I Hope I Have Changed

A Story of Faith, Miracles, and Healing Written by Tiffany Johnson

My story, though unique in many ways, is also familiar to all. A story of struggle, of loss, of pain both physical and spiritual…and in the end, miraculously a story of triumph. I know not all stories have happy endings and for a long time, I feared that mine would not. I was adjusting my mind over time to embrace a new normal. A normal that included physical disabilities, brain damage and mental illness. However, with the Lord’s tender mercies and even just a mustard seed of faith, I held on and the light came. 

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” 

It was February of 2019 and I was driving my oldest daughter to a dance class. The chaos of after school extracurricular activities for all the kids has me feeling more like an Uber Driver than a parent most days and this day was no exception! 

It was just her and I in the car, one of those moments I look forward to in the day. We turned the corner onto a busy highway and hit all the green lights! We were going 50 mph when out of nowhere, a car coming the opposite direction ran a red light turning left and we hit him at full impact. 

I was immediately knocked unconscious. Luckily, my daughter was not but she was screaming for help and no one could hear her. In her innocence and fear, with the airbags deployed, the car totaled and her mother knocked unconscious, she thought I was dead.

I took some coaxing to come to, but with some assistance, I made it to the side of the road where a medical team and police cars awaited me. I remember feeling hazy, distant and not fully aware, yet coherent enough to answer basic questions. 

“Do you know your name? What day is it today? Are you bleeding?” I was able to respond to these questions fairly well and when asked if I wanted to be taken by ambulance to the hospital, I responded no. I was fine, on the surface we seemed to be okay! 

It wasn’t until later that evening I realized I should go to the Urgent Care. I couldn’t stop shaking and my heart was racing, making it hard to breathe. My arms were numb and tingling from my neck down to my fingers and there was a burning sensation all throughout my body. I felt the most overwhelming fatigue I had ever experienced in my entire life. It was as though a weighted blanket had been laid to rest on my entire body, eyelids included and the only thing I could think to do was sleep. 

When I arrived at the Urgent Care later that evening, they took x-rays of both my arms to find that there were no broken bones. They assumed the heart palpitations were just because I was in shock and over time, they’d improve. We left feeling optimistic and yet at the same time, confused. What were these feelings taking over my body?

Over the next couple months, we started to notice these same symptoms becoming more severe, only now there were new symptoms as well. Memory loss, tremors, seizures and weight loss. We started to look into getting medical attention.

Immediately the ball started rolling. I was told I was likely suffering from a head injury. Upon immediate impact of my airbag, I was lights out. It doesn’t matter how long you’re concussed, blacking out is considered to be a brain injury. 

As the appointments became more frequent, it felt as though my symptoms were getting worse. I was seeing neurologists, pain management specialists, cardiologists, and physical therapists. Pretty soon, the tremors took over my entire body. The doctors called it a “parkinsonian tremor” because of its similar characteristics. I could no longer walk normally, feed myself normally or talk normally. The tremors impacted my voice and my speech so much that it was exhausting and painful just to finish a sentence. On top of this, I was losing my memory in massive waves. My short term memory was non-existent. I couldn’t remember what I just said, where my kids were or how I got places. One of my lowest moments was when I had driven myself somewhere, parked in a parking lot and called my husband crying hysterically because I didn’t know where I was. I was five minutes from home at my local grocery store when he found me. 

The seizures were becoming more frequent as well. At one point, my children had to call 911 because my husband was at work and they didn’t know what to do. I’ve never been more proud of them than I was at that moment. They came together and showed so much maturity in a time of weakness. It’s a miracle I will never forget. 

After seeing so many doctors and finally enlisting in therapy of nearly every kind (occupational, physical, cognitive, speech and emotional) I was at my wits end. Doctor after doctor told my husband and I that I was likely suffering from debilitating anxiety. That I needed to just calm my nervous system down enough to relax and in time it would get better. 

I was prescribed addictive medications that were showing no signs of improvement on my “anxiety” and I remember feeling so lost. In my heart, I didn’t feel this diagnosis was correct but I also wanted to trust the process. I didn’t want to be too prideful to get the help I needed, so I trusted my doctors.

After months, there were no signs of improvement and I was in fact getting worse, I almost broke down completely. I had stayed so optimistic for so long but my rope had reached its end. Something had to give. I turned to my scriptures DAILY for inspiration. I had received so much counsel and comfort during that terrifying time. People came to me like guardian angels and we were flooded with the spirit constantly. 

