Hope In The Middle of A Storm: Christy's Story Part 1

It starts with color bursts in one eye, naps that eat the day, and words that won’t land. By the time Christy reaches the MRI, the image is unmistakable: a glioblastoma pressing her brain’s midline and a prognosis that speaks in months. What happens next is not denial; it’s a decision. She names two goals—walk her daughter down the aisle in December and watch her son graduate in spring—and invites her medical team to aim with her.

We walk through the fast pivot from “probably migraines” to ICU, where surgeons explain awake brain surgery, set sober expectations, and benchmark her speech and balance. Christy responds the only way she knows: she keeps being herself. When the surgery is delayed, her husband counts ramps and hospital beds in his mind while she sews a quilt for her son, building a tangible legacy in case she doesn’t return home. Community gathers on a football field to pray; students write hundreds of notes about quiet interventions she barely remembers. The nurses’ break room overflows with gifts. Hope becomes practical—part prayer, part planning, wholly present.

Inside the OR, a drape becomes a screen for giraffes and rings as clinicians map her language centers in real time. The operation ends in three hours, not eighteen, and fear flashes before relief: she wakes with herself intact and an outcome few receive. We wrestle openly with the why—why suffering finds the faithful and the kind—and land on a hard, generous wisdom: we don’t choose events, only our response. Borrowing strength is not weakness; it’s how we carry one another. If you need a story that reframes control, courage, and community, press play. Then share it with someone who needs to hear that hope is a practice. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: what two goals would guide you when life narrows?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Always Hope. I got Christy Arthur sitting here in front of me. And we've we've been through some stuff, haven't we, Christy?

SPEAKER_01 0:09

It's been an interesting summer for sure.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Yeah, for sure. I remember um last summer, I was actually

Setting The Scene

SPEAKER_00 0:17

sitting in front of the condo down in Branson of the Wonderless. Oh and Jen and I Jen and I had just come back from a movie, I think, and I get this text. And I think you put myself and Luke on it maybe. And it was a text saying that things have changed. There's been some news that you received that we really weren't ready for. Had no clue it was even coming. And I think that was at the end of July of last year. Yep. And here we are. We're January the 28th. And you're here telling your story.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

And I'm here. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

That's a that's a big, big deal. I usually aren't thankful for having lived six months, but in this case we are. Yeah. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about the days and weeks that kind of led up to that July 30th date.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

So the end of the school year, I started having what I thought was going to be migraines, and it was like a very vivid, bright colors in one eye, and then it would stop and then show up on the other eye. And I thought for sure, this is migraines. I'm gonna have a migraine. My kids

Strange Symptoms Dismissed

SPEAKER_01 1:39

have migraines, and this isn't abnormal. I'll go get some medicine when I have time for it. Right. I wasn't gonna worry about it too much. The summer progressed, but I didn't go swimming the whole summer. And I didn't run my kids everywhere doing things that I want to do in the summer. We didn't go to the zoo, we didn't do those things. I took a nap every day, and these things were just weird. And I attributed a lot. I'm a girl, I'm 52, you know, I'm getting to be an old lady, maybe I'm getting depressed, my kid's a senior this year. You know, I just kind of blew a lot of it off. And then I had a really great weekend. We went to Oklahoma and got to ride uh boat trips and we had a real good time. Came back to work because I start back a little bit before you do. So I I was at work and I was dealing something with another principal trying to get something done, and I walked down to the other office, which was what 70, 80 steps? It's not that far. No, it's not too far. Yeah. And I got there and I I had to sit down. I I couldn't continue. I was really dizzy, really didn't feel good. I was going to the doctor for the medicine for the migraines because I got tired of waiting in. And I couldn't I couldn't say the name of the lady in front of me that works in the office. I know her very well.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Lady you had known for years.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Oh, absolutely. I know her. Like, I know her home life. I know everything, you know. I couldn't say her name. And the principal that I was working with said, You should call your husband, right? And I'm like, No, I'm fine. He's I'm gonna go to the doctor. He's not gonna, you know, want to get off work. He loves work, he'll never leave work, you know. And I got Michael back up at the other office. I'm just gonna sit for a minute and I'll be there.

Words Fail And Time Slips

SPEAKER_01 3:15

And he said, Okay. I thought I got up and left to go to the office. And what I found out is I must have gone all over the school going back to my office, which again was a direct route. There was no turns, you know. And when I got there, I said, Well, how'd you beat me here? And he was like, It's been half an hour. Like, you have to call your husband. And I was like, All right. So I called my husband and he goes, Yeah, I already took it off work. And just so you know, I've already called your doctor because something's really wrong with you, Christy. And what I didn't know was happening all this time is I couldn't say things correctly. So if I said, Oh, I need my shoes, I couldn't say shoe. I knew what I wanted, and I could say those things you buy at the store to put on your feet so you don't get stuff in them. Like I had all these big long words for a simple word. But it wasn't just shoes, it was random and and just bizarre. Like it just, and I didn't know I was doing it. So we go to the doctor, and and she's had all my kids more than me throughout the years. Like I think I've seen her three times in 15 years, but I somehow have seen her every month, anyways, for my kids, you know. And she says, I don't think you have a migraine, you're gonna go up and get an MRI. And this was June 30th. And I go upstairs and I didn't even sit down. You know, you go to the waiting room, you have to wait for an hour. Nope. They took me right back in, did an MRI. I didn't even sit back in the chair. And my doctor called me on my phone and said, This lady's

The MRI And The News

SPEAKER_01 4:45

gonna show you a picture. And I I'm so sorry. Oh man, is what she said. And the nice lady was like, Okay, I'm gonna give you some information. You're gonna have to go to a uh another hospital. And I was like, Okay, I'm I'm game, I'll do whatever you tell me to do.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

At this point, you kind of I have it's just you know something's wrong.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

I know something is wrong with me, but I don't know what it is. I'm watching my husband, though, do the math. And one of the greatest gifts I've ever gotten, you know, other than God and my kids, has been my husband. Right. Because whatever the situation is, he's in it. And he generally is about eight steps ahead of everything else. And he knew, like, I don't know. He he knew. They showed us this picture. It looks like an ice cream cone had scooped on my brain, is what it looked like. And it's a nine millimeter giant brain tumor glioblastoma. And the nice lady didn't tell me any of that. She goes, This is brain cancer, she says. So you have to go to another hospital right now. My brain, the midline was pushed way far over. So my brain was actually trying to fold inside. And if that happens, it goes into your aorta and you look like something out of carry, it's bad. So they're like, you have to go to the hospital. I I, you know, grabbed my husband and put my head on his chest for like maybe three or four seconds, took a deep breath and was like, okay, let's go. And in that time, again, in his eyes, I saw she's gonna die. We don't have a future. What am I gonna tell the kids? I've seen

Borrowed Strength From A Steady Partner

SPEAKER_01 6:15

that look from him before. And how do I make this all happen? And then I saw the steel come over him, and I was like, I'm gonna borrow that because I don't have it right now, but I'm gonna take it from him and we're gonna do this together because I'm not alone. You know, we got this. So we go to the other hospital again.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

So let me go back to that moment real quick. So you saw in his eyes something that was like, he's like, This is this is really, really bad. Yeah. Yeah. And when you said you see the steel, it's like he kind of his back straightened. Oh, absolutely. Yep. And he's like, Okay, I gotta be strong.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

Determination look on her face, his face, yeah. And and very I understand what's gonna happen, and I've already calculated how I'm gonna change things to make it work.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

And you saw that, and it's like, okay, I'm gonna borrow from that.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Because sometimes you don't have it. Yeah. Sometimes no matter what you're facing, there isn't there just isn't a well you can pull from. You have to borrow from other people that are really good to be around.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

I use that phrase often.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Do you?

SPEAKER_00 7:19

I'm gonna borrow your faith because I don't have it right now. Oh yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

You know you need it, you know it's there, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

That's good. So you you went from there to another hospital.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

Okay. And again, never sat down. They they must have known I was coming. And so they took me into another MRI, and I was in there for two hours and came out and they said, Okay, we got a room for you upstairs. This is your new home. You're going to the ICU, and you're gonna be here until you have your brain surgery. I'm having brain surgery.

