A good victory!

Dear partners in battle and celebration:
Melanie is doing absolutely fantastic after her surgery yesterday. The procedure took a little over three hours, and the surgeons were able to do all of the things they were hoping to do. The Third Ventriculostomy went well, and they were able to get the biopsy that was needed. At the end, the tumor started bleeding from the biopsy but they irrigated and irrigated and waited and it did stop. To ensure everything had been successful, they did left a drain in Melanie’s head to gauge the spinal fluid being produced and watch for bleeding or anything like that. The drain was removed this morning after the doctor showed them that the level of spinal fluid was normal and flowing properly. YEA GOD! Melanie is spending all of today resting and healing, and we are told she will be released tomorrow morning.
The family spent most of the day waiting in the ICU waiting room rather than the surgery waiting room as it was more private. Waiting in a hospital can be weary and horrible, but we had a good day all together, staying FULL of HOPE. I admit that I was at peace all day, but at the very end, as the surgeon came out to talk to Dennis I thought, "Oh. Man. My mom just had BRAIN SURGERY." And my mind started racing with all of the text book things I know about your brain and how things could go wrong. Then Dennis came around the corner and put his fist in the air and said, "YESSS!" Here is what I know...MY GOD IS BIGGER! Bigger than brain surgery and bigger than fear, and certainly bigger than fear about a brain surgery. As we also say around here, "To HELL with Fear." I mean this in a most literal sense. To HELL...with FEAR. Fear comes from hell, and I want no part of it.
After the surgery, Melanie was in the recovery room for a little while. She had some nausea and a little vomiting, so the nurses wanted to make sure that she was cleaned up and feeling better before they let us in. When we did get to see her, you would not believe how stinking hilarious she was. The first thing she wanted was for us all to sing, "How great is our God" over her. She was speaking in half sentences, but making jokes. I asked her this morning if she remembered it and she doesn’t remember a thing, which to me is all the more funny.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for standing with us in HOPE and HEALING yesterday. We could all feel the power of your prayers. Everything about yesterday was covered in peace, and as Melanie went into surgery she was saying, "I am looking forward to feeling better tomorrow. I can’t wait until my headache is gone." Years ago, people used to ask me, "What makes you so special? How come you get to see angels and I don’t?" I would tell these people that there wasn’t anything special about me. I was just a girl. God wanted me to have a gift to help me in my life, and I chose to accept it. And I chose to tell other people about it, hoping that I could help them, too. So, what makes this family different? How can we find hope and even laughter in the middle of cancer and brain surgery? Listen, I am just a girl. Dennis and Melanie are just a husband and wife. Monica and Tegan and Jake...we are all people. We are in the middle of a tough situation and I can hear God asking, "Where are you going to land? How are you going to deal with this? How are you going to reflect Me to the world through this?" Hope is what we have. I want Melanie to meet my children and watch them grow. So I do not embrace death or fear or hopelessness. These things are from hell. All I have is hope.
Filled with hope for tomorrow and the next day,
Autumn Kreson