ITABOK (IttaBeeOhKay): From Brain Tumor to Healing

By Kathy Armstrong Pudil

In June 2022, I was told I had a brain tumor. This is the story of the journey from that point and beyond, through the experience of finding a neurosurgeon, having the brain tumor removed, all the complications thereafter, and the healing beyond the worst of the whole ordeal.

The most important message of all through this journal-like reading of such a profound experience is that God has been with me. He has provided in every way, from prayer warriors and support, to the right doctor for the job, to the healing time after all the procedures, and He has held my life in His hands the whole way.

Resting in “deep assurance, unending thankfulness, and unspeakable joy,” I have learned through this difficult experience that God always fulfills His promises, I can trust Him to take care of me through anything, and He is always nearby, even in the very scary things. Most of all I am thankful to be on the healing end of everything, with the desire and skills to write about my experience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kathy Armstrong Pudil
• Release date: Jan 28, 2024
• ISBN: 9798215002896

Kathy Armstrong Pudil

Kathy Armstrong Pudil is a native New Mexican who was transplanted to Missouri for twenty-four years, and is now living back in the desert. She enjoys reading, writing, cooking, crafts, camping and all things cats. As a writer, Kathy has always kept journals, notes, lists, and written down her dreams in the middle of the night, in hopes of one day publishing a story that’s worthy of reading and engrossing to her reader. She lives in New Mexico with her husband and six “kid-ties.”

Book preview

I T A B O K

(IttaBeeOhKay)

From Brain Tumor to Healing

Kathy Armstrong Pudil

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Smashwords Edition

ITABOK – From Brain Tumor to Healing

Copyright © 2024 by Kathy Armstrong Pudil

Cover Design & Interior Layout: Laura Shinn Designs

https://laurashinn.yolasite.com

License Notes

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, reproduction or use of this work in whole or in part in any form by electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the author.

ITABOK – From Brain Tumor to Healing is a work of non-fiction. Thank you for respecting U.S. and international copyright laws and this author’s work.

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DEDICATION

To Craig,

You are such a blessing from God. Thank you for being strong, for always believing in the face of the worst that ITABOK, and that God will carry us through. I don’t know how I could have survived without you.

Your steadfastness, loyalty, constant dedication to my comfort and healing, and especially your love are all things that I cherish and things that shine about our experience.

This story would only be half as good without you, and I’m so glad you’re mine, for the long haul. Thank you for your humor in the heavy moments and your hugs in all the others. I love you, Craig Pudil.

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CONTENTS

Chapter One: ITABOK

Chapter Two: Patience in the Great Unknown

Chapter Three: Surgery #1 Tumor Removal

Chapter Four: Riding the Waves of the Storm

Chapter Five: Surgery #2 Infection Cleanout

Chapter Six: More Waves of the Storm

Chapter Seven: Surgery #3 Shunt Placement

Chapter Eight: Heal A Little Bit

Chapter Nine: Gamma Knife Procedure

Chapter Ten: Hurtles of Healing

Chapter Eleven: Reflections and Thankfulness

About the Author

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CHAPTER ONE:

ITABOK

ITABOK

It is important to know that I kept a journal in the website CaringBridge to keep my friends and family updated on all that was happening or worthy-of-note along the way. In order to get the real-time-feel of the story, I am including those entries here, dated like the journal, along with the comments of all my friends and family along the way. There are even more instances and conversations that I do not remember. All these are included to show the power of prayer. These responses and hearts/thumbs up have sustained me and encouraged me all through the process, and they are worth sharing as well.

Thank you to all who have agreed to let me use your comments, prayers, and encouragement in this text. For sake of ease, I am including first names and last initials, except for those who asked that their name not be mentioned. I am inserting the rest of the story along the way, among these entries, to keep the timeline of everything that has happened. On each entry of CaringBridge, I tried to include a picture or a link/song. Those are not all included here, but can be accessed on the original journal site (pics in the Gallery.) Also not mentioned here are the several monetary gifts to CaringBridge that helped me maintain that site free of charge, as well as helped me communicate quickly with a lot of people, and ultimately, helped me in knowing what to write for this book! Those contributions to CB are truly appreciated; a person can see them on the site as well.

When I wanted to share my CaringBridge site with someone, I just copied the link provided and they received this message:

Visit Kathy’s CaringBridge Website

Hello,

A CaringBridge Site was created for Kathy. It’s a caring social network to help people stay connected with family and friends during a health event.

Visit Kathy’s Site: https://caringbridge.org/visit/itsgonnabeo-kpudil.

Site Name: itsgonnabeo-kpudil

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For the longest time, when things would go wrong that seemed really big at the time, but in retrospect, in profile of who our God is now, I realize, they were not as big as they seemed, Craig and I would tell each other, ITABOK. It’s just a made-up-by-us word that means, It’ll Be Okay. It was our way of comforting each other during moments of things that were totally out of our control. A reminder that we know when things are out of control, at least we know the One Who IS in control. We have often threatened to have t-shirts made with big letters: I T A B O K on them. Now we have them, and if you want one, please contact me.

