In June, a good friend from my ward, moved to Utah. When they moved, everything went wrong that could go wrong. The architect for the "dream house" they were building with the proceeds of selling their CA home, screwed them and they had to start all over with a new builder/architect just as they were moving, they were even supposed to be moving into their already built house because they had started it a year before they expected to move, they ended up moving into her parents house. Everyone said to them, "it seems like so much is going wrong, why move?" and they said, "we've prayed about it, we are supposed to move, we have to go."

By August my friend was complaining of constant migraines that started right after the birth of their 3rd child in April 2006, but had progressively gotten worse. The migraines were now affecting her caring for her children and her mother was taking care of them alot of the time. She went to the dr and found out that, apparently in natural childbirth, when you push the baby out, your brain moves down in your skull a bit. For most people it's totally fine, because their skull is large enough to accomodate their brains. Not in her's, she has a larger brain than most so it didn't really fit in her skull and the pushing had caused it to slide down and now there was insane amounts of pressure on her brain stem causing tons of migraines. In September she had surgery to replace a part of her skull so that her brain would "fit". They had to cut all the tendons in her neck/shoulder area, etc. to do this particular brain surgery.

After the surgery her recovery was difficult, she refused to take the pain meds cause she wanted to continue to nurse. I'm not really sure what else went on because she really withdrew, from her family I hear she didn't want visitors, which makes sense to me because she's such a private person, she listens to everyone else's problems, and never says a word about her own.

A few months later they found that she has tumors in her brain. They've been biopsied and they're still waiting for the results, or at least they were when a mutual friend stopped to visit her in the hospital in UT. If it's one type of cancer it's treated with chemo and has good success rates, if it's another then it has really bad mortality rates, because it has to be removed which could brain-damage my friend. Her short term memory is compromised, she doesn't remember moving to UT most of the time, or how old her baby is. Her speech is difficult, from the pressure of the tumors. She's lost a ton of weight, she was 125 and now she's 95 lbs and very tall. She's been in the hospital for a few weeks.

I just feel so bad! She's the healthiest person I know! She never let fast food touch her lips, she was always snacking on veggies and fruits, exercising, taking really good care of her body. She's a former ballerina, so graceful. She has an amazing testimony, I remember visit teaching with her and just enjoying her insights on the gospel. I need to send her a card, a letter, something. She's started allowing people "in", realizing this fight is going to take a while.

Makes me think that my body really hasn't been that bad to me. And I sure hope she recovers! And wow, what a testimony to following your promptings no matter what! Thank goodness she's surrounded by her family at this time!