Beloved school secretary gets a life-changing gift from a Secret Santa
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The EastIdahoNews.com team is busy helping a local Secret Santa give $1 million to deserving people in eastern Idaho this holiday season. Every day, from now until Christmas, we will post videos of the recipients being surprised with these life-changing gifts.
Teresa is the true definition of a warrior. She has been in pain for decades but after having multiple surgeries, nothing has helped. She started losing the use of her hands about 35-40 years ago. Doctors thought it was carpal tunnel, so she received surgery on both of her hands.
That didn’t fix it, so they started treating it as arthritis. She started losing the ability to lift her arms up any higher than level to the floor and they knew it had to be more. It wasn’t until they did an MRI that they found she had a malformation. This made it so that her spinal fluid could not travel the full length of her spine, causing her to lose feeling and ability in her arms and hands.
Doctors performed surgery to remove part of Teresa’s skull and raise her brain. Unfortunately, the damage was done and she never regained more mobility or feeling in her hands. They had to go do more surgeries to put in drains, and one of them nicked a nerve, causing extreme pain and strained mobility in her left leg. They were never able to fix this.
A few years ago, Teresa’s husband found her one morning and she was not breathing. She was rushed into the hospital and had a stroke. They were able to save her but found after some studying that she will quit breathing for extended lengths of time while she sleeps.
Now she must always sleep with a special machine that is more intricate than a CPAP to ensure that she keeps breathing. The only way to have this machine is to lease it from a medical supply company.
Through all of this, she continues to work as an elementary school secretary. She is an amazing example of strength and determination.
Secret Santa asked us to surprise Teresa with an early Christmas gift. Watch the video above to see the surprise!
