting this happen to her, being so angry he didn’t intervene and had the mind set of “why should I pray if He doesn’t listen”. So I stopped praying.

I was angry for a long time when Loren died. Despite our differences, arguments and stubbornness, I lost my best friend. I lost an aunt for my children, and when Loren died, I felt like a part of me did too. To be honest, I think I lost some of my spark when she passed, and it took a long time for it to come back.

When I found out I was pregnant, I had a lot of emotions. Fear, anxiety, doubt, and anger that Loren wouldn’t be around. However, after talking with Loren’s former roommate, I realized that “every good and precious gift is from above”. Babies are precious and they are a gift, and I know where my sister is which meant she had already met Brooklyn before I knew who that sweet baby was.

Fast forward to when we had Brooklyn,and our nurse practitioner found the fullness in her fontanel. I always had a fear that something would be wrong with Brooklyn’s brain because Loren had the aneurysm. How could that not have been a fear of mine, especially when Loren’s aneurysm trauma was still so fresh. After all, Ben and I had only been married for a year and a half since Loren passed. When they suspected the brain bleed, (before we knew it was a tumor) I sat there and again hated God but wanted him to intervene all the same. “You took my sister and now you let this happen to my daughter?” I felt so completely hopeless and remember trying to bargain again, “let’s make a trade”. Ben and I didn’t know what the future held and decided to have Brooklyn baptized while we were in the ER.

I’ve never angry prayed so hard in my life. I’ve never been so disrespectful, or demanding when praying and called God some not so nice things. We met with Ben’s pastor and I expressed all of this to him, the anger, the disrespect and I’ve never been so validated in my entire life. “You ask people to pray for you at a time you can’t. Someone else will be the middle man to God and lift you up at a time that you can’t find your feet”. That statement resonates with me to this day. It’s like that story about the two sets of footprints in the sand. “But Lord, at the hardest times of my life, I only saw one set of footprints in the sand.” “It was then that I carried you.” With each new development of Brooklyn’s successes with surgeries, EVDs, movement after surgery, I could truly feel that “lift” from everyone’s prayers, positive vibes and good energy even though everything felt so heavy.

Moving into December, post tumor resection, after two cycles of round one of chemo (we’ll go over that another time) my dad had asked me to go to a mass that is dedicated to Padre Pio, an Italian priest known for his documented instances of healings as well as bearing the stigmata. At this point, God and I were on better terms but still not best friends, right? We’ve been through hell and back and I can hold a grudge.

This is the part that gets hazy- because I don’t know how to describe it. There is a woman who leads the Padre Pio Prayer Group at this church. She has had Padre appear to her on a chalice, and has had Padre speak to her through prayer. I don’t want to call her a medium, but I don’t know what they call people that saints work throug- Padre’s healing hand is working through her. One of the sweetest ladies I’ve ever met.

My dad had asked me to go to this mass because he heard of the prayer group through friends of his and my stepmom, with the firm belief that this could help Brooklyn. After everything we had been through, my struggle with God was obviously still there and I had thought “He didn’t do anything to prevent this tumor, what actually makes you think he’s going to listen this time?”. We went to the mass before Brooklyn’s first scan, after she had finished her first round of chemo with her most aggressive cycle just weeks before the mass. Brooklyn had her labs drawn the Tuesday before the mass and her platelets were low. 94 low. Don’t ask me what is normal for babies- all I know is the clinic told me they were low.

Looking at Brooklyn before the mass started, I whispered to my mom “She looks so pale, I think she will need blood products next time we go to the clinic.” The leader of the prayer group brought me, Ben and Brooklyn up in front of the congregation to pray over us with the priest. After communion, she had come to me carrying a glove that Padre Pio had worn to cover the stigmata. This is where my mind is blown. We sat with this glove on for an hour, listening to stories of missionaries and the leader prayed over us again. Within that hour I SWEAR Brooklyn’s color turned from pale, with dark circles under her eyes to a pink, rosy color and the circles under her eyes had faded. When we went for labs the following Tuesday, they had to run her labs twice. Brooklyns platelet count went from 94 to 734, and our oncology staff was surprised to say the least. The following weekend was Brooklyn’s first scan, 3 months post tumor resection. This was the first scan that came back with no evidence of tumor regrowth or new tumor development. This does NOT mean “cancer free”. I will NOT use that phrase until it comes out of my daughter’s oncologist’s mouth. The clean scan means that Brooklyn’s treatment is progressing in a positive direction with the chemotherapy and surgical interventions that she has had.

I’m sure you’re thinking it’s all coincidence because that’s what I had to tell my self. God wasn’t picking my child for a miracle of healing. I thought that until I heard more about how this prayer leader has been known to have taken on pain of people she has laid hands on. Finding out that after she laid hands on Brooklyn, she felt as if she had glass in her eyes and they were swollen for the rest of the weekend… I knew it. God heard me, He heard our friends, our family, and worked through Padre Pio, with the prayer leader and has kept our sweet Brooklyn progressing.

To know where Brooklyn was before the service, how little her right hand moved compared to now, how she babbles when we weren’t ever sure if she would is MIND BLOWING. I believe in science and I believe in God. I believe that our oncology staff has the blessing of knowledge to provide the best care, and treatment design for Brooklyn. I believe that God and science can go hand in hand, because I’ve seen it. Call me crazy, call me desperate for answers…it’s something I CAN’T EXPLAIN. The feelings of severe, crippling anxiety with Brooklyn’s sedation, the heaviness that comes with an aggressive round of chemo, the fear that kept me home instead of grabbing my diaper bag and leaving the house….all of these are so much less intense than when we started. At times I feel a calm, knowing God has a hand on Brooklyn and knowing Padre Pio has his hands on Brooklyn.

It feels weird to write that I think I witnessed a miracle because I’m not that “miracles happen” girl but in reality, I am. Bedtime prayers include a laundry list of surgeons, physicians assistants, and nurses as well as other children who are sick. We also always ask that Padre Pio continues to keep his healing hands on sweet Brooklyn to help her to keep making big moves.

I never used to be the person that felt the need to tell people that we pray for them but, when you’ve met a group of people like Brooklyn’s oncologist and neurosurgeons and their support staff, you want them to know that you hold them close to your heart, because you do end up loving them like family. You want them protected, and their work to be blessed so that they can keep doing what they’re doing simply because you think they’re amazing people.

After all…they saved our daughter’s life.