My son, my 17 year old Iluy, was scheduled to leave for yeshiva in a few short days.  Bein Hazmanim with him had been so wonderful, and I hated sending him back away again so soon, but Yeshiva was his rightful place to be.  I went into his room to check if he needed any help with the packing and found him sweaty and pale, clutching his head.

Concerned, I asked, “Chesky, are you all right?”  Through clenched teeth, he responded, “It’s just a splitting headache.”  Another headache.  He’d been having them off and on the entire time he had been home.

“I think we should see a doctor before you go back to Yeshiva, just to be on the safe side,” I gently prodded. In agony, Chesky agreed.

Two days later, we had our answer.  And wished we didn’t.  Chesky had a tumor, right next to his brain, and doctors advised us to do emergency surgery immediately.  They explained that it was an 11 hour surgery, with a 50/50 chance of the surgery being successful.  It was a very risky operation because of the tumor’s proximity to the brain, but there really wasn’t much choice in the matter.  Without the surgery, Chesky wouldn’t make it.

In shock, we signed the papers, scheduled the surgery, and sat back to wait… and wait.  My husband is a doer, and he spent most of the first few hours, making phone calls and asking people to daven for our Chesky.  Listening to him, I remembered an ad I had once seen in a popular Jewish magazine about Tehillim Kollel, an organization that recites the Tehillim each and every day of the year, without fail.  I quickly googled, and found a link to the number.  I dialed, and with a choked voice, gave our Chesky’s name to the operator, signing him up for Tefillos.

We waited and waited some more, praying, praying and praying.  After the 11^th hour, Chesky’s doctor, one of the most skilled and prominent surgeons in England, came out to update us on the surgery.

“It was a complete success,” he said, looking a bit bewildered.  “I have to tell you that going into the surgery, I knew that there were zero chances of removing the entire tumor.  Our best plan of action was to remove as much as possible and schedule additional treatment to eradicate the rest.  But somehow, and I can’t explain it, we were able to remove the entire tumor all at once!  I have done this surgery countless of times, and never have I been able to remove it all without any complications.  You truly must have had someone special watching out for you.”

And we did.  Thank you Tehillim Kollel, for your powerful support!