Last Tuesday Erica, her parents, and I drove two and a half hours to Duke University. After weeks of daily phone calls to the insurance company, we were finally given the go-ahead to have Erica's procedure.
Dr. Michael Miller and his team are considered the best in the nation.
When we met with him in May, he told us the tumor/growth/mass in Erica's back is a "vascular malformation." Basically a vessel couldn't decide whether to be a vein or an artery...so it just kept growing and recruiting other vessels to join in. Erica wrote a great explanation about it here.
Because the procedure is so rare and Duke is out of the insurance company's network, we needed special authorization to have it completed. We are grateful everything was approved...and more thankful that Dr. Miller agreed to consider Erica an "in-network" patient. If he hadn't, we'd be paying thousands of dollars out of our own pockets. Instead, he's willing to write that money off and get paid a lot less.
The procedure was quite simple. Erica was sedated but not asleep completely. The doctors used an ultrasound to scan the malformation...then, through small needles, injected a chemical agent into it. This will cause the vessels to harden and the growth should shrink.
Dr. Miller injected the agent and it spread quickly throughout the malformation. He says everything went perfectly! In fact, the procedure was over in less than 15 minutes.
The best part is Erica probably doesn't need to go back for a second operation. Often patients need to have the injections several times to kill the entire tumor. In Erica's case, the doctors are confident she won't need to go back for a while (if at all).
After recovering a while in the hospital, we were back in the car and within a few hours Erica was sound asleep at home! Her back has been tender the past few days and she's had to keep it wrapped really tight...but other than that, she's doing extremely well. She's actually out getting a pedicure with a friend right now.
This entire ordeal was completely different than her surgery in April and we are grateful everything turned out okay. Thank you for your prayers, messages, and positive thoughts! We are so blessed.
On Saturday Erica and I went out to do some furniture shopping. When we got home, we were stunned to find this envelope in the mail:
You can see the sender is The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
For those who aren't LDS, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles is the highest leadership group in our church under the First Presidency. They are responsible for 14 million members and it is very uncommon to receive personal letters or messages from an apostle.
We opened the envelope and found a letter from Elder David A. Bednar.
He's a modern day apostle who will serve in his position until he dies. He's the man who married us.
Among other things, he wrote that he'd be thinking about us and Erica's medical condition. He wished a favorable prognosis and included a comforting scripture. He said he and his wife have been praying for us.
We are amazed and humbled that this busy, busy man who travels the world would take time to send us a letter - a letter written and signed by him personally.
That evening, as Erica and I began our scripture study, she realized the scripture Elder Bednar quoted in his letter was contained in the very chapter we were reading that night.
Coincidence? No way. A tender mercy of God saying he was aware of us and wanted us to learn from this scripture? Absolutely.
It was, in reality, a modern day prophet quoting a prophet of old -- directly to us.
"Nevertheless, the Lord God showeth us our weakness that we may know that it is by his grace, and his great condescensions unto the children of men, that we have power to do these things." JACOB 4.7
Sidenote: Elder Bednar was recently interviewed about his role as an apostle. It's pretty good. You can watch it here:
