21-year-old Mikayla Grace understands better than anybody else that every day is a gift. Unfortunately, as a young lady experiencing many autoimmune disorders, life is a daily battle. In fact, based on the doctors’ projections, she shouldn’t be alive at all. However, God, not medicine, decides the number of our days. And Mikayla’s great perspective inspires so many others!
It’s sad to witness someone so young struggling for their life. Things began to go wrong for Mikayla when she was just 16 years old. What began as POTS syndrome – a disorder that affects the flow of blood through the body — progressed to more severe Dysautonomia, as well as a number of autoimmune illnesses.
Mikayla’s health steadily deteriorated over time. It was hard on her heart. Doctors finally found that this young lady suffering from many autoimmune disorders required a pacemaker.
“It was intended to save my life, but it did the exact opposite,” Mikayla remembered. Mikayla was ecstatic with the procedure. Things were about to improve for her, but instead they became much, much awful.
Mikayla began to have pain at the site of her new pacemaker a few days after returning home. They hurried her back to the hospital two days later. Mikayla was unable to eat, drink, talk correctly, or even use the restroom. She recounts that she lay there for days and a part of me knew I was going to die. She was rushed to the hospital and remained there for three days, virtually comatose and holding on by a thread.
Mikayla had, as it turned out, acquired an unusual complication after the procedure. She’d developed a staph infection within her heart valve as a result of the pacemaker placement.
Doctors determined that removing Mikayla’s pacemaker was the best option. The procedure was performed the day following Thanksgiving. However, as an unintended consequence, the illness flowed out and devastated the rest of her body. And things just got worse from there.
Mikayla stated that septic pulmonary emboli were thrown into her lungs by her heart valve. Her kidneys began to fail, and the rest of her body soon followed. Within 48 hours, she gained 40 pounds of fluid. All the while, she was fighting pneumonia caused by the infection in her lungs. When she started moving in the correct direction, her fevers began to rise again.
The physicians soon decided that medicine just did not have the solution they required. Mikayla just wasn’t improving no matter what they did. Mikayla explained at this time, the physicians had no choice but to pray. They’d come into her room, despondent, unable even to guarantee that things would get better. So they prayed while crossing their fingers.
But it wasn’t just the physicians who were pleading for help. Text messages and social media posts solicited prayers. Everyone wanted Mikayla to live.
Meanwhile, Mikayla yearned to return home despite her agony and misery. Christmas was quickly coming, and she yearned to spend it with her family outside of the antiseptic confines of the hospital. And God saw to it that she received her dream!
The doctors realized there was nothing further they could do. As a result, Mikayla was sent home. She was still in agony and struggling, but she savored every moment of Christmas with her family.
Doctors would not risk implanting a new pacemaker in Mikayla as they were certain she would die. Mikayla, on the other hand, defied her physicians’ predictions over time.
Every day was a battle. It was “9 long, excruciating months without a pacemaker,” she says. Despite the horrible illness, Mikayla survived. Despite the discomfort, she didn’t give up.
“What was most essential to me was to LIVE my life and do things that made me happy!”
As a result, Mikayla was ultimately fitted with a new pacemaker. Despite physicians’ predictions that Mikayla would not survive a second operation, she did!
Life with her second pacemaker is still difficult. Every day, she fights her numerous ailments. But she’s still alive! Her wishes for extra time were granted, despite every oddity and assumption from experts.
And Mikayla discovered that she is far stronger than her physicians, or even herself, realized.
She remarked that even when she feels she couldn’t take any more agony and misery. She still manages to do it. One after the other. And that alone shows her that she has a lot of strength that she didn’t even realize she had.
Mikayla’s story went viral when she shared her wonderful experience on Facebook (you can read her full post HERE). Her unwavering commitment serves as motivation to many. And Mikayla couldn’t believe how much attention her post had gotten!
Mikayla has enjoyed all of the nice and encouraging remarks that have poured in as a consequence of her sharing her story. And this brave young woman, who suffers from a number of autoimmune disorders, exemplifies how God can carry you through everything. He will give us the power to persevere.
Truly an inspiring story!
