Catching Up with Liam

Today, after an easy 3 mile run

What a difference a year can make! It was exactly a year ago this week that we learned our then-
fourteen-year-old son Liam had an unknown condition causing proptosis of his left eye. Proptosis occurs when the eye is pressed outward for one of several reasons. In Liam’s case, MRIs showed there was clearly some kind of mass pushing outward on his eye and inward on his brain. At the time, neurosurgeons and ophthalmologists thought it was an aneurysmal bone cyst, a sort of boney growth that is filled with blood and other fluid.

To make a long story short, Liam underwent neurosurgery—a craniotomy expected to take three to six hours that actually took about ten. You can read all about this experience in several blog posts starting here. Our wonderful neurosurgeon took care of the issue, using healthy bone from inside his cranium to repair the compromised part of his orbit, and using a little fat from his belly to ensure his eye was in the correct spot. Finally, she used healthy bone, collagen, fibrin glue and titanium microplates to ensure his skull would heal and be strong.

Liam’s recovery was long and challenging. He barely moved for the week he was in the hospital after his surgery. He couldn’t stand sounds of any kind—and light gave him headaches too. He was wonderfully patient and polite with the nurses and other caregivers working with him, even though the varying levels of pressure in his head and spine made every sensory stimulation some form of torture. He never complained; he just quietly and bravely endured the longest week one could imagine.

Recovering, less than a year ago

A few days after the surgery, occupational therapists began working with him, helping him work on his memory, helping him sit up, helping him get his balance back, and assisting him as he gingerly walked around the halls, towing IV bags as we held his arms to keep him steady.

At home, he mostly stayed on the couch for another week or two, occasionally getting up to walk, though it was a few weeks after the surgery before he was able to walk on his own or go up and down stairs. It was hard to imagine that he would ever be his old, talented self.

A month or so after the surgery, Liam was able to get back into his homeschool work and finish 8^th grade. He began the summer before high school still meeting with the occupational therapists every week or two as they monitored his slow progress. Liam was able to start running again, but he’ll never be able to play any contact sports, or even his favorite sports in which there might be incidental contact, like basketball and skateboarding.

Liam was also really struggling to follow a lot of basic verbal directions. He had trouble hearing a command, processing it, remembering it, then following it. As last summer came to a close, the therapists told us that Liam should either have someone accompany him at school, taking notes and helping him stay focused on teachers’ directions, or at the very least get the teachers to write out special lesson plans for him.

With Mom and Grandma Louise

Throughout this entire ordeal, we felt like we had been incredibly blessed by God. We had just moved to the area less than three weeks before his diagnosis, and we received amazing care from wonderful doctors and nurses—we can’t imagine being treated any better. My new job was much more conducive to all his tests and procedures and his long recovery—there’s no way I would have been able to be home and at his appointments as much as I was had we never moved.

We had people from all over the US and Canada praying and fasting for Liam and our family—many of those prayers from people we have never met. We felt the strength of prayers offered in many Mormon temples around North America too. Our home teachers from Church were just amazing, and not coincidentally they were a surgeon and an optometrist, so they had a real interest in and understanding of our situation.

When we moved, we’d decided to let the kids finish the year doing homeschool, which ultimately really helped us get through all of the appointments and recovery okay, without the kids needing to miss all that school. We had no idea about Liam’s condition when the kids started their homeschool program. All that spring and summer, we had seen miracle after miracle—some huge, some small, and all of them just wonderful reminders that we are loved by so many, and most importantly a Heavenly Father who knows what we all go through.

As the start of the school year approached, Liam, Darcie and I felt like we should just let him start with no accommodations, and we’d monitor his grades and use the therapists’ solutions if he really ran into some tough problems. He had always been a bit above average at school, so we were hopeful he would maintain that level and enrolled him in his classes. Six months after undergoing brain surgery, Liam was a high school freshman.

15th birthday

Liam worked really hard at school, and did homework every night. He probably checked his grades online once a day, maybe even more often. He was determined to do well enough to get into a good college, and he put in the work. I’d often see him using the internet to try to figure out math problems and techniques, or studying literary works and commentaries. While I was hopeful he’d do okay, I have to admit I worried that he’d do well enough on his homework, but would struggle with exams.

But Liam pressed forward, taking a circuit training class for PE since he can’t really do a lot of team sports, and also a film production class and the usual reading, writing, arithmetic. He started well, and was getting mostly A’s as he began his first quarter of high school. Week after week, he kept at it, and we were so proud when he finished his first quarter with all A’s and one A-minus!

Now, as he works through his third quarter, he’s still running a 3.95 GPA—just one A minus for the year, and easily the best he has ever done in school by far. He’s also lost 25 pounds, and is in the best shape of his life—he’s so fit and strong! He has also really advanced on the guitar and just plays incredibly well. In every way he is stronger, healthier, and smarter than he has ever been before.

With Ethan and me before a concert

This week—the anniversary of Liam’s diagnosis and the worst challenge of my life—a particular Biblical miracle has stood out to me and taken on new meaning. When Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt, the Lord parted the Red Sea as they crossed on dry ground. I’ve known that story since I was a little kid, but this week, as I’ve pondered the last year, I am really noticing the significance of that little detail—the dry ground.

They could have walked across damp sand, or jogged past a few puddles here and there, or even run through ankle deep water as they fled the Egyptians. But the Lord ensured the ground was dry! I think God did this so the Israelites would know, without a doubt, that this was His work… It was a miracle, and not an amazing, coincidental feat of nature. I believe He wanted to show them His great power, preparing them for the hardships (as well as other miracles) that lay ahead.

Most importantly, I believe God wanted to show His children that He was absolutely involved with their daily lives, that He absolutely loved them, and that he would absolutely deliver them if they were faithful and simply did their best to walk the path He would provide for them.

A few months after surgery

Thinking of Liam, I can see the path of dry ground the Lord prepared for us as the walls of water stood on every side of our family this year. At every step, we would have been content and grateful for the blessings we’d received so far… The blessing of having great care, the blessing of home schooling at a critical time, the blessing of a supportive employer…

The blessings of gifted surgeons and caring nurses, the blessings of prayer and visits from family and friends and strangers. The blessing of Liam’s successful surgery, of his eye and optic nerve being saved, the blessing of his avoiding meningitis or brain injury. The blessing of his recovery, and ability to walk and run and think. The blessings of increased capacity to work hard at school, to exercise and be fit, to magnify his talents…

The blessing of being able to attend school, and that of attending school without a chaperone or any accommodations at all. Finally, the blessings of achieving his best grades ever, and of being a strong, worthy, obedient young man.

Hiking with his sisters

At any point, this chain of blessings could have ended, and we’d have been grateful for the Lord delivering us that far, with so much love and help. But God chose to deliver us all the way, on figurative dry ground, proving to us without doubt that He lives, that He loves us, and that He will bless us with strength and faith and inspiration, through angels that are spirits and angels that are our friends and family.

I know the Lord does not always just remove obstacles for us, the way He did when parting the Red Sea. I also know that He does not heal every faithful, believing person who has a setback like the one Liam and our family faced. But I do know He chose to show our family His power and love in a way that we could never have expected. He surpassed every hope I had for Liam’s recovery, not only healing Liam and restoring his health, but also blessing him with the capacity, desire and capability of doing things he has never done before, academically and physically.

I really do believe Liam’s experiences are as significant and amazing as the Lord’s miracles in Biblical times, and we’ll be eternally grateful for His intervention in our family’s lives.

Looking forward to more adventures!