Guest blog by April
When my son Wesley was born, he looked perfect! 8 lbs. 6 oz. and 22 inches of beautiful blue eyes, blonde hair, and an awesome addition to my already beautiful, healthy 2 older boys. We spent two days just loving on him, getting to know each other and being completely blissful. We went home from the hospital on a Friday afternoon and settled into what we thought was going to be a normal life with our new baby boy!
But you know what God says about your plans right?
Saturday morning, Wesley woke up, ate, and almost immediately started having what we thought were weird hiccups for about 30 minutes. He was very lethargic and just seemed off, so we headed to the ER to see what was wrong.
They ran a battery of tests: spinal tap, urinalysis, and several others. They ruled out any infection. Soon we were transferred via Ambulance to the Women’s Hospital of Texas. They immediately admitted Wesley and began working on what could be wrong, conducting genetic testing and blood labs. As his symptoms began to evolve during our stay at the hospital, they concluded these were seizures. They did an MRI on my sweet, 5 day old tiny boy, which took him several hours to wake up from. A few hours later, the head of the pediatric department, Dr. Salinas, came into our room and sat down quietly with the Chaplain.
Clearly this was going to be really bad news.
He proceeded to tell us that Wesley had a condition called Heterotropia, which were extra neurons on both sides of his brain that weren’t supposed to be there, and when they signaled each other, they caused seizures. In addition to the Heterotropia, he had almost no Corpus Collosum, the organ that connects the left and right side of your brain, as well as a very thin optic nerve. We were told he would start on seizure medication, and he would likely remain on it the rest of his life.
When the words were coming out of his mouth, I was sort of having an out of body experience. My older sons, Parker and Reid, were perfectly healthy their whole life; never any major issues other than regular sickness. I just didn’t believe God would give me a baby with so many problems.
In my flesh, I asked, “God, why us? What did we do to deserve this?”
Dr. Salinas gave us a few hours to process the news. By the time he returned, I had calmed down a little and decided there would be some way God would be glorified in this horrible news we had received. I told him we were a Christian family, and we don’t accept this diagnosis. We will do what needs to be done with their help, until he is healed through prayer.
Over the next couple of months, we had very little time at home. We would be in the hospital for about a week at a time, sometimes two weeks. Wesley’s seizures started to increase in both length and sheer number throughout each day. This was extremely hard on our older sons, Parker and Reid. At one point, Reid, who at the time was 5 years old, asked me, “Mom, do you love Wesley more than you love us?” Talk about breaking your heart. I tried my best to explain what was going on and that I wanted nothing more than to have all of us at home together, living a normal, happy life. That night of course, I cried myself to sleep, praying God would end this nightmare, and do whatever it was He was trying to do through this whole mess.
At 3 months and 1 week old, our neurologist Dr. Wosu, was at the end of her rope. We had tried almost every seizure medication, and even though they all zombied Wesley out, they did not stop his seizures. They were only increasing in number and length every day.
We had always been told Wesley was not a candidate for corrective surgery since the neurons were all over both sides of his brain. There would be too much chance of messing up speech function, and mobility.
Dr. Wosu wanted to contact a surgeon that she knew, who was young, but the best in his business and just see what he thought. The Neurosurgeon answered us almost immediately and said he thought he could help but wanted to have another MRI done to see Wesley’s brain better since he was much bigger now.
We did that MRI on a Monday at 12 o’clock noon. I knew from basically living in the hospital that it would take about an hour to get the results back. However, all day long, no one came and spoke to us. I saw whisperings when they were doing rounds, everyone looking puzzled, except our chaplain, Jessica, who was jumping up and down with excitement. As you can imagine, I was anxiously losing my mind waiting for Dr. Salinas to come tell me what they saw.
Around 9:00 pm, an excruciating 8 hours after the MRI, Dr. Salinas came into our room. He said, “I’m sorry I haven’t been in here to talk to you all day, but I was afraid you wouldn’t trust me anymore. I can’t explain it to you, I can only show it to you.” He proceeded to pull up the MRI from when Wesley was 5 days old and the new one from 3 months old. Both pictures were very clear, but very different.
He said, “Do you see the Heterotropia all over both sides of his brain on this scan from 5 days old?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Do you see it on this one from 3 months?”
“No,” I replied.
“That’s because it all moved to one tiny spot on the right side of his brain, which is essentially a scab, which could be peeled off.”
