Mills faces journey of recovery with positivity

For the past six months, just the daily task of putting one foot in front of the other has been an important milestone in Marsha Mills’s journey to recovery. Having been told after brain surgery that she would never walk again, the 73 year old Aurora woman has defied the odds through exercise and the help of her friends. 
Having moved from Superior to Aurora in 2017 to be closer to family Mills found yet another unique family with owner Amy Owens and the staff and members of Tri-Fit in Aurora.
“When Amy took over, she offered classes and all these machines and she’s like, ‘come on and help set up and clean,’ just to be part of the community and meet lots of people,” Mills said.
Taking the job of cleaning the gym, Mills also participated in classes in an effort to stay fit and healthy. Being in relatively good shape, it came as a surprise one night last October when she realized something was wrong with her health.
“I came to yoga at 5:15 p.m. and when I went home I was fine,” Mills explained. “I don’t even know what time it was but I felt like I was having a stroke because my left arm went out of control. I got to my phone and called 911 and then they told me they were going to take me straight to St. Francis (Hospital in Grand Island).”
Owens and her husband Nick were at a concert that evening when she received the call from Mills.
“She said to me, “I’ve had a stroke or a seizure,’ and Nick and I left the concert,” recalls Owens. “We met her there and then they did a scan and it wasn’t a seizure. It was a brain tumor—a large brain tumor.”
The tumor, which was a fourth of the size of Mills’s brain, was diagnosed as a Grade 1.9 meningioma. Surgeons were able to remove most of the tumor, but a small piece of it remains her head because doctors realized removing it entirely would be fatal.

A hard pill to swallow
While the surgery to remove most of the tumor was successful, Mills still faced a long road of recovery ahead of her. In fact, doctors told her she would never be able to walk or have strength in her left arm again. That news was a hard pill to swallow for Mills as she thought about her 92-year-old mother, who is suffering with Stage 5 renal failure and spinal stenosis.
“I had to get well, because I needed to walk into my mother’s room and tell her I was okay,” Mills commented. “That was the hardest phone call I had to make, to call her and tell her I was in the hospital when I had the brain tumor and surgery, but I was going to be fine.”
In addition to the 21 days she was at St. Francis following her surgery, Mills spent an additional 36 days recovering at Aurora Memorial Hospital before she was able to go home. Mills said it was a hard adjustment to get used to not being able to do mundane tasks on her own.
“The first week I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’” she said. “You go from walking to not being able to walk, you don’t realize how much you take everything else for granted. Washing your hands, being able to dress yourself and it was a little depressing.”
However, as Mills went through physical and occupational therapy, she became more and more determined to regain her strength.
“As it went along, they gave me modified ways to do things and then I just decided, ‘Well, they want me to walk once, I’ll walk twice,’” she stated.
Beginning her rehab in January by using a hemi one-handed walker and later a quad cane, she says every step, no matter how small, counted. And when not doing rehab in Grand Island or at Memorial Rehabilitation, she was doing PT herself at Tri-Fit.
“There was never really any pain,” she commented. “Once I got here, I was doing it every day. The first day I thought ‘Wow, did I just walk five miles?’ and Amy said, ‘No. Maybe five steps!’”
As her recovery started to gain momentum, Mills slowly got back into her former routine at Tri-Fit with activities such as yoga or using the treadmills for walking both forward and backwards.

Leaning on her faith
On days that were more challenging than others, she looked to her faith to keep herself dedicated to her recovery.
“God got me through this, he’s with me,” she told herself. “I can do this and if I want to go home and take care of myself, that’s what I have to do.”  
Mills said the first steps she took at home without relying on a cane, were “like heaven.”
“It feels very rewarding and it’s just the power of thinking positive,” Mills stated. “And then I’d read a little affirmation that said, ‘Don’t think how far you have to go, think about how far you have come!’”
She especially recalls attending her power yoga class and saying “I can’t do that,” and being challenged by Owens saying “We’re going to do this because you can.”
Owens said she is proud of how far Mills has come since she began her rehabilitation.
“She’s inspired so many people,” Owens said. “I don’t know why God chose (her) to go through this... but she inspired so many people to get healthier and stronger.”
Mills says even by the medical staff that has been with her since her surgery has been astounded by her progress.
“Dr. Anderson told me last week... that I was one of his model patients, because there’s people that he’s done surgeries on who didn’t have a tumor this big,” Mills explained.
Mills says her doctor has referred to her as “one of the exceptional ones.”

Grateful for helpers 
As Mills put in the physical work, said she was grateful for her daughter, Roslyn Heckenlively and granddaughter, Briana and her friend Sue Leeper for taking care of her at home. She also applauded the medical staff at St. Francis and Kyle Shaver at Memorial Rehabilitation who helped with her rehabilitation. She says other members of Tri-Fit also volunteered as drivers during her recovery.
“(For) my appointments, if I had them in Grand Island, we called it my ‘Uber Sign Up Group,’” Mills commented. “It was overwhelming, because I’ve never been a part of a community that reached out so much and some of them I didn’t know that well, but they were always there.”
Members of Aurora United Methodist Church have also been a huge support in Mills’ recovery.
“(I received) a lot of prayers and encouragement from people I didn’t even know who were friends of my daughter’s and my granddaughter’s church,” Mills commented.
A recent MRI to check on the remaining brain tumor, has not shown any signs of change, however, Mills said doctors told her it would continue to grow. 
“It will grow again,” Mills said, “but he said since it’s slowly growing, chances are having to have surgery again in my lifetime will probably be pretty slim. It took 70 years for this one girl I guess. I haven’t have any symptoms; no idea there was even anything there.”
She won’t undergo another MRI until December.

Inspiring others
Now that Mills has nearly returned to her full routine at Tri-Fit, in both cleaning and her classes, she said she focuses more on building up strength in her left arm. 
As she gets closer to making a full recovery, Mills said she hopes her progress can be used to motivate others to a healthier lifestyle.
“No matter how old you are, the most important thing you can do for yourself is exercise and take care of yourself,” Mills stated. “There are days when I’m thinking, ‘Why am I doing this?’ (but) I come to do it anyway and I always feel better. And that’s why I’m doing this, because I guess sometimes some people think I’m obsessing with walking and exercising, but to me it’s stress release and being part of a community and finding friends and learning new strengths that I didn’t know I had.”