These days, not many 18-year-olds can say they’re still a virgin. But Brittney Williams wore that title as a badge of honor. She was sold out for Jesus and a proud praise dancer at Rebirth Christian Fellowship in Roebuck.
“She’s my good girl,” says her mother, LaQuanda Williams.
The popular teen was enjoying her senior year last June when she went into a sickle cell-related pain crisis. This wasn’t out of the ordinary, however, since people born with the disease often have these types of episodes. After being treated in the hospital, Brittney was talking and was ready to go home but then her blood pressure took a drastic dip and her heart rate began to elevate.
The doctors put her in the intensive care unit and for six weeks they couldn’t tell Brittney’s mother what was wrong. All they knew was that it was looking bleak. “I was getting bad news every night,” LaQuanda says. “They would wake me up, saying that she is not going to make it.”
Brittney’s temperature kept spiking to high numbers and doctors were perplexed by her illness. “There were days when I thought I was going to lose my mind,” LaQuanda says. “Prayer is what kept me through.”
Brittney had been put into a medically-induced coma while doctors ran tests. After being awakened, she experienced several victories. Once she was taken off of a ventilator, she began talking and joking with the nurses. And, they were able to rule out lupus and other major illnesses.
Not long after that, the doctors gave Brittney the drug methadone and she suddenly stopped breathing. The medicine caused her heart to stop for 40 minutes, causing severe brain injury. After that, the doctors told Brittney's family that the young woman they once knew was gone. All that was left was a shell of a person.
“I was angry with God,” LaQuanda says.
Two weeks later, Brittney’s heart stopped again, this time for 10 minutes. Now, the doctors were telling LaQuanda to give her child up. They said the best she could hope for was that Brittney would be a vegetable who would stare right through her.
But LaQuanda had a dream that she was riding with her family on the freeway when a tornado hit, sweeping everything up in the whirlwind. “We were consumed, but we rode straight through it, “she says. “On the other side (of the storm) it was clear and great.”
She believes that dream was God’s way of telling her that although she is going through a great storm right now, she will get through to the other side. She told the doctors, “If Brittney’s heart stops 15 times, then I expect you to start it 15 times unless the Lord says otherwise.”
Then, she shifted into faith mode joining her family and church in believing God for Brittney’s total recovery. They played worship music and healing scriptures in her hospital room so that it could feed her spirit. LaQuanda even wrote Satan an eviction notice.
Brittney stayed in the ICU for nine weeks and in the hospital a total of 3 ½ months. LaQuanda had to quit her job to take care of her child, which reduced her monthly income to $606.60. After paying her tithes and offerings, she is left with $533 and $1800 worth of expenses. But she says God has provided, enabling her to take care of her household.
Today, Brittney is “doing things people told me she would never do,” LaQuanda says. She is enrolled in a school for children with special needs. She walks with assistance, is aware of her surroundings and laughs.
“He (God) is keeping her alive,” LaQuanda says. “It’s good to watch God unfold a miracle.”
“I live for the day when she is totally recovered and walks into the ICU and says I am the baby you gave up,” LaQuanda says. “There is a ministry in her and in me when we get on the other side of through (the storm).”
Once the storm has cleared in her life, LaQuanda says Brittney has a special mission to fulfill: “She has to praise dance and testify before her life is over.”
And LaQuanda believes that day will soon come.
You can read about Brittney’s journey on her mother’s blog at http://brittneymonyse.blogspot.com.
(Pictured above is LaQuanda and Brittney Williams. At the bottom is Brittney before her brain injury.)