alie

God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers.

During my junior year, I was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis. My lower back became filled with arthritis, bone erosion, and inflammation. Chronic pain became my normal.
Senior year, I missed five weeks of school while attending a chronic pain clinic. Seeing eight doctors every day became my reality. I was fighting to simply make it through each day.
Then in April, everything changed again.
I felt a different kind of pain, one I knew wasn’t normal. After countless tests, doctors discovered a lemon-sized tumor wrapped around my tailbone. My family and I were sent from doctor to doctor, in and out of state, with no one knowing how to help. Every referral to the next specialist made me wonder if I’d ever get the chance to live out my dream of moving to California.

Then, God placed the right doctor in our lives.
A local surgeon took me in, listened, believed me, and gave my family hope when we needed it most. Surgery was my only option, despite risks that could have changed my life forever.
On July 7th, a miracle happened.
My entire tailbone, along with the tumor, was successfully removed.
After surgery I got informed that it was a cancerous tumor and it was bone cancer. This rare case of cancer only happens to 1 in 1 million people. Being told you have cancer at only 18 years old absolutely crushed me.

This journey has taught me more than I ever wanted to learn at 18 years old. It taught me that the right people will find you in your darkest moments. That God is working even when you can’t understand His plan. And that even when it feels like nothing will ever get better, you never stop fighting.

I’m still healing. I still have a long road ahead. But I’m so grateful for every doctor who cared, every prayer that was said, every person who stood beside me, and for a God who never left my side.
If you’re walking through something that feels impossible right now, please don’t give up. There is still light in the darkness.🤍