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Miracles

There are miracles to wonder at and give God glory for all along in this story, but the first one was how we even found out I had a brain tumor. On June 22, 2022, I got into a car accident. My mom was my front seat passenger; my friend, Sara, was my backseat passenger, and I was driving our silver Toyota Corolla. A guy turned left as I went through the intersection, although I had a green light, and I swerved right because I could tell he was coming too fast/too close. He, full on, smashed into my driver’s side door, which sent us turning to the curb. Then he also bumped the bumper and sent us forward, right into a light pole and an electrical box on the right corner of the intersection. It felt like a pinball machine to go through it. Our airbags went off in the front. All I heard was Sara moaning from the back seat and my mom, hyperventilating in the front seat. I moved my legs and I felt okay. I glanced back at Sara, and she had blood trickling down her face. I glanced at Mom and she was holding her chest. She said, Oh, it hurts. I can’t breathe… I can’t breathe… I can’t breathe!

I realized the motor was still running, so I turned off the car and looked out the driver’s side window. Many concerned people were bent over, peering in, to see if we were okay. I was looking around for my phone, but my purse had flown to the floor by my mom’s feet. I managed to talk with someone who had opened mom’s door. Someone handed me a phone and I called Craig with shaky hands. Hi… I’m okay, but we’ve been in an accident…. Sara, and Mom, and me…. Craig, it’s bad… I’m okay, the car is not…. Somewhere in there I called Sara’s husband for her, too. I don’t remember a lot of what happened but someone had called the police, and ambulances were on their way. I heard sirens in the distance. Usually, when I hear sirens in town, I try to say a little prayer for whomever they might be for…it was somewhat surreal knowing they were coming closer because of us, because of our situation.

Once they were there, the EMTs were able to give mom a shot that helped her not hurt so badly to breathe. Sara was placed on a stretcher with a neck brace on her neck. Only two could be taken in the first ambulance; I told them I wasn’t as bad, I would wait, and to take my mom. Meanwhile, to get me out of the car, they had to use the Jaws of Life. The guy handed me a yellow blanket and said to cover up as best I could. Then they broke my side window and wrenched my driver-side door open. I think God made our bodies to pump adrenaline for moments like this. I was shaking, but tried to remain calm and alert, to follow the directions of the people helping us. It felt like I had cotton in my ears, too; I could barely hear them.

As it turned out, I could walk, so they offered for me to ride in the front seat of the ambulance. I said that would be fine. I gathered my things as best I could—my purse seemed to have scattered in the floor of the front seat–and looked for Joy, my tiny stuffed cat that rides above my rearview mirror, reminding me to be joyful. She was on the dash among some bits of glass. I also remembered a bag of tax stuff I had in the trunk, and they let me get that out.

While I sat in the front seat of the ambulance, Craig drove up. He managed to take some pictures of everything, plus take the bag of tax things from me. I told him I would see him at the hospital.

At the hospital, they sent me to the waiting room for about four hours. We were not allowed to know what was happening with Sara. My father came and was allowed back with my mom, so at least she wasn’t alone in the ER. Craig had called a few people, so my sister and some church members came to sit with us. Finally they called me back, did my vitals, and by then my adrenaline had worn off and I was hurting everywhere, so they did a chest x-ray, plus a head-to-pelvis CT scan to make sure I wasn’t bleeding internally. We (Craig and I) waited another two hours for a doctor to go over results with us… Meanwhile, Craig walked out a couple of times to find out some information, and he found out that my mom and Sara had both been scanned and released with only bumps and bruises. Thank You, God!

The doctor that was on call in the ER that day was Craig’s regular doctor, so we recognized her right away. She came in finally to tell us the scan results, and it went something like this:

Well, your scans showed that you have no broken bones or bleeding, which is good. But they did find two things. One was a small hernia that appears constricted by fat and scar tissue behind your belly button. So if you have any sharp abdominal pains, you’ll want to have that looked at right away. The second thing is what we call ‘an incidental find’, meaning that it wasn’t what we were necessarily looking for, but we found it. The scan of your head showed you have a mass in your brain about two centimeters by two centimeters.

Craig and I just look at each other with a little incredulity. This is not something a person hears every day. And the usual questions arose: Where is it? Is it cancerous? Do I have to have it removed? What should I do next? How long do I have?

Looking back, many people have mentioned the miracle of it, we realize that the accident was only a means to show us a much more serious problem! Thank You, God! No one was seriously hurt in the accident, and it could have been much worse for any of us, but instead, the ‘worst of it’ was the news that I had a brain tumor, and it helped us to speed up the timeline to get it treated by the right doctor! Whenever I tell the story to someone new, they tell me, Yeah, maybe God just used the accident to bring your attention to a much larger problem, before it became a problem. Like losing your eyesight or hearing, losing the ability to walk… sounds like that accident was ironically a miracle!

