IT HAPPENED TO ME
A testimony by Annie Cyriac, Karunattu
Brain tumour. Scary words. It happens to people in movies, or so I thought.
I believed I was a normal healthy female. I was health conscious. I used to exercise frequently and include salads in my lunch box. I could manage a difficult multi-bus commute to work, with ease. I was full of energy and willing to do my best.
I have been teaching English for the past eighteen years. My students respect me and I try to help them sincerely. My husband is an ENT surgeon and my kids are doing well at school. I believed in God but I was not a fanatic. I valued my friendships and kept close connections bubbling.
In short I was at the peak of my life.
Then, on the 2nd of November, 2012, I had a terrible experience. I had a blackout. It was while I was in the staff room waiting for the bell to ring. The last thing I remember was that I was standing up to make a phone call when the seizures struck and I toppled over. Before my colleagues could rush over, I hit the floor. I was taken to Bharat hospital at Kottayam. A CT scan revealed that I had Meningioma, a benign tumour on the outer layers of my brain. Within a span of 2 hours I had 2 more seizures.
For the next 24 hours my family and friends flocked in gloom in the hospital corridors and around the ICU. After viewing my MRI reports the next day, my husband resolved to shift me to the Indo-American Hospital, the Brain & Spine Centre at Vaikom, founded by the renowned US based neurosurgeon Dr. Kumar Bahuleyan.
In an unconscious state, I was wheeled in and admitted under Dr. Anu Thomas, the neurosurgeon on the 3rd of November. As my brain had undergone a midline shift due to the intense swelling, it needed time to be brought back to its relaxed state. So a team of neurosurgeons planned a surgery for the 7th of November.
Word spread soon and innumerable phone calls poured in. All my friends and relatives were shell shocked. Prayers were offered up by my church, colleagues, students, relatives and friends from far and wide.
Meanwhile I regained consciousness for a few hours before the surgery and that was when the Doctor told me of my plight. I am not a brave person and I should have panicked.
But I now realize that God’s mighty power gave me the strength and I surrendered myself totally into His hands and literally into the surgeon’s hands.
The day before the surgery, my family was allowed to see me but being in a drowsy state, I can only remember having seen my daughter and father. Tension loomed large in their faces. Between bouts of memory and drowsiness my heart bled for my ten year old son Samuel and eighteen year old daughter Rebecca. I wondered if I would ever see them again. The surgery that was expected to take 8 hours seemed never ending to my kith and kin. At last after a gruelling 14 hour long surgery I was put on the ventilator.
A day later my whole body started swelling. Tubes went down my nose and throat, drains were inserted into my abdomen and head, and needles were pushed into my veins. I began to hallucinate. I thought the doctors were going to kill me. I dreamt I was being melted. I wanted to die. I wanted the excruciating pain to end. I was unable to pray. I was wandering in the “valley of the shadow of death”. For the next three days, deprived of sleep and overwhelmed by stress, my husband and dear ones panicked and prayed with all their might.
Then the miracle happened. I envisioned the title of a book “Are you willing to be healed?”
With a giant leap I caught hold of it and peace crept into me. “God pulled me out of a dangerous pit ……….. and made me secure”(Psalm 40:2).
This is a new life that God has gifted me. I find joy and beauty in the little things in life. My heart wells up at the minutest things. Now I stand at the bottom rung of the ladder of humility. Half my head is shaven. A tangled mass covers the other half of my head where once stood long lustrous hair. But I am not in despair.
As I lay on the hospital bed recouping, I knew I was not alone. Tears flowed freely as I read the phone messages of inspiration and biblical verses sent to me by my friends, cousins and even my professors. They told me how deeply they were affected and how ardently they prayed. Little did I know that I was loved by them all.
I mused how fortunate it was to have valued my friendships. Now it is paying me back like a bank interest in the form of prayers, love and support. The past 3 months have taught me like never before, that if you invest time and love in a relationship you will get back the interest in manifolds. My husband teased me saying that I had become a public figure.
I now realize that God’s protective hands have been shielding me all throughout. We felt it in the little positive events that favoured me from the time I collapsed in school.
I believe it was God’s unseen hand that guided my friends at school to take me in time to the hospital where I got the service of an excellent radiologist who helped in diagnosing my case. It was God’s undying love that made the biopsy result say that the tumour was non-cancerous. God’s wisdom guided my husband to take the decision of putting me in the hands of the best neurosurgeons. It was God’s mercy that I saw in the kindness bestowed on me by the nurses. I fondly remember the attender boy who would boost my morale, the attenders who gently combed out what was left of my hair and bathed me with tender care, the physiotherapists who helped me walk again, the CEO of the hospital and the administrator who would visit me and revive my zest for life.
God put them all in their precious places to look after me. I learned valuable lessons from all these inspirational people that whatever be your calling in life, no matter great or small, if you do your duty wholeheartedly you will be able to touch other lives. Ultimately that is what really counts.
The doctors who treated me remarked that I exuded a lot of positive energy and that I was a motivation to other patients. Praise God!
They had predicted that the surgery could cause slurring of speech, loss of memory or paralysis of the right side of the body. When the world celebrated the magical date 12-12-12, I was shifted out of the ICU after my second surgery ( cranio plasty) and my husband and I rejoiced and thanked God. A fortnight later I was back on my feet with my memory and speech intact.
God’s purpose for the flames in life is to purify us not to destroy us. When adversity strikes us, strike back. Look at the silver-lining, not at the cloud. My road was bumpy and I have slipped. But I have risen and got my dreams back. [written in Febuary2013]
A testimony by Annie Cyriac, Karunattu
Brain tumour. Scary words. It happens to people in movies, or so I thought.
