By Christian Fisher - Originally published in Woman’s World
June 17, 2003
Used by permission.

Amy Phillip gently ran her finger along the hem of her wedding dress and sighed. With its ivory silk and tiny beads scattered like stardust, it was a dress little girls dream about.

But to Amy, just 23-years-old and about to get married, it was a dream that seemed to be slipping away. What if I never make it to my wedding day? Amy wept.

Three years earlier, Amy had met Mike Jagemann at a college party.

“What’s your major?” he had asked, and Amy had rolled her eyes: it was the oldest line in the book.

But his dazzling green eyes made her answer, “Business. Yours?”

“Mechanical engineering,” he replied.

By some twist of fate, they were from the same small hometown—Manitowoc, Wisconsin. And soon, they were falling in love.

Mike was gentle and caring, rubbing Amy’s temples when her dentist diagnosed her with TMJ—a syndrome affecting the jaw that caused killer headaches. And one Christmas, he slipped a diamond ring on Amy’s finger. “I’ll love you always,” he began. “Will you marry me?”

“Yes!” she thrilled.

After Amy graduated, they moved to Denver, where Amy began working as a bank analyst, and planned their wedding. There were bridesmaid dresses to be ordered, a menu to choose, invitations to send...

“All this wedding stuff is giving me headaches!” Amy half-laughed, half-cried one evening as her head throbbed.

And the next morning, the pain was so excruciating, she couldn’t get out of bed.

At the emergency room, doctors performed a MRI and a CAT scan.

“We found bleeding on your brain,” one said. What they’d first believed was TMJ had actually been a large blood clot called a cavernous angioma invading Amy’s brain.

“What does that mean?” she gasped.

“In some cases, weakened arteries and veins that cause brain bleeds can be corrected with surgery,” the doctor explained. “But yours is so deep, I’m afraid it’s inoperable. Try not to lift heavy objects. No strenuous exercise. And no alcohol or aspirin, since they thin the blood. Because if a blood vessel bursts...”

Amy stared at the doctor in shock. My life is just starting...now any second, it could end?

Amy was admitted to the ICU that night for observation but beyond that, there was nothing doctors could do.

“I just want our lives to go back to normal,” Amy sobbed to Mike.“I want to get married this summer!”

“We’re going to have a beautiful wedding,” Mike promised.

That night, the hospital advised Mike to go home—but he politely declined. “I’m here by your side, now...always,” he told Amy.

In the darkness, the couple made a decision. They’d planned to have their wedding in Manitowoc anyway, but now it seemed more important than ever to be among family and friends. So Amy’s little sister, Cristin, flew out to help her pack.

Back home in Wisconsin, Amy scheduled an appointment for a second opinion at the University of Wisconsin Hospital. In the meantime, though, she forged ahead with her wedding plans—and prayed.

It was just three days before her hospital appointment.Two months before her wedding date. But that afternoon, Amy’s stomach began swirling with nausea and her head felt like it was gripped in a vice.

Mike rushed Amy to the hospital where tests showed more bleeding on her brain.

“You need surgery ASAP,” the doctor determined. The procedure could leave her paralyzed—or she could die. And even if she did live, she might not be the same person.

“You should get your affairs in order,” he added.

Affairs? Amy gasped. But now, as she glimpsed her wedding dress, she turned to Cristin and her other sister, Beth.

“If anything happens to me...” she began.

“Don’t say it!” they cried.

But Amy knew it was time—she had to think about her future, and not just the happy one she’d once dreamed of. She even scribbled on a slip of paper the password to the online bank account she’d set up for her and Mike: always.

“As in, ‘I love you always,’ “ she explained to Mike.

How will I go on without her? Mike despaired, praying he wouldn’t have to.

He wasn’t the only one praying. As word of Amy’s condition spread throughout Manitowoc, prayer chains began forming in every church, and get-well cards poured in.

Lord, everyone begged, please watch over Amy...

The night before surgery, Amy and Mike went out for dinner, but their minds were a million miles away. Will I still like pasta afterward? Amy wondered, taking a bite. Will I still be...me?

After all this time, Mike could read her like a book. “Whoever you are,’ he whispered, “you’ll be the woman I love.”

The next morning...

“I love you,” Mike whispered as Amy was wheeled into the OR.

“I love you, too,” Amy cried. “Always.”

Surgeons estimated it would take eight to 10 hours to remove the golf ball-size, cyst-like clot, then fix the cluster of weak vessels. But after just five hours, the surgeon emerged.

“She’s fine!” he announced.

And when Amy awoke, she rasped,“Hi, Mom.” Then she turned to Mike. “Hi, honey.”

“Oh, Amy,” her mom burst into tears. “You’re...you!”

“Good as new,” Amy grinned.

At her follow-up exam, the doctor marveled, “To survive three brain bleeds and make a full recovery...you’re a living miracle!”

And seven weeks after slipping out of her hospital gown, Amy was slipping into her wedding gown. As she descended the aisle, the 350 guests who crammed the small Wisconsin church dabbed their eyes.

“Today is not only the beginning of Amy and Michael’s life together, but a celebration of life itself,” the pastor beamed.

Later, at their reception, Amy was dancing with her dad when a young man with dazzling green eyes cut in.

“May I have this dance?”

Amy smiled at her new husband, and she could see their dreams come alive once again: their honeymoon, two children someday, their 50^th anniversary.

“You bet,” Amy beamed, taking her groom’s hand. “Always.”