ICU Admission And Hard Realities

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Like, I didn't even know that at that point. And again, we're pretty go with the flow kind of people, so we're like, okay. And I go up there and kind of doing this, doing that. Husband goes to get the stuff with my kids or the house to make sure our kid is gonna be okay. And then I'm realizing I've got to tell my kids that I've got to, I'm supposed to be at work. Like I was supposed to go get medicine and go back to work. So, and I've got to kind of do all these things. And at that point in time, the guy that was gonna do my surgery came in and he's a very pragmatic fellow. And he says, Okay, so this is what you have. I know we didn't do the test yet. I've seen this enough, I know what this is. You have a glioblastoma, you it's a terminal cancer. The I can't say the word, the long time you get to live is only about 18 months, is is most of it, and most of it is uncomfortable. It's not productive life. Wow. So we're gonna do the best we can for you. We'd like to know what your goals are. Well, my daughter was getting married in December, and my son graduates this spring, so I said, those are my two main goals. I'd like to see that. And he goes, I think we can get you to the wedding for sure. Not entirely sure about the graduation, but that's gonna be my goal for you. That's what we're gonna do. And he gave us this whole spiel about well, it was just me at this time, give us this whole spiel about how many hours the surgery is gonna take, you're gonna be awake, you're gonna go through all these crazy things. And these are what you can expect. Maybe you can't walk, maybe you can't talk, maybe you'll be addled in some kind of way. These are expectations and you need to know it, and we'll get you with PT. And and all of a sudden, people kept coming in and taking me for can you walk

Choosing Goals And Measuring Baselines

SPEAKER_01 9:35

upstairs? Can you walk downstairs? Can you spell? Can you write your name? Like I had to go through all these tests so they know where I was at and what I could do later.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

So that's kind of a benchmark.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

It's a benchmark, yeah. So that was when I called you or texted you. And I was like, I'm not gonna be coming back to work today. I have cancer and it's terminal. And that was the fastest, easiest way, and it's about all, again, that bandwidth that I had to share with people and and to pray. You know, please, for God's sakes, pray.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Yeah. So in that moment, like what what were you thinking? Your doctor just said, Hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna try to get you, it's it's August at this point, right? I'm gonna try to get you to December. Yeah. And so what were some of the things that were running through your mind?

SPEAKER_01 10:27

Yeah. You know, at first I was like, this is not the time for Tru to leave because he's my anchor to hold on to, you know. And then my other thing was is you can't control when things happen to you, whether it's a car accident or a cancer or you know, a gun shooting. And you can't control what's gonna happen in this world. Yeah. And all you really can do is control how you react to it and what you're gonna do to it. And and going back to that borrowing that thing from Troy is I can't control that I have brain cancer. Right. But I can absolutely control how I choose to deal with it. Yeah. So that was like my number one first thing is what matters to me. I am not going to feel sorry for myself. I am not going to

Community Shows Up In Force

SPEAKER_01 11:12

quit being me for one minute that I can. So maybe they take abilities from me, or maybe I I lose whatever I can do. But until then, I'm not gonna sit there and go, oh, I can't.

SPEAKER_03 11:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

You know, I'm I'm not gonna live that way. And then the last one is, oh, how am I gonna tell my kids? My daughter was on a vacation with her fiance's family and telling them when people I don't know, you know, are they gonna take care of her and what's her emotion gonna be? And how's how do I communicate with the people that need to know the best without creating chaos, which I failed. But that was my intention.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Yeah. I don't know if you failed.

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Oh, I did. When there were 200 people in the ICU that didn't go away.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

That wasn't chaos.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

No, that was God. And so many gifts, but that's not quite was the goal.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Yeah, but that was people who just wanted to love you.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

I remember I think I was one of those guys that were later that evening. It was so funny. You said you weren't gonna stop being you. And Kennan and I went into your room that that night, and I'm like, you really had like you had stuff in there. You were doing a quilt. Oh yeah. Your family, of course, was around you. Yeah. I mean unless you knew why you were there, and we did, but you wouldn't really like you wouldn't think it was what it was. Yeah. So you never stopped being you.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

Well, we tried not to. We we had instant support from people, and the word kind of got out really quickly, and then my kids took my phone at some point because they said I was posting things probably too much on um like responding to people that I maybe shouldn't have been. And the people would send gifts, and so we had to what are we gonna do with all this stuff, you know? So the the nursing not the nursing, the nurses, their break room was stocked because we had so much stuff. We had to give something to them.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

I remember before that night we were we met at the football field and we prayed for you. It may have actually been the night that I came to visit you in the hospital. We prayed for you at the football field, and I know you saw videos and

Faith, Prayer, And Unexpected Gifts

SPEAKER_00 13:25

it's on Facebook and everything, but there were a huge amount of people who gathered there to pray for you and to support you and all those types of things. So it was uh you're just greatly loved by this community.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Well, that is kindness that I don't know that I've earned, but I'm very grateful for it. You know, when Jen was telling me, hey, these people want to do something for you, and I was like, let's not have a preemptive funeral. Like I I'm hoping, you know, I always hope that in until the fat lady sings, let's make sure that I make through this on before we warn me. And it didn't work that at all. I absolutely had probably the most closest thing to a funeral celebration of it at the same time. But you know, for me, when when you talk about hopeful things and you talk about things that are out of your control, you live your life a certain way and you try to be something for somebody or deal with each moment as the best you can, right? There were cards, boxes, and I do mean boxes of cards from kids that wrote on paper there at that event. Yeah. And some of them were, you found me in the bathroom when I tried to kill myself. And I look at that and I look at all of the things that were in there. There were so many like that of moments I've had with kids that I will tell you honestly I'd forgotten.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

Yeah. Like I hadn't Well, you don't remember your like it's just a way of life, right? Yeah. You live in such a way where you try to serve others. Right. And you just don't don't remember those things.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

Yeah. Well, and and I was horrified that this person cared so much to do this for me.

