My life changed forever on the morning of Nov. 6, 2016. I’d felt some pain in my lower back, and decided to go to the emergency room at the hospital where I work as a nurse manager. I thought I would get some fluids for hydration and be sent back home to my husband and two babies. But God had different plans for me. 

Instead of fluids, I had CT and MRI scans of my spine. When the ER physician said, “Ms. Mesa, you have a lesion...