During the Spring of 2010, I developed a serious illness. I remember the day that I fell ill so very clearly.
It was Sunday. I didn’t feel very well and planned to drop the children off at church. I asked a family friend to sit with my children at church because I was sick and my husband was working. I planned to lay down, and have my father in law, who lived with us, drive the children to church, but something kept me up and moving. I asked my father in law to drive the children to church and then drive me to the ER. Something was wrong.
My husband, a physician, was summoned to the ER. Overcome with fatigue I laid down, but now the doctors wouldn’t let me rest; x-rays, blood draws, CT scan and finally the verdict, You have pneumonia in your left lung, but we found something on the CT scan that shows a kidney mass on your right kidney.”
I learned several days later that I nearly died that Sunday night. All I can remember was my husband suddenly at my bedside, looking very concerned. Being a nurse, I glanced up at the telemetry monitor and understood. I told him that I refused to be intubated and that he should go home and be with our children.
In the days that followed in the hospital, it was hard to focus on my current illness when the thought of a kidney mass, code word for tumor or cancer loomed, in my thoughts. By the middle of the week, I asked my husband to bring my scriptures to me during his next visit. I wanted to study Job. I wanted to learn whatever Heavenly Father wanted me to learn about this experience, now.
It was hard to make those first few calls to my family and friends. I was the primary president at the time, and I had such good counselors–such good women of faith and vision. I wanted the Primary children to know that I was ill, but also that I was okay. My amazing counselors informed the children that I was ill, but also asked the children to pray for me.
The time soon came for me to have an evaluation of the mass in my kidney. I wanted a blessing from Heavenly Father and I received an amazing blessing from our home teacher, Patriarch Richard Robb, and my husband. In part, the blessing said that I would have to go through the evaluation and the doctors would be blessed to know how to treat my condition, I would be okay, and my family would be comforted during this time.
I wish I could say that I believed my blessing whole heartedly, that I would be okay, but I planned meals with honorary Granny Dorothy who came to stay with me, wrote each child a special letter, and cleaned nooks and crannies as best as I could. I began to reason with myself, and asked who was I to be spared when so many others were suffering? I reasoned that I would do as much as I could do for myself, and if I were to die, like the hymn says, “All is well.”
Dr. George Chow decided to do a partial renal nephrectomy. Mayo is one of the premiere institutions that performs this surgery. The tumor turned out to be smaller than seen on the CT scan, it was encapsulated, and all margins were clear. The doctor said it was a perfect surgery for him. Two days later, the doctors said that I could go home! I stayed for one more day. It took one month to have the energy to walk one neighborhood block and even longer to totally dress myself, but I was okay.
My spirit had been renewed. “Amazing Grace” had become my new favorite hymn, for I was blind and could now see. I could see that if it were not for the pneumonia, the kidney mass might not have been discovered because I had no symptoms. I could see that the Lord was with me, my doctors, my family, the primary children and my counselors, and that the power of Priesthood blessings are real.