Another miracle to ponder upon in this ordeal was that my mom, who has a low-platelet condition, had been on steroids from her doctor for two weeks prior, in an effort to raise her platelet count. This was completely God’s timing of things, because if she had not had those two weeks of steroids already in her system, she could have bled internally from the impact. We would have faced a far different outcome of trouble in her health had she not already been on the steroids. Thank You, God!

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Our People – A Little Background

In January 2020, Craig and I moved from Boonville, MO to Las Cruces, NM, in order to be close to my parents. This move was particularly difficult because we were very settled in our lives in Boonville. We had good neighbors who were like family to us, we loved the house we were in, and while I worked from home teaching online, Craig’s job was close in town. We attended church at Fairview Road Church of Christ in Columbia, MO, about twenty minutes east on I-70. We were the coordinators of the Children’s Church ministry, and it was heartbreaking to leave our church family there.

Craig had many good friends at his work in Boonville, and I had many friends from my time teaching middle school for ten years in a small nearby town, Otterville, as well as other friends in education from other positions around mid-Missouri before that.

Nevertheless, it is comforting and exemplary how well received we have been in Las Cruces. We attend the University congregation here, and there are lots of familiar people, from times we have visited with my parents, all their friends, and new people we’ve met since moving here.

Before moving to Missouri, both Craig and I had many friends and family in both our respective home states: Iowa and New Mexico.

Craig’s mom lives in Iowa, so we don’t get to see her as often as we would like. His dad is deceased. He has one brother that lives with his family in the Cedar Rapids, Iowa area, so we got to see them and his mom when we drove through to Osh Kosh Air Show.

We spend many evenings with my parents now; we eat dinner together often. Sometimes we are the only people they see in a day, and that was particularly true during the COVID shutdown. One of my sisters, Kimberly, lives here in Las Cruces area, and she was a great help to us in taking care of the cats when we had to rush to Albuquerque so many times. My older sister, Joyce, lives in the Phoenix area; she made special arrangements to be in Albuquerque when I had my first surgery, and we are very grateful for that, because Craig didn’t have to be in the hospital waiting area totally alone that whole day.

Craig is a machinist/tool maker by trade, and we have our own small business, Andsoforth Enterprises, LLC. A man from University Church introduced Craig to Keith at the airport here in Las Cruces; he makes and sells one-man helicopters: Helicycle Ventures, LLC. He needed a machinist, so Craig contracted with him to make parts for helicopters. Every year, Helicycle Ventures, LLC has a booth and demonstration on the airfield at Osh Kosh, Wisconsin, so Keith invited Craig to help out with that. Osh Kosh Air Show is the biggest annual airshow in the world. It is a sea of RVs and a big family reunion of sorts. There are many friendly people who all love everything aviation! There are seminars, author meet and greets, space exploration tidbits, and history of aviation events for anyone interested. There are lots of vendors and pilots and airplanes and attendees; people come to this event from all over the world!

We were on our way to Osh Kosh 2022 in our RV, stopped at a rest stop in the middle of Kansas when I got a call from the first neurosurgeon we contacted. His receptionist told me that based on the MRI and location of the tumor, that this doctor wouldn’t touch it. That’s all she said. I was a puddle of tears, right there at a table sitting outside the Dunkin’ Donuts. Why wouldn’t he touch it? Why, after he said in the ER that he would take me as a patient?! I sat there on my phone with my parents, trying to explain it to them, with a pile of brown-napkins-as-tissues in front of me. Now what?!

While Craig worked the booth at Osh Kosh, I was in our RV, having a bit of a vacation from life. I used the time to call many people, about 19 on my list. I thought it would be better to tell them in conversation rather than they hear second-hand or by written announcement, that Kathy Pudil has a brain tumor! Ahhh!

I also used this time to reread my published novel; of course I enjoyed myself in that. Doesn’t every author love their characters and stories like long, lost friends?! I attended a few seminars at Osh Kosh, and went in to the booth to see everyone in the afternoons. We had some great ‘neighbors’, at the show from Manitoba, Canada, parked next to us in the sea of RVs. I spent some time getting to know them and while I had fun, Craig worked every day at the Helicycle booth.

Osh Kosh 2022 was our last great yeehaw before getting into the reality of having a brain tumor and trying to find the right doctor to remove it.

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Asking for Prayers

As soon as we knew a little bit of information to tell people, I wrote a plea for prayers, which we shared with our church family in Missouri, and our congregation in Las Cruces, NM. These have been our Prayer Warriors along the way, with a lot of other friends and family who we shared the news with as soon as we were not reeling and spinning from the news ourselves. This is what we said:

"I am asking for your prayers as I face a major health concern. I found out recently that I have a brain tumor. The good news is that thankfully, it is benign. The bad news is that it is large and must be surgically removed soon. We are grateful that it was found before it starts affecting my balance and abilities. God can take care of this and He is able. Thank you for prayers of healing, comfort, and peace, particularly for my family as they stand by in support.

Everyone who wishes to can stay apprised of my health journey via https://caringbridge.org/visit/itsgonnabeo-kpudil."

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