Valparaiso woman doesn't let brain surgeries get her down

VALPARAISO, Ind. (AP) - Stephanie Howard drove her loved ones crazy.

While they were worried about her upcoming surgery to remove a softball-sized tumor near her brain, she was the one trying to calm them down, assuring them it was all part of God's plan. She says her attitude wasn't just to allay the fears of her friends and relatives - it was how she felt.

What appeared to be nonchalance might be better described as a strong religious faith paired with a rosy disposition. The Valparaiso stay-at-home mother had always been an optimist; this experience just put her personality to the test.

"You don't have to go into a life-threatening surgery or diagnosis and have a negative outlook," said Howard, 33, who can safely be described as bubbly. "You need to look at it in a positive aspect: If that's what God gives you, that's what you're meant to have and you need to rejoice over that."

Howard thought her symptoms were a marker of pregnancy. The mother of three experienced migraines and nausea four years ago, she thought it was a sign she was expecting. While she eventually found out she wasn't pregnant, doctors still couldn't figure out what was wrong with her.

She decided to approach the situation with sarcasm.

"Those days when I was under the weather and sick, I would tell my daughters, 'Mommy has a brain tumor - just go away,'" she told The (Munster) Times (http://bit.ly/1ucAPwE ).

But during a routine eye appointment, her optometrist noticed her optic nerve was swollen. An MRI revealed the large mass on her brain.

"You're just upset God thinks I'm stronger than you," she told her husband, Joshua, a construction manager.

The first neurosurgeon she met with was pessimistic. He told her and her husband that even if she survived the risky procedure, she likely would never walk, talk or see again.

"I can't accept that," her husband recalled telling the doctor. "She's got three girls at home that need their mom and I need my wife. We'll go anywhere in the country to get it fixed."

They found a neurosurgeon in Chicago. Howard said the new doctor was confident she could have a positive outcome but honest enough to tell her he wouldn't know the extent of the tumor until he started operating.

Because the mass was in an important and delicate part of the brain, the surgery would be particularly challenging.

"I never thought I was going to die. I always had this outlook of what's meant to be is going to be," Howard said. "But everybody was all balling and 'blah blah blah,' and I was like, 'No, no, no.'"

She recalled having her sister-in-law tells people: "This is not what Stephanie wants. Stephanie wants joy and happiness, rainbows and sunshine."

"The odds were definitely against me," Howard added. "But I just knew it was in God's hands and everything would be OK. It wasn't hard on me. It was harder on everyone else."

Her faith wasn't misplaced. About 12 hours after surgery, Howard was up and raring to go.

"Right off the bat, people were in shock: 'Sit down. Stay still,'" she recalled. "I think everyone in the back of their mind thought I would just be laying there in a bed. They expected it to be more ugly, like a bad Lifetime movie."

Her neurosurgeon, Dr. Richard Byrne of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, discovered she had meningioma. No one knows the reason for the tumor.

"The cause of meningioma is, as far as we know, bad luck but not terrible luck," Byrne said.

Byrne said Howard's positive attitude likely helped her, though during the procedure the outcome was out of her hands.

After a few days back at home, though, Howard woke up one morning to "a pool of nastiness all over my pillow."

It was back to the hospital, where a surgical team cleaned up an infection that had sprouted around her wound.

Throughout the ordeal, Howard said, people "walked on pins and needles" around her, like they wanted to keep her "in a bubble." She said she wasn't that upset herself.

Karen Morris can relate. The 35-year-old mother of four was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2012. Morris, who went to high school with Howard and got reacquainted with her through their daughters' softball league, also approached her medical challenges with overwhelming optimism.

"It's hard sometimes because I feel like I have to counsel my family and friends through the situation instead of them counseling me," said Morris, an accountant who lives in Fishers. "Stephanie and I just have trust in the lord that he's going to get us through it. We're both pretty stubborn."

During her health scare, Howard turned to writing to help process her emotions. She documented her feelings at each stage of her recovery. She was eventually put in touch with Cross Books, a Christian publishing company that is releasing her first book this year.

"After surgery she's like, 'I'm going to be famous someday,'" recalled her husband. "'I'm going to help others that are going through similar situations. I'm going to write about it.'"

Things were going well with Howard's health until last year, when she was preparing for a mini-marathon. The training was getting harder instead of easier. Then her surgical site started leaking again. She had to go back under the knife.

This time, with her girls four years older, she was worried about how she would to tell them. She didn't have to.

"I was praying about the situation, and here comes my middle daughter, Jaelie. She said, 'Do I need to take my bathing suit?' And I'm like, 'What are you talking about?' She says, 'I'm going to Auntie Karen's house.' I'm like, 'You are?' She says, 'Your doctor just called and said your surgery's at 6 a.m. on Monday and you need to be there.'

"It was all taken care of. God took care of it. They were just happy as clams and just, no big deal."

Even so, her daughters can't imagine life without her.

"I still don't want to leave my mom," said her youngest, Violett, now 8.

Her neurosurgeon said that while the tumor could come back, it would likely be caught during one of her regular checkups.

What is certain is that if she ever faces another medical challenge, she plans to face it with her same optimism.

"This was a bad situation, but I feel like it was a breeze for me. As I have said, and people don't believe me: I will take brain surgery over a sinus infection any day of the week," she said. "Sinus infections really kick butt. But brain surgery? I can recover from that no problem."

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Information from: The Times, http://www.thetimesonline.com