225.1 Acoustic Neuroma: God's Miracle

By Ericia Espenschied

A young woman believes she is going in for a routine eye exam but finds herself launched on a hard journey of being diagnosed with a brain tumor. With fear eventually overwhelming her, she finds strength with faith and hope and within her family and friends.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 3, 2012
• ISBN: 9781449735630

Ericia Espenschied

Ericia Espenschied lives with her husband and daughter in Jacksonville, Florida. She worked for four years as a medical assistant with the Jacksonville Hearing and Balance Institute, giving her testimony to newly diagnosed patients, as well as speaking at her local Acoustic Neuroma group meetings. She wrote this inspirational story to give comfort and hope to others through the tough courses that life can lead.

Book preview

Copyright © 2010, 2012 by Ericia Espenschied.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press books may be ordered through

booksellers or by contacting:

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1-[phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web

addresses or links contained in this book may have changed

since publication and may no longer be valid. The views

expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do

not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the

publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are

models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4497-3564-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-3563-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011963162

WestBow Press rev. date: 06/29/2012

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

To my husband, Rocky L. Espenschied Jr. and my daughter, Jilleyn Espenschied, my deepest love and affection.

To my father, Alfred Ekas and my mother,

Debbie Ekas, I cherish you both.

To my grandfather, Norman Harris, my grandmother Phyllis Harris and my Uncle David, I love you all.

To my sister’s Alexandria and Alishia,

I wish you both the best.

Thanks to Kathy Hopping-Burke and hubby,

for your creative idea.

Thanks to Diane Burnett for her literary guidance in conveying my story the best way possible.

Thou wilt keep him imperfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee. Trust ye in the Lord forever: for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.

—Isaiah 26:3-4

Chapter One

The young lady is seated in an examination chair as an optometrist inspects her eyes with the amber lens to check the fitting of her new contact lenses. The optometrist stops, looks at her and then resumes looking at her eyes through the amber lens. What was that about, she speculates. She also considers of how lucky she was to have been able to get this examination today at the last minute. Her usual optometrist’s office did not have any available appointments and she really needed to get her eye examination completed right away.

I think it would be wise for you to get an RTA completed. It’s an image of the back of your eyes. the optometrist states.

Is there something wrong with my eyes?

I see something that may involve your retinas and feel this would check to make certain everything is all right.

She sighs, and agrees to do the scan. The optometrist smiles and walks out. Then a technician enters and leads her to the imaging machine. The photos are taken of her eyes and she is returned back to examination room. She sits back down in the chair and waits for the optometrist. A few moments pass and the physician enters the room. She sits at the desk and pulls up the images on the computer screen.

Do you see these hemorrhages? she is pointing at lines on the screen. "These can be caused by someone who is overweight which adds pressure on