I believed I was a normal healthy female. I was health conscious. I used to exercise frequently and include salads in my lunch box. I could manage a difficult multi-bus commute to work, with ease. I was full of energy and willing to do my best.
I have been teaching English for the past eighteen years. My students respect me and I try to help them sincerely. My husband is an ENT surgeon and my kids are doing well at school. I believed in God but I was not a fanatic. I valued my friendships and kept close connections bubbling.
In short I was at the peak of my life.
Then, on the 2nd of November, 2012, I had a terrible experience. I had a blackout. It was while I was in the staff room waiting for the bell to ring. The last thing I remember was that I was standing up to make a phone call when the seizures struck and I toppled over. Before my colleagues could rush over, I hit the floor. I was taken to Bharat hospital at Kottayam. A CT scan revealed that I had Meningioma, a benign tumour on the outer layers of my brain. Within a span of 2 hours I had 2 more seizures.
For the next 24 hours my family and friends flocked in gloom in the hospital corridors and around the ICU. After viewing my MRI reports the next day, my husband resolved to shift me to the Indo-American Hospital, the Brain & Spine Centre at Vaikom, founded by the renowned US based neurosurgeon Dr. Kumar Bahuleyan.
In an unconscious state, I was wheeled in and admitted under Dr. Anu Thomas, the neurosurgeon on the 3rd of November. As my brain had undergone a midline shift due to the intense swelling, it needed time to be brought back to its relaxed state. So a team of neurosurgeons planned a surgery for the 7th of November.
Word spread soon and innumerable phone calls poured in. All my friends and relatives were shell shocked. Prayers were offered up by my church, colleagues, students, relatives and friends from far and wide.
Meanwhile I regained consciousness for a few hours before the surgery and that was when the Doctor told me of my plight. I am not a brave person and I should have panicked.
But I now realize that God’s mighty power gave me the strength and I surrendered myself totally into His hands and literally into the surgeon’s hands.
The day before the surgery, my family was allowed to see me but being in a drowsy state, I can only remember having seen my daughter and father. Tension loomed large in their faces. Between bouts of memory and drowsiness my heart bled for my ten year old son Samuel and eighteen year old daughter Rebecca. I wondered if I would ever see them again. The surgery that was expected to take 8 hours seemed never ending to my kith and kin. At last after a gruelling 14 hour long surgery I was put on the ventilator.
A day later my whole body started swelling. Tubes went down my nose and throat, drains were inserted into my abdomen and head, and needles were pushed into my veins. I began to hallucinate. I thought the doctors were going to kill me. I dreamt I was being melted. I wanted to die. I wanted the excruciating pain to end. I was unable to pray. I was wandering in the “valley of the shadow of death”. For the next three days, deprived of sleep and overwhelmed by stress, my husband and dear ones panicked and prayed with all their might.
Then the miracle happened. I envisioned the title of a book “Are you willing to be healed?”
With a giant leap I caught hold of it and peace crept into me. “God pulled me out of a dangerous pit ……….. and made me secure”(Psalm 40:2).
This is a new life that God has gifted me. I find joy and beauty in the little things in life. My heart wells up at the minutest things. Now I stand at the bottom rung of the ladder of humility. Half my head is shaven. A tangled mass covers the other half of my head where once stood long lustrous hair. But I am not in despair.
As I lay on the hospital bed recouping, I knew I was not alone. Tears flowed freely as I read the phone messages of inspiration and biblical verses sent to me by my friends, cousins and even my professors. They told me how deeply they were affected and how ardently they prayed. Little did I know that I was loved by them all.
I mused how fortunate it was to have valued my friendships. Now it is paying me back like a bank interest in the form of prayers, love and support. The past 3 months have taught me like never before, that if you invest time and love in a relationship you will get back the interest in manifolds. My husband teased me saying that I had become a public figure.
I now realize that God’s protective hands have been shielding me all throughout. We felt it in the little positive events that favoured me from the time I collapsed in school.
I believe it was God’s unseen hand that guided my friends at school to take me in time to the hospital where I got the service of an excellent radiologist who helped in diagnosing my case. It was God’s undying love that made the biopsy result say that the tumour was non-cancerous. God’s wisdom guided my husband to take the decision of putting me in the hands of the best neurosurgeons. It was God’s mercy that I saw in the kindness bestowed on me by the nurses. I fondly remember the attender boy who would boost my morale, the attenders who gently combed out what was left of my hair and bathed me with tender care, the physiotherapists who helped me walk again, the CEO of the hospital and the administrator who would visit me and revive my zest for life.
God put them all in their precious places to look after me. I learned valuable lessons from all these inspirational people that whatever be your calling in life, no matter great or small, if you do your duty wholeheartedly you will be able to touch other lives. Ultimately that is what really counts.
The doctors who treated me remarked that I exuded a lot of positive energy and that I was a motivation to other patients. Praise God!
They had predicted that the surgery could cause slurring of speech, loss of memory or paralysis of the right side of the body. When the world celebrated the magical date 12-12-12, I was shifted out of the ICU after my second surgery ( cranio plasty) and my husband and I rejoiced and thanked God. A fortnight later I was back on my feet with my memory and speech intact.
God’s purpose for the flames in life is to purify us not to destroy us. When adversity strikes us, strike back. Look at the silver-lining, not at the cloud. My road was bumpy and I have slipped. But I have risen and got my dreams back. [written in Febuary2013]
God bless u
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