Finally Pain Free After 25 Years

FALL 1990

LAREDO, TEXAS

Bobbie Vail, a friend and their daughters were enjoying the ride to a church event. Then, just as her friend’s daughter stood to fix her mother’s hair… 

*CRASH*

Unconscious for a moment, Bobbie woke to find everyone was ok with minor injuries. But as she crawled out of the totaled van, she knew something was wrong.

“Felt really disoriented and really, really odd,” said Bobbie. “My muscles, my back and my neck, nothing really seemed to be connecting right.”

A doctor’s visit revealed Bobbie had no broken bones, but the muscles, tendons and ligaments on the right side of her back had torn and would need time to heal.

But as the months, and then years passed, she was still in pain.

“I still had discomfort in my lower back,” Bobbie said. “I love to do crafts and it's just becoming more and more difficult because sitting is becoming more and more difficult.”

Over the next 20 years, Bobbie depended on pain meds, chiropractors, and massage therapy to get through the week, but the relief was only temporary. She also had several MRIs, but the results always came back inconclusive.

Bobbie continued, “It's very disheartening to go to these doctors and them not be able to see what the problem is.”

Then in 2007, she heard something ‘pop’ in her back. 

“Thought, ‘Oh that was weird,’” she said puzzled. “Well, like the next day I couldn't use my leg. It was just like dragging. Things started progressing rapidly from that point.”

More doctor visits and still no answers. Over the next several years, Bobbie lost mobility and feeling in her legs and needed steroid injections to manage the pain in her lower back.

Eventually, simple trips to the grocery store became unbearable, and by 2011, Bobbie was housebound and on disability.

“And little by little all the things that I loved were just really being taken away,” Bobbie said sadly. “Time with my family, time with my granddaughter. I would have these thoughts that would cross my mind, ‘you’re just gonna be like this forever.’”

Bobbie spent the next five years as a shut in, leaving only for doctor’s visits and a prayer group she began attending. She also read healing scriptures and continued asking God for healing.

“I needed a miracle, really,” she said plainly. “I'd had so many experiences with God's healing power. That I knew He knew where I was and what I was going through. I really was believing that He would heal me.”

In March 2016, Bobbie went back to her doctor who decided to take X-rays one more time, but with different imaging angles. Finally, answers. 

“I had three broken vertebras and the bones in the back of my vertebras were moving around and that's what was causing me to not really be able to use my legs,” she said. “He said, ‘If it were a minor surgery,’ he said, ‘I might could do it and I might try to see if you'd be better.’ But he said, ‘This isn't gonna be a minor surgery.’”

She soon found out what that meant. Meeting with a spine specialist, Bobbie learned she needed several discs replaced, a rod installed in her spine, and a cage attached to the front of her spine.

“I’m like, ‘oh my gosh, this is gonna be a huge surgery.’” She continued, “I was totally petrified by this point.”

Despite her fears, Bobbie scheduled the surgery. At her next prayer group meeting, she shared what the doctor had said. The leader spoke up at once. 

“She said, ‘So, we're going to anoint you with oil, and we're all going to pray for you.’ And I said, ‘Okay,’” Bobbie recounted as she polished her glasses. “I agreed with them, I knew we had acted on what God had told us to do in His Word. And I knew that the results were up to Him.”

A few days later, Bobbie noticed the feeling and mobility in her legs had started to return but, there was no pain. 

“‘WoW, my knees aren't hurting, my legs aren't hurting. How weird,’” she said thinking back. “And I thought, ‘I'm gonna see if I can move my toes.’ And so I start moving my foot which I couldn't do before. So I called one of the ladies from the recovery group. I said, ‘Jean, I think the Lord's healed me.’ And she said, ‘Bobbie, I know the Lord has healed you!’”

Bobbie scheduled a follow up appointment, that left her primary care doctor stunned.

“Starts the range of motion test, and I'm doing all kinds of stuff I haven't been able to do in years,” she said. “‘Bobbie, did you already have your surgery?’ I said, ‘No! The Lord healed me.’”

Today, Bobbie is enjoying an active life in retirement, and has remained pain free ever since her healing.

“No surgery for me,” Bobbie said tearfully. “I can enjoy life. I can do things I haven't been able to do. I'm definitely pain free. And that's only because God answered prayer.”