My Christmas miracle
Every 6th of December, I bow my head in thanksgiving and revisit the memories all over again, because that day marks 12 impossible, breathtaking, heaven-kissed years since the day a donor—a generous stranger’s liver—breathed life back into me. We called it our Christmas Miracle.
In 2004, I was diagnosed with a rare blood cancer called polycythemia vera. Although my hematologist/oncologist managed my condition, I was constantly in and out of the hospital.
Fast forward to June 2013. I started feeling something unusual—symptoms different from the normal ones I typically had. I felt terribly weak and extremely sick, so I went to the emergency room. Much to my surprise, I was diagnosed with an even rarer blood condition called Budd–Chiari. What was worse was that it had already gravely affected my liver. My liver was no longer functioning.
Twelve years ago, a donor’s gift saved my life. I’m still here—grateful, humbled, and living my miracle.
A few days after the first emergency room visit, I was again rushed in an ambulance and admitted to the ICU.
For six straight months, I lived inside the hospital walls, tethered to machines, drifting in and out of the ICU while pain tried to claim every inch of my body and soul. I watched the trees outside my window surrender their summer green glory. By autumn, they dropped their leaves one by one, then stood bare through the dead of winter… waiting, just like me, for the spring that felt like it might never come.
There were nights I begged the Lord to take me home, to end the suffering. But giving up was never truly an option—not when Raine was just turning 12 and Cy was only nine. I knew I had to stay. I had to fight. For them. For the life we hadn’t finished living yet. This was my focus.
My nurses… attentive, sweet nurses. They weren’t just doing a job; they cradled my pained body and spirit like I was their own. My doctors studied my complicated case like scholars, yet every touch, every word, was wrapped in the tenderest compassion. I was never “just another patient.” I was seen. I was loved. I saw humanity at its best.
My sister Faith—her beautiful name never more true—camped beside my bed for months. My best friend Mike visited across the miles many times, cheering me on, although he couldn’t hide the worry in his eyes. My precious parents, Mommy and Pappy, never left my side, their prayers rising like incense day and night, even when my pain made me beg them to let me go.
Their hearts broke a thousand times, yet they kept whispering hope into my ear, kept believing the impossible. Their faith became our unbreakable spine when mine had melted away. I learned everything about strength from watching them refuse to let go of me… and of God.
Prayer warriors flooded my room every day—friends, family, church members, even hospital staff carrying trays of food, bringing laughter that sounded like music in heaven, and love so thick I could wrap it around me like a blanket. My only job, they told me, was to heal. And somehow, in the middle of the dire situation, I did.
In the ICU, when the machines screamed and the darkness pressed in hardest, I saw Him. Jesus sat on my bed and held my hand, surrounded by angels whose light chased every shadow away. He didn’t speak with words; He spoke with peace that flooded every cell of my body. “You’re coming out of this,” He promised. And every single day, a gentle priest laid his anointed hand on my forehead and blessed me… and I swear I felt the very hand of God Himself.
People ask how I can call the worst season of my life the best of times. But that’s the miracle, isn’t it? In the crucible of suffering, everything unimportant burned away, and what remained was pure: faith deeper than oceans, love fiercer than death, gratitude that still brings me to my knees.
These days, when I walk back into that same hospital for management and check-ups, the scent of antiseptic no longer stings. It’s the scent of victory. It’s the place where God reached down and rewrote the ending of my story.
Twelve years. Twelve trips around the sun I was never guaranteed. Every breath is borrowed grace. Every sunrise is a love letter. Every heartbeat is a hallelujah.
So, like every December 6th, I light a candle and cry the happiest tears. Because I know… I know beyond any shadow of doubt that miracles are real, that prayer moves mountains, that love never fails, and that a liver given by my donor and a family I will never meet became the bridge that carried me back to my children, my family, my friends, and my life.
Thank you, donor angel. Thank You, God. Your gift of a second life arrived just in time.
Thank you to every nurse, doctor, priest, parent, sister, brother, friend, and prayer warrior who held the line when I couldn’t.
I am still here. I am alive. I am flourishing—with my Raine and my Cy beside me.
I will always be forever grateful for the miracle that December 6th became. Twelve years of borrowed, beautiful, redeemed life. And I am overwhelmingly, joyfully thankful. God is truly, truly good… all the time.
Ana Amigo-Antonio today: “I am still here. I am alive.”
With her children Raine Antonio and Cyrus Antonio in Europe.
I saw Jesus on my bedside. He said: “You’re coming out of this.”
