//ryanweaver.me//

Emily

The following letter was sent to me by Leah Holloway at the end of last week. Leah asked me to share it with you… in order to display how the Lord has been at work in the midst of this tumultuous series of events in their family.

Leah’s daughter, Emily, has been struggling with severe migraine headaches for many years, but recently the headaches have led to some very troubling symptoms… and several trips to the hospital (PRMC in Salisbury and Johns Hopkins in Baltimore).

Emily is a sophomore in high school. Emily is an amazing leader (evidenced by those whose lives she has influenced). Emily loves to read (which has now become near impossible due to these recent side effects). Emily is one of the most humble people that I have ever met.  Emily is dedicated to her church. Emily loves her family. Emily loves her Jesus.

Here is Emily’s story, shared through the writing of a mother who would do anything for her daughter…

We want to thank everyone, from the bottom of our heart, for all of their prayers, support, and kind words during this extremely difficult time for our family. It has been a very physically and mentally challenging week for Emily.

She has suffered from migraines since she was 5 years old. Over the past year they have gotten much worse. She has had one continuous migraine for the past 2 months. In the past year and a half she has started to develop very scary and serious complications that accompany the migraine headaches. While having a migraine she will experience paralysis of her arms, hands, legs, feet, and neck (her head will just flop down and she can’t move it). She has severe pressure in her head and feels faint… then her ears pop and she goes deaf, she has also gone completely blind during these migraine episodes. Her speech begins to slur (sounds like she had a stroke), and she gets very confused. It has been life altering, to say the least.

Yet through it all , Emily had never complained. She just keeps moving ahead and working hard at making the best of her situation. She has managed through all of this to remain on the honor roll at school, and has just recently been accepted into the National Honor Society. We are so proud of her faith in God,her strength and determination!  Last Thursday (March 26) Emily was at our Kitchen bar, she had come home with a severe migraine headache. My Mom and I were attending to her,trying to make her more comfortable. She was telling us that it was the WORST headache pain that she had ever experienced… it was unbearable pain, then her head jerked back and her eyelids started to flitter and her whole body started twitching uncontrollably. We had to rush her to the ER at PRMC.

They ran tests and ruled out seizure, stroke, and brain bleeds (all the life-threatening things) and sent us home at 1:00 am. She woke up around 8:30 am, still complaining of severe headache, feeling faint, and just really weird all over inside her body. I held her on the couch and just prayed she would feel better soon. Then she looked at me and said Mom my arms just went numb… then her head went back a little and she started violently twitching all over, it was brutal and relentless twitching, her body was jumping right off the couch, high into the air. I held her for 30 minutes and it did not stop, we rushed back to the ER. The doctor could not figure out why she was doing this. They transferred her to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore by ambulance on Friday evening. She was seen by 6 of their neurologists. They could not figure out why she was severely twitching either. They sent us home on Saturday evening with more questions than answers,they were also frustrated that they could not help us an had to send her home in that condition. Her condition just continued to decline,we felt so fearful and helpless. Saturday night I had her sleep beside me, her muscles were twitching her body so hard her entire body was coming off of the bed! Sunday evening she was still declining… due to the muscle twitching she could barely walk and had not feeling from her knees down, she needed assistance to walk even short distances.

We were back in ER on Monday morning, after speaking to John Hopkins on-call emergency pediatric neurologist , they told us to take her back to be re-evaluated. After many hours of the doctors checking her and having conference calls with doctors at Johns Hopkins they were still at a loss for answers as to why she was getting worse and could not walk. They again had to send us home with no answers. Emily went with me to the office on Tuesday morning to get hugs and encouragement from everyone there. When she walked in I was assisting her, she could not walk on her own, she could hardly stand, her legs were twitching and collapsing from underneath her. Irv Brumbley, our tour director, took one look at her and said she needed help now… she was in desperate shape. He had a stunned look on his face and said she should go and see his chiropractor, Dr. Morrison. I looked at him confused, I had never been to a chiropractor and was under the impression they just popped your back when it hurt to make it feel better. (BOY WAS I WRONG… WHICH I WOULD FIND OUT LATER!)

I was so determined to find her help somewhere that I would have taken her anywhere but to a witch doctor! Irv called the office and they saw her right away. I was to learn later that Dr. Tim Morrison had given his business card to someone at church to give to me and said he thought they could help Emily, to please give it to me and tell me to bring her in. As I was driving to the chiropractor, still with much doubt if this was a good idea, my sister called my cell phone and said she had just heard from her pastors wife, she had been praying continuously for Emily, his wife told my sister to tell me to get Emily to a chiropractor, she had a feeling God wanted her to go to see one. (God was answering all of your prayers, directing us to a location where we would at last find some hope.)

Dr. Barry Morrison took one look at her and had immediate doubt in his eyes. She was twitching so bad, he was not sure if they could help her at all. He took some X-rays and asked us to come back a few hours later. When we returned to his office he said please follow me. He showed us X-rays of a normal neck (which is curved way back like a C shape) then he put Emily’s X-ray beside it, her neck was straight as a BOARD, NO CURVE AT ALL! This was most likely due to an injury that we were not aware she received when we were in a car crash when she was 6 years old. Her neck had gotten injured and had grown improperly since that time. This “defect” of her neck had caused injury to some of the bones in her upper spine as well. We reasoned that when she had her migraine Thursday night and her head snapped back it caused the bones that were not in the right position to press against the nerves in her spinal column which started sending jolts to her muscles all over her body… that is the reason she had been NON-STOP twitching and having difficulty walking and feeling her legs.

Dr. Morrison prayed about Emily while we were gone and felt led to try and help her. She is now in the process of going daily to see Dr. Barry and Dr. Tim to try and readjust the problem areas in hopes this will help take pressure off the nerves and in turn they will heal and the twitches will stop. They said it will be a lengthy process, about 3 months in duration to fix everything to where it should be.

I know that Gods hand is in this whole earth shattering experience we are going through. Emily and I have prayed and want Him to receive glory through all of this. She prayed and asked God to please heal her… not in HER time… but in His time. She told God that if it was His will for her to keep suffering through this for a lengthy period so that she could grow spiritually and reach others that she would embrace it. I, as her mother, have a harder time with it. As I watch my “baby girl” twitching and hurting and going numb… I get so scared.

I think not knowing the answers are the most torturous part for us all. I can just hold her, rock her, and pray God will move in a MIGHTY WAY… VERY SOON. Thank you all again so much for your prayers. Please continue to pray without ceasing for our precious Emie girl. We will be forever grateful to you all! I told Emily to claim and believe with all of her heart Gods promise to her. Her new life verse she is clinging to through all of this is…

Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, Plans to prosper you and not to harm you,plans to give you hope and a future.

We are CLAIMING THAT HOPE AND HEALTHY FUTURE FOR EMILY.

Serving Him Side by Side,
Leah Holloway
Blessed Mother of,
Emily Sullivan

If you would like to send Emily and Leah a note of encouragement, you can either post it here and I will forward it to the family… or you can email them directly at:

onesmileybug (at) aol (dot) com

Thank you for your continued prayers for Emily…

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.:rweaver:.