SPEAKER_03 15:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

When I wouldn't even have remembered the thing. I'd have just been like, hey, I remember so-and-so. They're awesome. You know, you you wouldn't think of them differently. And for me, I was like, don't do this thing. It's it's embarrassing. I I don't, you know, it's it's so much and so big and so fast. And I really didn't even have my own feet in this, you know. And don't do this. And they said, well, they're doing it anyways, and deal with it. And I heard your your I'm gonna say speech, which is wrong, prayer. I've heard your prayer. Yeah. And I thought to myself, and this is before I'd even seen any of these cards. I'm I'm watching the drone that went over and I'm seeing all this stuff. And all I can think about is everybody heard it. Everybody heard it.

unknown 15:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

So if if I did not make it through my surgery, right, which was reality, right? If if I didn't come home, they still heard it.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

And I thought, God, what a gift to be a part of something that gets God's word into people who wouldn't necessarily have listened. Yeah. And that was that was powerful. It was amazing.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Well, it was a privilege to be able to take a part in such a small way. So you have you're going into surgery. Yeah. I think it was uh delayed once or two. A couple of days, yeah. A couple days. Kind of go through that and then take us into the surgery. Well, my good stuff.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Dable level headed husband lost his mind. He was angry. Poor doctor. He yeah, well, he was

Surgery Delays And Different Coping

SPEAKER_01 16:39

he's never rude to anybody. But internally, that storm for him of I need to know what's gonna happen. And now I have to wait more time, and I can't. And I'm having a party. I'm like, woohoo!

SPEAKER_00 16:51

You're quilting. Yeah, more time to quilt.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

I'm having snacks, people are visiting. For me, it was I had two more days that I was me.

unknown 16:59

Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

I had two more days that I am safe and warm and loved and surrounded by people I adore. And I got more time. It was such a gift to me. But for him, it was terror. It was once I know what to do, I can put in a medical bed, I can change our steps, I can get a different house. You know, in his mind, he's like calculating this invalid he's gonna bring home potentially, right? And and prepare for all that. And for me, I was like, just hold my hand. Yeah. Because this is all we've got today. Yeah, you know. And the quilt thing, that was crazy too. Those nurses allowed me to bring my sewing machine and and fabric in because I was there for so long, but I was walking around and talking, wasting their time as far as I could tell. And but my son, what if I didn't make it back?

SPEAKER_03 17:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

And what was he gonna have of me? And all my other kids have something. And so I really wanted to do that. So that's what I did is I focused my time on that.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Did you finish it?

SPEAKER_01 18:01

I did finally finish it just this last month. Did you? Um yeah. So once we left the hospital, I had like stacks of it. Uh, the plan was if I couldn't get it sewn all together, I was gonna give

Quilting As Legacy And Focus

SPEAKER_01 18:12

it to a lady based on a picture, she was gonna finish it. But I didn't die. So I had more time to do it. So I waited. Yeah. So I waited till break when I had more time to do it.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

So you go into surgery, I think it was a Thursday, wasn't it? Tuesday, then. Tuesday. You go into surgery on that Tuesday. And what like walk us through kind of what it is like a circus.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

You got like 15,000 people around you.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

You're awake, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:36

I'm awake.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

That's correct.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Well, yes and no. They said it's a little bit like a throttle. So they put you out, bring you awake, put you out, kind of have you awake, kind of have you out. You're really awake, you're out. You know, they do different things. So they they have you, you know, strapped into this bed, and your head's not even locked anything. You can move. And it's a very daunting thing. And they're like, hi, I'm this person, this is what I'm gonna do to you. I'm this person, this is what I'm gonna do, this, you know, and they do all your prepping, you know. They they take your clothes away, they stick things in you everywhere, you know, they do all these things for you. And the whole time they're just talking to you, and and I think you have to make a decision in that is you're just gonna accept what happens. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

You're you're there's no control on your part at this point.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Yeah, there's no control. It's all in their hands, it's all in God's hands. It's it's gonna be whatever it is. And if you try to control that, you're gonna make yourself crazy, raise your anxiety. So I'm doing like, okay, dad, I'm doing my meditation and taking my deep breath and gonna be when you say dad, you're talking to father God, right? I wasn't actually my own father. He's martial arts instructor.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

And that was a big deal to him. Okay. Um, so that's kind of sorry.

