“I had a Brain Bleed but Jesus Healed Me!”
“She's laying there, she's unresponsive. And you feel this total aloneness,” recalls Michelle Turley. “And I kept praying, 'God, just give me peace. Just give me peace. And just be with her.' And I would hold her hand and just kind of rub her arm because I didn't know what else to do.”
Her daughter Kaylee was a healthy and active 5-year-old, full of life and excited to start kindergarten. Then one night in 2019 she complained of a severe headache, vomited, and passed out.
Michelle remembers, “I just knew with a mother instinct that something was wrong, and that 'something' was not just a virus or something along that nature. But I didn't know for sure what it was.”
They rushed her to the hospital and soon found out Kaylee had an AVM; a tangled cluster of blood vessels that ruptured, resulting in a brain bleed that could cause paralysis or worse.
“I knew brain bleeds can end lives,” says Michelle. “And I didn't want to lose my baby. And I remembered saying over and over again, 'God, please, please, please, God, please, heal my baby. Don't take my baby.' I called Mom and I said, 'Call Brother Robbie, call the church, get prayers going.'"
Robbie Willis, their pastor, recalls the night, “The family had already been much in prayer and we had prayed. But we gathered again and prayed. Because we realized at that moment, she really needed a miracle.”
Her brother Kayson remembers the uncertainty of the moment. “I was scared of what was gonna happen, because it was one of the few times I had seen Dad almost–Dad in tears. Like I knew it was not good.”
Kaylee's condition was so severe, she was airlifted to Arkansas children's hospital.
Dr. Gregory Albert was her neurologist. He describes the seriousness of her condition, “Being in the left temporal lobe, it was pushing on the part of her brain that would allow her to speak and to understand speech, as well as causing pressure on the parts of her brain that allow her to move the right side of her body. About 25% of people who have bleeding from their AVM end up either dying or having a permanent and serious neurological problem.”
Kayson states, “It was just something you can't forget. It-it hurt that...you feel helpless. There's nothing you can do, just to see her like that.”
Pastor Robbie reflects on the prayer chain that started, “By the time that they airlifted her, there were people across multiple states that were crying out to God for Kaylee by that point.”
Their prayers were being answered quickly. By the time the life flight arrived in Little Rock, the bleeding had stopped. Still, she lay unresponsive.
With tears Michelle says, “When she was in the ICU room, I kept thinking, how many times have I just wanted Kaylee just hush, cause she is a motormouth, and she likes to talk. And I kept thinking, how many times have I told her to hush, and I'd give anything right now just to hear her talk.”
The Turley's waited and prayed as Kaylee lay unconscious for days.
And then, a moment of hope.
“We had started seeing some motion in her that we hadn't been seeing. She finally looked at me and said, 'Mama, I'm hungry,'" Says Michelle. “It was mumbled, but to hear her say that, that meant so much. And one other thing, right before they took her back for her angiogram, I looked at her and said, 'Baby, I love you to the moon and back.' And she said, 'I love you the most, I said it first.'"
Michelle continues, “And that's kind of our little saying that we have. And to hear her say that immediately let me know that it's gonna be okay. And that just meant–it was such wonderful words to hear her say that after two days now of nothing. And her to say that, it's like God's hearing and God's healing. It is gonna be okay.”
Over the next few days Kaylee's condition improved remarkably.
Dr. Albert was surprised at her progress, “I really expected that she would need to spend some time on inpatient rehabilitation regaining her strength and her speech functions, but those all came back very quickly, and she was able to go straight home about five days after she first arrived to us.”
Still doctors said Kaylee would need brain surgery to remove the AVM.
Three months later she returned to the hospital for a pre-op MRI and her mom prayed for another miracle.
“I felt all alone,” said Michelle. “And I went to the waiting room and I was setting there and just prayed, just kept praying, just kept praying. I looked up and the doctor and his assistant was coming down the hallway with a smile on their face and they gave me this right here. And I thought, 'Yay, it's good news.' And he said, 'We got in there and there was nothing.' He said, 'I don't know if the body absorbed it, I don't know what happened.' He said, 'But something.' And I said, 'I can tell you what happened. God healed her. She is healed.'"
Dr. Albert confirms how unexpected the news was, “It was surprising to me that the AVM was no longer visible at three months, that I could not see it on the MRI. I've not had that happen before. And it was definitely a surprise, but a happy surprise.”
A spunky healthy Kaylee says, “I told the doctor that Jesus healed me and I didn’t have to have surgery."
Kaylee was healed. Her family remains thankful for the care they received from the hospital staff and the miracle they received from the Lord.
Kayson smiles and says, “My entire life; I've seen God do miracles as heal Kaylee or He heal somebody that there was no way anything else could have healed them.”
Pastor Robbie confidently states, “We know that God works miracles. And in our local church, we are convinced that when we call, God answers.”
“Words can't express the feeling it is to know that people across the United States was praying,” Michelle says with a heartwarming tone. “You know, you couldn't–that thanks is not enough for all these people. I would love just to be able to send everybody something to show the gratitude and appreciation for their prayers. And I just–every night thank God just for one more day with my family.”
Kaylee smiles and says, “I had a brain bleed, but Jesus healed me.”
