A conversation at the baseball field. The discovery of a baseball-sized tumor. For Florida member Cherissa, these two facts became connected in a way that was anything but fun and games.
A few years ago, Cherissa and her husband were chatting with an acquaintance in the baseball stands when the topic turned to health sharing. The guy turned out to be a big Medi-Share fan, and he shared about the Christian-based sharing model in a personally positive light. “It was very intriguing,” Cherissa recalls, and shortly afterward they joined the Medi-Share community themselves.
When Cherissa began struggling with some headaches, she says, “I thought it was allergies and didn’t think much of it.” But the week of her forty-second birthday, things took a turn for the worse. Her head began to hurt badly, making her nauseous and limiting her ability to function. Her husband encouraged her to rest. But when she laid down near him, she had a seizure.
Quickly, he called an ambulance to take Cherissa to the hospital. Disoriented, she remembers looking at the emergency room doctor and saying, “I think I have an ear infection.”
The doctor responded kindly, but everyone knew that something more serious was going on. An MRI was ordered, which led to a surprising revelation: Cherissa had a large brain tumor, one that needed to be removed as soon as possible.
The news was shocking, to say the least, and Cherissa soon found herself being transferred to the neuro center in Pensacola for upcoming surgery. Within forty-eight hours, the swelling had subsided enough for the surgeon to proceed.
“At that point, we didn’t know if it was cancerous or benign,” Cherissa says. And yet, she felt an overwhelming sense of peace and calm, thanks in part to the support around her. Her family encouraged her with prayer. Her medical team reassured her with confidence in her positive outcome. And Medi-Share helped her husband with the logistics behind the scenes. “Not once was I nervous,” she says. “Not once did I have any fear.”
For nine hours, the surgical team worked to carefully remove the tumor from Cherissa’s brain. But even with a surgery that long and intense, the next day she was up and walking. No rehab needed! She even closed a big real estate deal from her ICU bed. The doctors monitoring her brain activity found her quick recovery remarkable.
Cherissa agrees, “It was an absolute miracle.”
From start to finish, she spent eleven days in the hospital. When she walked out, Cherissa says that no one would’ve known she just had brain surgery. The surgeon even thoughtfully braided her hair off to the side, only shaving the necessary section.
While life shifted dramatically in those eleven days, Cherissa says she’s grateful that everything happened in such a whirlwind, because she didn’t really have time to stress. She’s also grateful that Medi-Share was so responsive during the crisis.
In regards to the Medi-Share team, she says, “They were incredible. Everything was ethically handled and with such kindness. We were flabbergasted. To come out on the other side and not have the additional burden and headaches of huge medical bills was such a blessing.”
Today, Cherissa is fully recovered, and her follow-up scan shows nothing where the tumor used to be. It’s also a relief to know that it was not cancerous; doctors think she was born with the tumor, and it grew over time.
We praise God for his gracious protection and provision in Cherissa’s life, and we’re so grateful that she and her family are a part of our Medi-Share community.
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