SPEAKER_03 19:44

No.

Awake Brain Surgery Explained

SPEAKER_01 19:45

And then they tell me, we're gonna ask you questions. This is gonna help us know what to stay away from in your brain and what to do. And they keep asking me my birthday. And my birthday had been the the first of August. And so they'd say, you know, when is I'd say August 1st? No, what year? 25, that's what year we're in, right? And I would continually say the wrong combination. I couldn't say August 1st, 73. I couldn't say that. I had to like I could do 73 or I could do August or first, and finally I said Friday. My birthday was Friday. And they wouldn't take that as an answer. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

But sounded good to me. It was the truth.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

But this one lady I remember, she says, I'm going to be talking to you. So if you have feelings or anything you want to talk about when you're going through this, I'm gonna be the one that asked you directions. Da-da-da. She goes, I'm gonna sit and I'm gonna text and tell the nice lady behind you that that what your answers are. That's we're recording it. And I said, Okay. So she's talking and she's sitting there with her legs crossed, and she's on her phone and she's looking at me and just talking to me and looking at me. While the surgery's while the surgery is going on. And she'll say, What what do you see? And they have a drape above me and they're projecting things onto it. So it's a giraffe. I see a giraffe. Well, what is that? Well, it's a giraffe, it's an animal. Where does it live? In the zoo? Well, maybe Africa. It won't live with my house. And then I'm telling them stupid things. And one of them said, Uh, what is this? Well, that's a ring. What do you do with that? Will you get married, maybe? You know, it's you know, and and then they said, Okay, if you're on the second floor and you're gonna go to the third floor, do you go up or down? You know, they're asking you all these questions, and you're like, Well, what if I don't want to take the stairs?

The Questions Behind The Drape

SPEAKER_01 21:22

You know, because I'm also drugged, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:25

So a little bit of under the influence Christie came out, right?

SPEAKER_01 21:29

A little goofy Christie, like imagine 21 inebriated Christy. Yeah, it was it was kind of a bad deal. But and she'd go, No, try again. She just was a straight, straight man compared to the you know, the other people that were a little more laughing with me a little bit more. She was very serious. She was like, No, try again. I I heard that a lot from her. So how long did this last? Um, it was supposed to last like 18 hours.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Oh dang.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Um, they said the longer it is, the better it is. That means the more. I hope I can be brave enough. I hope I can answer the right questions enough. I hope I can do my job. I can possibly do for success in this situation. I wake up finally and my family. It was only three hours. They were terrified of what I was gonna be impeachable. Or something like I was not gonna be anything happened. And when they said three hours, I thought instantly I failed. I ruined this. I've destroyed my future.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

And it ended up at

Three Hours And A Miracle

SPEAKER_00 23:33

three hours. The time frame that they were looking at wasn't necessarily.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

And that again is very rare. So there's 30,000 people with this cancer. And few, few, they're like 5% of these people have this habit. And so it's kind of wonderful to know that I get to be part of that.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

Yeah, so I remember when you guys got that news. Troy called me. I was on the football field. I remember thinking in that moment that, all right, I'm borrowing from your faith here because you know, we all walk through those times where like we question why. You know, why would such a good person who loves God, who loves their family, loves their community, why would they have to go through this, you know? And so there's these things that pop into your head, you know, why? And I remember thinking in that moment, a bit of my faith is restored. I think I had Joy. A bit of my faith is restored.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

But you know, God doesn't owe me anything. No, and he knows all the bad things that are in there that I don't know everybody. Thank you. That's to be cared for and to be supported that way means more to me than I can tell you. But the reality of

Wrestling With Why And Wisdom In Suffering

SPEAKER_01 25:08

never you have to you have to temper that kind of stuff when those bad things happen because those things gonna come back.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Suffering is like one of those things that you don't suffer because you're bad. You know, you suffer because the world's broken.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

You said something to me. I couldn't even tell you what it was, but you said it. Suffering brings you beauty. There was something you said about beauty and suffering.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

To embrace those things and to accept them as it comes in ways, I think is wisdom. Yeah, I think it's wise.