Wholeminds Stories: Andrew's story

An incredible story of the faithfulness of God in healing from traumatic life events.

25

Many people manage to get through life without a devastating life event happening to them, but at the age of twenty five I have already experienced two such events and they have profoundly shaped me.

“ It was a pretty terrifying experience, walking in a drunk-like fashion, trying not to fall over, trying not to walk into people. My two ‘helpers’ were walking a few paces behind me, as I walked facing the stares of the people around me, trying to get my brain to do things that I had found so incredibly simple a few months before”

In June 2019, I was diagnosed with a brain tumour.

I had been sleeping for 16 to 17 hours a night and was feeling tired and weak every day. I was vomiting constantly, and after trying a number of anti-sickness medications, my GP booked me in for an MRI scan of the head. There was a grape-sized mass between my brain stem and cerebellum. I was operated on five weeks later, and again three weeks after that as the first operation was unsuccessful, due to excessive bleeding. The second operation was successful as the surgeons managed to remove 95% of the tumour. However the operation had caused a number of physical disabilities including a severe loss of balance, facial palsy on my left side, barely-comprehensible speech, difficulty swallowing, and double vision. I spent six weeks in Southmead Hospital, then a further six weeks in the Frenchay Brain Injury Rehabilitation Unit where I received intensive physio, speech, language and occupational therapy.

A terrifying experience

Two months after my operation, I was taken out to a nearby retail park by two therapists from the Brain Injury Rehab Centre for a timed challenge. I had to complete very basic tasks including finding and purchasing a few items from ASDA and Poundland, and finding out the opening hours for McDonalds. It was a pretty terrifying experience, walking in a drunk-like fashion, trying not to fall over, using only one eye, trying not to walk into people, having people stare at me with the two therapists walking a few paces behind me, trying to get my brain to do things that I had found so incredibly simple a few months before. That day, I passed the challenge, with a few errors, but I was exhausted. I went straight back to bed when I was taken back to the unit.

Laying in bed in my hospital room unable to do everything I could do before, not knowing how long I would be like this for, and how much better I would get, was terrifying and I felt completely alone. It felt like I had reached the bottom of a long journey with my mental health that had started when I was a very young child.

One year before...

I had social anxiety and depression growing up. I was just known as being very quiet as a child, ‘social anxiety’ was not really talked about back then, and school was very hard for me. I went to university because I was ‘academic’ but my mental health was growing ever worse. Nearly every situation - lectures, seminars, and even house parties were in big groups of people and I hated the way they made me feel. It affected my work, I began to score poorly in assignments, I felt stupid and hopeless and became more and more withdrawn. As I spiralled down I became terrified of even going to the shop to buy food, I was feeling trapped and hopeless and was becoming suicidal. Eventually I dropped out of university completely. My family supported me as over the next couple of years I tried a couple of jobs, and then for some strange reason, started going back to church after a six year absence. I went to Woodlands Church as I had just heard about young people liking it, even though I didn’t know a single person there and found it a pretty terrifying experience going into a huge building, busting full of people I didn’t know.

Then the worst thing that could have happened, happened.

My older sister Emma was hit by a speeding driver in Manchester and was killed. She had been to a friend’s house to watch the England v Belgium 2018 World Cup match and was walking home. She was crossing the road at a pedestrian crossing with the green light for her to cross, a car came careering along, failed to stop at his red light, hit Emma and the force of the impact propelled her more than 26 metres down the street. Paramedics and passers-by rushed to try and save her life, and this was shown on S4E4 of the BBC TV show Ambulance.

Losing my best friend

I had suddenly lost someone who had helped bring me up, who held me in her arms hours after I had been born and who, according to a playgroup poster I had once made for the Millennium, was my best friend. In an instant I had lost her and the pain was unbearable. My family was in pieces, her friends were distraught, there was a funeral to plan. We had to identify her body in a morgue, help in the police investigation, sort out her finances. We had to end her phone contract.

The pain of losing her was such an intense emotion, nothing close to anything I had felt before. I felt incredibly sad nearly all the time. It was a very real and deep grief but I could recognise that something was different about the way I was feeling. I was used to feeling this empty hopelessness and depression, devoid of any sense of God, but now in the midst of the intense pain was a sense of the presence of God and the certain knowledge that Emma was with Jesus. I felt comforted and not alone for the first time in my life.

I do wonder if it prepared me a little for what was about to happen.

A year after Emma’s death another ton of bricks fell on me as I was given the brain tumour diagnosis. They found the mass in my brain and wanted to take me in for brain surgery, an extremely dangerous operation with no guarantee of success. My parents were devastated, still struggling with the loss of my sister and in fear that they were going to lose me too. In the weeks that followed as I awaited potentially life-changing/ending surgery there were admittedly some low moments! I started to have panic attacks, I also had bad back pain which I feared were more tumours that had spread down my spine. It wasn't - and as you can see from my story above, I got through all the surgeries and began to recover. Recovery was a huge challenge, but now we are three years on, and no-one knows what happened to me until I point out the scar on the back of my head and tell them about it!

In the middle of it all I experienced something that I am convinced is a miracle. I was told by my neurosurgeon that my double vision might never go, and the very best-case scenario would be for my pupils to very gradually 'correct' and that maybe 12-18 months after the surgery I would be able to start wearing glasses with special lenses which would allow me to see normally with them on. Only hours after this was confirmed at the Bristol Eye Hospital by two Optometrists in December 2019, I was sitting on the floor in my bedroom, listening to music and doing one of the tests that I did in the Eye Hospital: staring at a pen to try and get my pupils to re-align. My pupils slowly moved together as I stared at the pen, then I moved it away - my pupils stayed lined-up, and have stayed lined-up ever since. God healed me there and then. I went back to the Eye Hospital three days later and they couldn't quite understand or explain medically what had happened, although the doctor was very happy for me!

I am so grateful to God for that amazing healing, it changed my future in a very real way.

But I have to say that the biggest change of all is inside me.

If I am honest, I don't know quite know how it happened! It’s to do with who I have become as I have got to know Jesus. As I recovered I gradually spent more time reading the Bible, getting to know and understand my faith in God. Very slowly but surely, I felt more peaceful, and confident in my self. I began to feel hopeful and then joyful. Now I love life!

I think after losing Emma, having the brain tumour and surgery, then having a miraculous healing, I have stopped caring so much about what other people think of me. God has given me life, all good things I have right now come from him, and he sustains me. I just want to know his will for my life and to get on with living it.

I can honestly say that I feel God's peace and comfort most of the time. This isn't an exaggeration. Maybe I just felt anxious for so much of the time for years when I was younger, I actually find just feeling 'normal' quite nice! I have an eternal hope now that makes a lot of other worries in life seem smaller.

I have loved discovering the bible and the story of how God relates to human beings. I believe that his word makes sense of our lives, our struggles and our frailties and has the answers to the riddle of human suffering. Suffering that I have become very familiar with.

Here are some bible verses that I have loved and found really helpful.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

Matthew 5v4

I know firsthand that this is true!

“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” – Isaiah 41v10

“And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen and establish you.” – 1 Peter 5v10

“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there by mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” – Revelation 21v4

If anyone reading this every wants to chat, or any questions about my story I am always willing to talk!

Contributor : Andrew Galton