Life-saving adventure
By Ruth Schenk | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
When Jenna Rueff opened the sealed envelope with a faith challenge inside, she knew it would stretch her faith.
But she had no idea it might save her life.
Every teen at Bible and Beach has a choice whether to open the envelope they are given at the end of the week of Bible study and fun. Opening it is a
commitment to fulfill the task inside.
Jenna did not debate long before tearing the seal, expecting an assignment such as feeding 500, volunteering at a children’s center or serving teachers at Male
High School where she is a senior. She looked for something close to a repeat of 2010 when her assignment was to fast for five days. Easy enough.
But last summer, the assignment inside her envelope was to train for a marathon.
“To be honest, I don’t like to run,” Jenna said. “I thought, ‘OK, God, are you seriously giving me this?’ The idea of running 26 miles was far outside my comfort
zone. I knew it would take endurance.”
One of Jenna’s C-Group leaders, Sarah Rodriguez, advised Jenna to be committed to her task.
Jenna buddied up to train with Hannah Kuster, a new friend she met at Bible and Beach, who moved into her neighborhood. Together the two teenagers began
working out after school and joined the mini-marathon training group at Southeast in preparation for the big run.
But the more Jenna trained, headaches and back pain she had been dealing with worsened.
In a strange twist, her most excruciating headaches happened after spending the evening with the Kuster family, laughing and having a lot of fun.
“My head hurt so bad when I would come home after a great night of laughing and having fun,” Jenna said. “The pattern was so weird that I Googled ‘headaches
caused by laughing.’”
According to what she read on the web, Jenna’s symptoms fit two frightening diagnoses: a brain tumor or Chiari (pronounced kee-AHR-ee) malformation, a rare
compression of the brain stem or spinal cord at the base of the skull. Chiari malformation blocks the flow of spinal fluid, causing headaches and backaches. If
left untreated, it can cause paralysis and even death.
Jenna and her mom, Sandy, went to Dr. Thomas Moriarty, a Louisville neurosurgeon. An MRI showed she had a 22-millimeter Chiari abnormality at the base of
her brain and a fluid-filled cyst in the spinal column causing pressure on her back.
Looking back, Jenna can see how God led every step of the way.
She had been through a tough time with her C-Group friends the week she was diagnosed. On Jan. 5, the day before Jenna’s doctor appointment, she attended
the memorial service for another teen in her C-Group, Dylan First, who died in a motocross accident.
“Through Dylan’s life, we had been learning that life is a race that God has prepared for us,” Jenna said. “He paved it out. We have to run the race He has
planned, to follow Him willingly and in obedience to spread His Word through every situation. Hitting this surgery, it was like He had prepared me for it. I learned
with Dylan that our days aren’t guaranteed.”
As they listened to doctors, Sandy, Jenna’s dad, John, and younger sister, Sarah, were grateful for the Bible and Beach challenge that aggravated her symptoms
and led to diagnosis. Many patients are not diagnosed until they experience paralysis or numbness, and that is seldom reversed.
Sarah asked the question that many were thinking, “What if Jenna hadn’t been given the Bible and Beach challenge to run the marathon? What if she hadn’t
opened the envelope?”
Everyone in Next Gen Ministry, family and friends prayed for Jenna. Another C-Group leader, Lindsay Spencer, had been through brain surgery and reassured her
about the healing process. That morning, as friend after friend sent text messages to say they were praying, Jenna wondered what it would be like to see the
faces of everyone praying for her that day or hear the chorus of prayer on her behalf.
During the Jan. 17 surgery, Moriarty fixed the abnormality and reformed the skull and the tissue on the inside to create more space for the brain. That eased
pressure on the brain stem and allowed spinal cord fluid to flow.
That day in Louisville, nine tornados touched down in the area and weather sirens warned citizens to seek cover. Inside the hospital, waiting for surgery to be
finished, no one was aware of the chaos outside.
The surgery was supposed to take six hours, but it took just three hours. There were no complications.
There were plenty of blessings and answers to prayer.
“Sometimes I think God shouts, but we don’t hear it through all the noise,” Sandy said. “When Jenna was in the hospital, we listened.”
A long time before diagnosis, Jenna texted Bible verses to friends before she went to bed at night. She continued that through recovery, asking friends how she
could pray for them. She thought back to the days when she didn’t want to go to Collide or Bible and Beach and how God had changed her life through it.
Jenna was in the hospital five days.
She returned to classes at Male High School this week.
And she still plans to fulfill her Bible and Beach challenge by running a marathon this year.