“I serve a God that can miraculously heal”

Hannah Chaney and her husband Craig tried for years to get pregnant, even pursuing fertility treatments, all to no avail. While they were on vacation, however, she says she got a message from God. “I remember sitting there on the beach and having this conversation with God,” Hannah says, “I'd asked God, ‘Lord, if I stick my hands in the sand and I pull out a perfectly together shell, then I'll know that you're going to give us a baby.’ I felt the Lord speaking and say ‘I know the plans I have for you. And I control what goes in and out of you just like I control what goes on in this ocean.’ And when I did, I pulled out this completely unbroken spiral shell, that I still have, and I was so excited I began to cry.”

Their son Kase was born on August 28, 2015. but before he even left the hospital, Hannah knew something was wrong. “Kase was born completely blue,” she says. “And he was in the NICU for five days and would turn blue there. And they told me that was normal, and they sent him home. When he was two weeks old he turned blue and I had to call 911 and that's the first time that we took him to the hospital.”

Kase had a rare condition called tracheobronchial laryngomalacia, meaning his windpipe would not operate properly. Craig recalls, “I don't like a diagnosis that I can't pronounce. There was always in the back of my mind, thinking ‘My God, I mean, we could lose Kase at any moment.’ But I was reminded, you know, God reminded me, you know, ‘Just keep faithful.’”

The weeks and months after Kase was born were an emotional rollercoaster for his parents. Hannah says, “I just relied on God during those times because I was told that was normal, that babies do that. And so I would just check on him. And anytime he cried I would get up, I would stimulate him, I would sing ‘Amazing Grace’ to him, I prayed over him and I spoke life over him from the very moment that I put my hand on him.”

Eventually Kase was allowed to go home with his parents, but several close calls at home forced them to take him back to the University of Kentucky Medical Center. “A few weeks later he turned completely blue and I had to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and get him back to UK,” Hannah remembers. “This was not in the 'What to Expect When You're Expecting' manual!”

As the doctors did more tests, they became more concerned. “The doctor informed us Kase may not live; he may not even live to be six months old; he may never walk or talk; he could be partially brain dead,” Hannah says. “And I said, ‘Here's the deal. I serve a God that can do three things. I serve a God that can miraculously heal Kase and that would be awesome.’ I said, ‘God could do a second thing. He could use you and medical science, and I am perfectly fine with that. And the God I serve could take him to heaven.' And I said, ‘I love God so much that though I wouldn't be okay with it at that moment, and though it would devastate my mama heart to the core, I love God enough that I trust His plan.’" 

The Chaneys set up a Facebook page and began to contact family and friends to pray for him. “I posted every day an update and kept people informed,” Hannah says. ”And people began to follow the hashtags. People were praying and fasting and a group did t-shirts.” 

After Kase made it to one year, his doctors suggested an airway reconstruction surgery, which turned out much better than anticipated. Dr. Kelli Trent says, “Ultimately, Kase had a very severe airway anomaly. And being faced with the prospect that he might not live past six months of life would be hard for any family. When the ear nose and throat specialist redid his airway, it went from being 18% open to being about 80% open. With the lower part of Kase’s airway into his lungs, there really wasn’t a procedure that could be done to help that area as much. So they kind of had to wait for that to heal on its own.”

Kase’s family and friends continued to pray. Amazingly, Kase’s airway began to heal quickly. “We got to see God grant wisdom to Hannah and Craig,” Dr. Trent says. “And we also got to see God guide the hand of the physician in the O.R. who was using very specialized techniques to rebuild his airway. And we also got to see God’s healing touch in the lower airway because there really wasn’t a procedure to repair that area.”

“When we found out, or came to the realization, Case was going to make a full recovery, we felt like a whole huge weight had been lifted off our shoulders,” Craig recalls. “But through it all we realized that God never left us. And He never left Kase.”

Hannah adds, “I thank God every time I think of our doctors and nurses. Dr. Krishna Pancham and Dr. Kelli Trent...the list could go on and on from nurses to doctors to physicians to people that were bringing food in. I appreciate them so much...from the bottom of our hearts.”

Today Kase is a normal healthy five-year-old. Hannah adds, “I believe that the fact that Craig and I were able to join together and pray together through those really hard times is what sustained, not just Kase--it sustained Kase, I believe that it played a huge part in Kase, that we gave all the faith we had to God, but even more so, it sustained us as a married couple because things weren't always easy. Things haven't always been beautiful. Things have been difficult and hard, but no matter how hard they got or how difficult they were, we trusted God for every little thing. And I believe that's the most important thing that you could tell anybody about God.”