Brandon Vaughan knew God could use anything to call him away from Tuscaloosa. But he never expected it to be a headache that showed up about a year ago and never went away.
“Last April, after our church’s homecoming service, my wife Leah went home with a migraine-type headache,” said Brandon, pastor of Little Sandy Baptist Church, Tuscaloosa. “The next day, she woke up and it was worse. The day after that, she woke up and it was still there.”
She’s had it every second since.
And ever since, the Vaughans have been on a journey to figure out how to make it stop.
‘Very debilitating’
They went to a local hospital, then were transferred to UAB Hospital. At UAB, they figured out what the problem was — a spontaneous CSF leak, which meant spinal fluid was draining from her skull, causing her brain to sag.
But they said they couldn’t fix it.
“It’s very painful, very debilitating,” Brandon said. “She can’t drive or do anything that requires her to concentrate.”
UAB Hospital sent them to Los Angeles to visit an expert on her condition. After numerous tests and procedures, they were able to seal the leak.
But it didn’t stop the pain.
“They determined that when she had been in that compromised state, she had some brain bruising and that caused some minor damage,” Brandon said.
They referred his wife to Mayo Clinic, who also said they couldn’t help. From there, she was transferred to a renowned head pain clinic in Michigan.
“We were there for three weeks,” he said. “They threw everything and the kitchen sink at her pain, and it didn’t even touch it.”
They sent her home basically hopeless, he said.
“This condition is very rare, so they don’t know much about it, but by the numbers they said it may possibly go away in the next three to five years or it might never go away,” Brandon said.
Something clicked
So they loaded up to drive back to Alabama, and as they drove, her pain got progressively worse. As they got within a few hours of home, Brandon had to pull over often because Leah was so sick. He realized that had happened the last time they came back from Michigan too.
And something in his head clicked.
Testing a theory
“I thought, ‘There’s got to be something to this,’” he said. “So I started researching. It’s very rare, but there are people out there who have similar head conditions to my wife who are greatly affected by elevation.”
Michigan’s elevation is about 1,000 feet, while Alabama sits almost at sea level. In his mind, they had nothing to lose by testing the theory, so one Sunday night the family packed up the car and went to Mount Cheaha, the highest point in the state at about 2,400 feet in elevation.
“It was so amazing to me,” Brandon said. “When we were at the bottom of the mountain, her pain level was at an 8 out of 10. She was just miserable. But by the time we got to the top, she was at a four.”
At the top of Mount Cheaha, Leah was able to do things she hadn’t done in months, and she slept every night they were there. Afterwards Brandon, encouraged by what they’d found, decided they should see what happened if they went even higher. They planned a vacation to the mountains of North Carolina.
“On sunny days there, she felt better, but every time a front moved through, she’d just feel awful,” he said. “So we realized it was the barometric pressure, and in the South that could change every other day.”
‘Got our mom back’
So they decided to try something else — they went out to Salt Lake City, around 4,300 feet in elevation but a drier climate than the Southeast.
“It’s like she was a different person,” he said. “Her pain was not completely gone, but almost. It’s like my kid says — ‘We got our mom back.’”
They got something else too — a visit from a missionary serving in the Salt Lake City area.
“He happened to hear about our story on Facebook and realized we were within [driving distance] of him,” Brandon said. “He drove an hour and a half in a snowstorm to tell us about the great need for church planting in Utah. They’ve actually got places surveyed around Salt Lake City right now looking for Baptist preachers to come and plant churches.”
Then Brandon knew they had some decisions to make. On more than one occasion during the eight years he had served at Little Sandy Baptist, he had told the congregation that God would have to drag him “kicking and screaming” for him to leave the church.
“It looks like He accepted that challenge,” he said.
The Vaughans did their homework and prayed over their situation, and it wasn’t long before they knew Salt Lake City was exactly where God wanted them.
“It’s been one of the hardest things we’ve ever been through. We had no idea when my wife went to bed one night with a headache that it would be a life-changing event,” Brandon said. “On my end, it’s been hard to watch her suffer and not be able to do anything at all.”
But through it all, the family’s key word has been “purpose” — they’ve been looking for what God is doing in the midst of their suffering.
And now what He’s doing is becoming crystal clear, Brandon said.
God provides
“We left Michigan thinking it was hopeless, and lo and behold now we know my wife has a condition that only gets better in this specific environment in this specific place,” he said.
And that specific place needed church planters.
“It’s been amazing to see God lead and provide,” he said. “We’ve already had dozens of churches say, ‘OK, when you get ready, we’re going to take you on monthly support.’ And of all the money we’ve had to spend on medical bills and travel expenses, I haven’t had to pay a dime out of my pocket; God’s just provided.”
Leah said that for the past year, she’s felt like she is “pretty much a 32-year-old shut in.”
“It’s discouraging to feel like dead weight to your family,” she said. “But when I understood this is God’s way of divine direction, I felt honored and humbled to think that God had designed a plan and had a purpose just for me. It helps me to get up each morning knowing my pain is not wasted, and [I’m] excited to see what the next chapter brings.”
Sometime in the next few weeks, Brandon will pass the baton to Little Sandy Baptist’s new pastor, and that pastor will commission him as the church’s missionary to Salt Lake City.
“It’s exciting. I guess in situations like this you can either feel cheated or feel chosen, and we just give honor and glory to God,” Brandon said. “Sometimes you make plans and God makes other plans. God is in control of our suffering. There’s peace knowing there’s eternal purpose.”
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