I didn’t reply this time – just looked at the pictures with my mouth wide open. Then he said, “Do you see his thin almost non-existent Corpus Collosum on the 5 day scan?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Do you see the full, perfect Corpus Collosum on the 3 month scan?”
Again – shocked and open mouth here.
“Do you see the thin, damaged optic nerve on the 5 day scan?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Do you see the full, perfect optic nerve on the 3 month scan?”
“Yes, I see it all.”
“April- optic nerves and Corpus Collosum’s do not grow outside of your womb and neither should those neurons. I cannot medically explain this to you. I had 3 radiologists and two other doctors examine this to make sure it was correct.”
“I can explain this!” I replied. “This is what we prayed for! This makes surgery possible!”
I immediately heard God say, “See, he is changing scientists minds on believing.”
The next day, doctors, ambulance crews, therapists, nurses, practically the entire hospital staff came in to see our miracle baby. These people had all become family to us, they all came to give us hugs and shake their heads in awe of what God had done.
Now, I don’t want to leave out the fact, that God orchestrated every single step of this process for us. While he was there to change the minds of some, there were several nurses, the chaplain, and others who believed in miracles and often prayed with us there in the hospital throughout Wesley’s stay. That in itself was a HUGE blessing.
Later in the evening, Wesley’s surgeon, Dr. Manish Shah, came to consult with us at Women’s Hospital and asked us if we would let him take the case.We fervently agreed. He had the most calming presence, and was very humble, for the genius that he is! I knew God sent him straight to us.
They transferred us to Children’s Memorial Hermann where 7 neurologists and Dr. Shah were literally waiting in our room when as were wheeled in from the ambulance crew. Dr. Shah said, “I am about 75% certain that once we do this surgery, he will never have a seizure again.” To which Dr. Von Allmen, the neurologist replied, “No, I am 95% sure.”
Two days later Wesley was wheeled down to the surgery floor to be prepped for what would be an 8 hour surgery. We prayed over him, and though we were nervous because it was brain surgery, we had peace. Before they wheeled him off, he was looking to his left and kept giggling and cooing and smiling at what looked like nothing to us but a wall. I didn’t think much of it at the time but just talked to him and asked him what he was laughing at.
About an hour into surgery, my friend sent me a text saying she had a dream that Wesley was lying on a surgery table and an angel was whispering in his ear telling him everything was going to be fine. I get chills every time I tell this story, because I knew I had witnessed it happen! I believe he often talks to angels to this day.
The surgery was a complete success, and Wesley did very well and was transferred to ICU. He was hooked up to about 15 machines monitoring everything in his body while nurses came in to check on him about every hour on the hour. For the first time in over 3 1/2 months, I slept a solid 5 hours without moving, knowing that God had healed him. It was GLORIOUS.
That next morning, the anesthesiologist came into our room, and told me, “I just felt led to come tell you something. I have never seen anyone in all my years hold up as strongly as he did during surgery. I have never seen anything like it.”
“Well we had thousands of people praying for him.” I replied.
“Well those prayers were certainly heard.” One of his doctors at Women’s (whose mind was changed on Jesus when his MRI changed) brought us a book over to Memorial Hermann called, Because Jesus. God was all over this!
We were told he would likely never use the left side of his body, because the surgery to remove the neurons was on the right side, and it would make him weak. Within 4 days of surgery, he was kicking his left arm and leg and acting like his normal self.
He has continued to overcome any obstacle that would have been thrown his way from all of this and is thriving in pre-school today. He is the happiest child you’ll ever meet, and I cannot wait for the day when he can share his testimony on his own to others! I am humbled, and in awe of God that he chose my beautiful boy to reveal Jesus to unbelievers.
immediately more
- Read Judges 3: 1 – 14.
- What did the Lord do in verses 1 and 12?
- Why did the Lord do these things?
- Read Luke 22: 31-32. What does the Lord allow in these verses?
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- Read Genesis 29: 21 – 35
- Who is Levi? What is the meaning of his name?
- Read the following passages listing everything you learn about the Levites.
- Genesis 34: 24 – 31
- Genesis 49: 5-7
- Deut. 33:11
- Numbers 3: 5-10
- 2 Chronicles 11: 13-17
- Ezra 8: 15 – 36
- Read 1 Peter 2:9. What does this verse say about the priesthood?
- For a deeper study of Levites, read Leviticus 16.
