Cassie True

Meet  Cassie! She works with Those Kidz and Student Life at That Church.

I spent most of my life in and out of churches, believing in God, but not fully understanding, appreciating, or following Him...until 3 years ago...

I was having excruciating stomach pains off and on for months. The pain was so unbearable, I would have to go to the emergency room. Each visit to the ER, the doctors would tell me there "wasn't anything we could find wrong" and they would send me home with pain medicines. One night, I had such bad pain that I was having a hard time staying conscious. My mom took me to the ER again and a surgeon decided I needed to have an "exploratory" abdominal surgical procedure to find out what's going on. When I woke from surgery, I was already in such horrible pain that I couldn't catch my breath. No amount of pain medicine helped. The surgeon told me that I had to have my gall bladder removed. "It was so bad and you had so many gall bladder attacks that not only was it black, but it had fused itself to your mesentery with massive amounts of scar tissue", he told me. I had to spend a few days grueling days in the hospital until the pain was controllable. I got to be home for about 3 days until the pain, nausea, and vomiting became so bad that I was passing out a few times a day. (I'm a stubborn nurse, I don't like being a patient, I wait until I think I'm going to die before I get myself treated lol). I had to go back to the ER and they told me I had a retained gall stone in my bile duct...I had to have another surgery to remove it. I woke up in excruciating pain again. I was begging the recovery room nurse to let my mom (who is also a nurse) come back to help me. As soon as my mom got to my bedside, my heart stopped beating and I stopped breathing. The nurses and my mom worked on me until my heart started beating again. That surgeon told me that while he was trying to retrieve the stone from my bile duct, my sphincter of oddi (the sphincter that controls bile flow from the gall bladder) spasmed closed on his tools. He had to cut it out to get his tools out. He also told me that I had pancreatitis because of the procedure. I was incredibly sick after that surgery. Being a single mother at that time, it was incredibly difficult for my son to spend that much time away from me, with babysitters, and not knowing when momma was coming home. The doctors finally let me out of the hospital after about 2 1/2 months. I was having a hard time at home, I was always weak, couldn't hold down any food, vomiting at least 5 times a day. This went on for months and I was in and out of the hospital every time I turned around. All the vomiting made my stomach paralyzed. I was on the verge of needed a feeding tube...until I was rushed to the ER one night. Most of the facts get pretty blurry from here. I had pancreatitis so bad that my doctors didn't know how I was still able to walk around. My heart and kidneys were not functioning correctly. I was put in the cardiac ICU and placed on many different IV medications. The last real conversation I remember at that point was when my mom told me that I was in liver failure and most of my other organs weren't looking too great either. My skin was yellow and gross. I kind of lost my mind after that because of the build up of ammonia in my brain from the liver failure. I do remember my son being able to visit me a couple times and all I could do was cry. After about 3 months into this hospital stay, I developed a fever of 106*. My flesh was so hot that it caused my skin to burn...it looked like I had a sunburn all over my body...even my skin started to peel. I was told I lost consciousness by this time. When I woke up, I had a clear mind for the first time in a month. I opened my eyes and saw my cardiologist, gastroenterologist,  surgeon, 2 charge nurses, and 2 of my co-workers standing at my bedside. I asked them what they were doing and everyone got silent. My mom walked through the door at that time. She saw everyone standing around, she looked at the cardiac monitor I was connected to and she fell to the ground crying. My heart rate was 180 beats per minute, my blood pressure was 60/40. I remember my cardiologist picking my mom up off the ground, he sat her in a chair. My mom said, "since she's too sick to get a liver from the transplant list, I want to give her part of mine!" The doctor told her, "Kate, it's too late for any of that. There's one more thing we can try, but I'm not sure if it will work". Remember, I'm just now getting my mind back and I'm thinking "WHAT??? Too late for WHAT?? What the heck is going on!?!?!" Everyone leaves the room at this time except for my mom. She sits in my bed with me and gave me the short and sweet answer "You're dying". I said "No...no I'm not. Call Ericka. Tell her to come pray with me." Ericka is my ex-step sister. 

When my mom and her dad were married, she showed me how to be a christian, she had faith like I've never seen before and I've never seen again. I saw her pray over horses with broken legs, or on the verge of death and those horses would get up and walk. Ericka showed up in an instant. She sat in bed with me, too...we all hugged, and cried, and prayed for hours. I instantly felt the sickness leave my body. I felt renewed, I felt...alive. My vital signs were normal, my fever was gone, and the doctors' jaws were on the floor! I stood up and said, "I'm healed...I'm going home to my baby!!" Everyone kind of laughed at me, sat me back in bed, and told me to give it a little time..."we need to monitor you for at least a couple weeks...just to be on the safe side". I walked out of that hospital door a week later, still a little yellow, almost bald, but with a huge smile on my face. I proclaimed from that day on that God healed me and I would not be back in a hospital bed again!!!! Here it is 3 years later and that still stands true. That part of my life was the hardest thing I ever lived through and I OBVIOUSLY would have been 6 feet under right now if it wasn't for God's amazing power. My faith has been tested from time to time since then and it just makes me giggle...how could I ever lose faith in the God that brought me off my death bed and put me back with my son where I belonged. God is great :)