It wasn’t until one day that I questioned, “Father, am I doing enough? Why does it feel like I’m not doing enough? This diagnosis doesn’t feel right and I need your help. I can’t do it anymore. No one on earth believes me. They think I’ve gone crazy, I’ve lost my mind, I’ve hit my head and mentally I’ll never recover. No one looks at me the same, treats me the same or believes what I have to say. Even my own husband and children fear that their mother has lost her mind… Please Father…my children need their mother. Please.”  

I received my answer.

I opened the scriptures and the spirit taught me through the word what I needed to do. I realized that I was being kept from the truth because I didn’t know where to find it. I was looking in the wrong places. I needed to look to God. I needed to exhaust myself in finding the truth through Him. But my favorite lesson I learned was that though I felt small and the problem felt insurmountable, with God I could figure this out. And so I needed to go forward cheerfully and do everything in my power until the time that I could stand still both physically from my tremors and spiritually from my torment.  

That day, I found a three ring binder. I started gathering every ounce of paperwork from my medical journey and compiled it into a folder. With the Lord as my main focus, I got to work, cheerfully and unafraid. Even if it meant the outcome wasn’t what I wanted, I was determined to find answers. The Lord was with me every step of the way. I did research, put in work, did some digging, called random individuals with similar symptoms and printed my findings. 

Then, miraculously, one day, a dear friend mentioned a doctor in passing who got the help they needed from an endocrinologist. I had never even heard of an endocrinologist before! We both looked at each other and she said, “Do you want his number?” And the rest is history…

My mother drove me to the appointment and upon arrival, I almost had to be wheeled in, but I insisted on walking with my cane. I wanted to feel capable and with a new found hope in my heart, today I was brave. 

When I showed the doctor my binder, he was thrilled. He went through every single ounce of paperwork I brought and even marked up a few. He spent unlimited time with us, asking questions like “The ER didn’t think your bloodwork was alarming here?” Or “Has anyone ever looked at your pituitary gland in an MRI scan?” We couldn’t believe how many questions he was asking as this had not been the norm for us. 

Finally, he closed my binder, looked at my mother and I tenderly and said, “Tiffany, you’re a mess, but I’m going to put you back together.” 

Finally, after just a couple short months, we knew. I suffered from Addison’s disease, an adrenal disorder causing a cortisol deficiency in the body. If left untreated over time, it can lead to something called “Addisonian crisis” a life threatening emergency causing shock to the body triggering seizures, delirium, heart palpitations and tremors and death. 

Around this same time, God led me to a neurologist who, similar to my endocrinologist, listened to what I had to say. He too was a miraculous turning point in my recovery. 

He was able to watch videos my husband took of me at the time and diagnose some really difficult brain disorders which could be managed with certain medication and therapy and potentially over time, even heal completely to where I would no longer be dependent on those things. I am happy to report I no longer am. 

A moment that stands out to me in meeting with this neurologist, a man of very few words who wasn’t always the most friendly to me, was a sacred moment we had one day in his office. I came to him and told him I had been diagnosed with Addison’s disease. To my astonishment, he replied, “You’re kidding. My sister has Addison’s disease. She went into Addisonian crisis and almost died…You realize you are a walking miracle right?” 

My eyes welled up with tears. In my heart, I think I believed I had experienced something miraculous, but I wasn’t ready to claim it yet. It wasn’t until the brain doctor, literal and medical in his practicality, proclaimed that I had in fact witnessed a miracle that I knew. 

When I look back on this crazy ride, (and a ride it has been, my journey is far from over), I realize that I’ve grown and learned in ways not possible by taking any other path. 

I’ve learned that the Lord loves the meek. He loves the poor in spirit. As he prophesied in his Sermon on the Mount, 

“Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven… Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted… Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth… Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.”

As I consider how I felt in my own weakness, I now turn to others and have so much more empathy. 

I think my previous self would have looked upon a woman in a wheelchair with some discomfort, not knowing whether I should look her in the eye or look away. I would have seen someone with Parkinson’s like tremors and smiled swiftly but never speaking a word. I would look at those with disabilities, both physically and mentally as beautifully broken but in need of healing. 

I too have needed healing. Don’t we all need that same healing? 

I now welcome the conversations with the downtrodden. I look people in the eye. When presented with someone who has disabilities, I remind myself how much it meant to me when people told me I looked beautiful. How it made my day when someone helped my husband push my heavy wheelchair up the hill from the beach because he couldn’t do it alone. How my friends would drop everything in their day to come hold me so my shakes wouldn’t hurt so bad. How women from my congregation collectively became mothers to my children, feeding them, clothing them, tucking them in for bed and driving them because I couldn’t. I will never be the same and while some days that terrifies me, most days I am grateful. I hope I have changed. In so many ways I hope I have changed. 

“Rejoice and be exceedingly glad: for great is your reward in heaven” (Matthew 5:12 KJV)