The Story of Katie Bagley
written by her parents,
published by Diana M. Chiles
In January of 2003, our family moved to Memphis from Spring Hill, Tennessee, a small city right outside of Franklin. We lived in a wonderful neighborhood and had several close friends. Memphis, with its rich traditions and established extended families, was a little hard to break into. Feeling like a square peg in a round hole, I often wondered why we were here. But we were soon to discover a big part of our reason for being in Memphis.
In the fall of 2003, our 5-year-old daughter, Katie, began taking gymnastics at River City Gymnastics. She was constantly flipping around and was totally in love with the sport. Once day, while watching her do some tricks, we noticed a tiny flat spot on her back. We pointed the spot out to her pediatrician at her check-up the following January. He determined she had scoliosis and sent us for further x-rays. One test led to another and we learned the scoliosis was caused by deformity of her brain called Chiari Malformation. Part of her brain was protruding into her spinal column, blocking the spinal fluid, causing the scoliosis, and also stretching her spinal cord to a width of less than 1mm (normally around 10mm). Dr. Sanford, her neurosurgeon, said it was one of the worst cases he had ever seen. He was very concerned that the spinal cord would sever during the brain surgery.
I wasn’t exactly sure how we would pull off the logistics of the surgery since we were new to Memphis and had few friends to call on to help with Katie’s brothers, Garrett and Will. Immediately, however, Katie’s Aunt Leslie and Aunt Jann volunteered to travel in from Chattanooga and Roanoke, Virginia to help with the boys.
We went to Le Bonheur on April 19th, the day before surgery, for some pre-op tests. Katie (now 6 years old) was very anxious about the surgery so we asked for a hospital tour. That is where we met Ms. Diana Chiles and Bernard. We immediately fell in love with them both. Diana and Bernard made us laugh and relax, and helped us to realize we might even have some fun. He told Katie to expect visitors and lots of presents. I hoped Katie wouldn’t expect too much of that because we hardly knew anyone in town.
The day of surgery, Katie was looking forward to seeing Bernard again and even wore his favorite color (green). Bernard went with us to the holding area before surgery and "walked" with Katie to the surgery room. Diana and Bernard instantly touched our family in an incredible way and we knew we would call them our new friends in Memphis.
The surgery was scheduled to last about three hours but things went so smoothly that that they were done about an hour early. After surgery, Katie went to ICU and a day later to a patient floor where she began her quick road to recovery. She had a great attitude and hardly complained at all. But it was her visits from Diana and Bernard that inspired her to get out of bed or leave the room. They always brought a smile to us all.
We were honored and surprised to learn another part of Memphis’ character. Not only was our family treated so well by the staff and doctors at Le Bonheur, but Katie was also the focus of several prayer groups around town. She received visits from many people (some of whom we barely knew), and also received lots of gifts and over 80 cards from more than 100 people. When we got home, we were amazed at the meals, love and encouragement we received from so many people, including Westminster Academy and Community Bible Study (that I only recently joined) as well as St. Patrick’s Church (where we also just began visiting). We were overjoyed with blessings!
Today, Katie is doing very well. She recently learned to ride her bike without training wheels and is looking forward to the first grade. We are moving back to Spring Hill but are very proud that Memphis had been part of our family’s heritage. We will miss you!
