Meet Kayla

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally brethren whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and is anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.

—Philippians 4:6-8 (NASB)

My name is Kayla Woodhouse. I am a Christian, a David Phelps “Phan”, a swimmer, an author, an artist, a music freak, and more.

Sounds normal, huh? Well, think again! (I personally think that no one is normal… and that normal is “so overrated”…) :)

Before I tell you anything more about myself, though, I’d like to explain that I am a firm believer in God. And I also believe with everything in me that God “knows the plans [He] has for [us], plans to prosper [us] and not to harm [us], plans to give [us] hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11).

I have experienced this in miraculous ways… Because I have been in situations all my life that needed miracles.

I also believe that Jeremiah 29:11 applies to all of us. God didn’t say that this road would be easy… He said that He knows the plans He has for us and that He causes all things to work for our good (Romans 8:28).

I truly believe that I would not have the relationship I have with God if my life hadn’t been the way it is. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. :)

Let me tell you a little of my story…

I have a very rare condition called HSAN—Hereditary Sensory Autonomic Neuropathy. In fact, it’s so rare that I was the first person we knew of (alive) that had HSAN. Thank God, though, we have since met more people who have this condition (there are now ~30 confirmed cases in the world and there are a few other disorders that are similar, such as CIPA).

It’s kind of complicated to explain, so I’ll tell you what my condition is in “human terms” (as opposed to “doctor terms”). :)

I’m missing fibers in my nerves throughout my nervous system, and thus certain information doesn’t get to my brain…

I can’t sweat, and my body doesn’t know when I’m getting too hot. And (because of REALLY complicated medical conditions—which I have tried and failed to understand) I can’t get too hot. Overheating could kill me, or in “the small run” give me serious brain damage.

So, for example, fevers above 99-100 degrees could be deadly for me. Especially because the nervous system doesn’t signal my brain that it is too hot and cannot cool itself down (also vice-versa, when I get really cold it’s hard for my body to warm back up). Our house stays between 62 and 65 degrees, but my room stays at a steady 58 degrees. I cannot be outside for more than a couple minutes if the temperature is above 68 degrees, unless the sun is behind clouds, then it’s a little easier for me to be outside (although, if it is anywhere around 68 degrees, then I can’t be very active).

I also can’t feel pain unless it’s twenty to thirty times what your “average” person would feel.
WAIT! Don’t get the wrong idea… most people think that it would be awesome not to feel pain. But, I hate to be Johnny Rain Cloud...

Picture this… You’re in the kitchen and you lean back, putting your hand behind you in a casual manner. Ten seconds later everyone is screaming at you that the stovetop is on. You suddenly realize that you had put your hand onto a hot burner without even knowing it.

Okay, imagine this… You are playing with your friends and you fall down. Twenty minutes later you feel kind of light headed and your ankle keeps rolling to the side in an aggravating manner. Someone notices, tells you to sit down, pulls up your pant leg and gasps. You look down and see purple, blue and green flesh.

Also, think of a time when you finally do feel pain. The pain would have to be twenty to thirty times what someone else would feel. And… you’re not used to feeling pain. So it’s totally new. And annoying.

So, in conclusion, while not being able to feel pain may sound good at some times, it’s not a “good thing” so-to-speak.

God created pain for a reason, even if you don’t like it at times.

Now, yes, I have felt pain before.

When I was nine, I started having aggressive migraines. My parents and the doctors couldn’t figure it out—here was the girl who had never complained of feeling pain—then I started having migraines so bad that I would curl up on the couch and not speak or eat? Weird, huh? And the other scary part was that I had a fever for nine weeks. As General Custer in Night at the Museum says, “Yeah. Not good. Not good at all.”

We lived up in Alaska at that time, because of the cool climate.  But the doctors couldn’t figure it out, and told my family that we needed to move back to the Lower 48. We moved to Colorado—where we currently live—and I had thirteen MRIs.

The doctor’s discovered that I had another rare condition called a Chiari malformation of the brain.
Basically, my brain had grown too big for my skull (which is kinda funny because I have the biggest head in my family) and began to squish down onto my spinal cord. I developed a cyst on my spinal cord that filled with fluid, and it was throwing my whole body out of whack. I couldn’t sit in a chair without falling off, I couldn’t walk through a door without knocking into it, I fell all the way down flights of stairs over and over and over again.

My migraines came and went, and I’ll admit it was a very hard time. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t sit down into a chair without falling onto the floor. Even though we knew that I had the Chiari, my neurosurgeon didn’t want to perform the surgery until I was older, because they wanted to see what would happen as I grew.

Because I have such a rare disorder, insurance companies won’t take me or my family (because my disorder’s first word is “Hereditary”), so we were in a very tight spot.

Little did we know, God had a gigantic blessing in store for us.

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition had gotten thousands of nominations for our family from all over the US from churches and people my mom had spoken to.

A crew from EM:HE (Extreme Makeover) came to interview us, and we had loads of fun together. But that night, something was wrong with my head. I didn’t have a migraine, but the back of my head hurt like I hadn’t felt before.

My mom called the doctor, and he said that they needed to do surgery immediately.

They scheduled the operation, and three weeks later on September 26 (my half birthday) of 2006, I had brain surgery. When the operation was complete, the doctor came out and told my parents that he had no idea how tight it was inside my head.

And he was surprised that I hadn’t been paralyzed.

Basically what the doctor performed in the operation was this: he took out the bottom, back portion of my skull and the top two vertebrae to try and make room for my brain.

He said that it would take several years to a lifetime for my brain to get back into the place it is supposed to be and the cyst (syrinx) might not ever go away.

But we serve an awesome God. And, I do mean AWEsome. What the doctors said was impossible, God said was possible.

Six months later, the day after my tenth birthday, I had my post-op MRI. The doctor brought my mom and me into his office and pointed at a screen. He said, “Look.”

We looked.

My brain had completely moved back to where it was supposed to be. And the syrinx? Completely gone.

Is that awesome or what?

I could now run and jump (which, obviously, had been a privilege that was taken away after the surgery) and I have no more problems caused by the Chiari.

Well, as you can probably imagine after a half-a-million dollar brain surgery, we had an overload of medical bills, and my parents had to sell our house and we moved into a rental house.

A little while later our parents were again contacted by EM:HE, and they said that they would like to see us again. (Little did we know that they had been following our story still, even though we thought that it was all over.) Several months later, they told us we were finalists. Wow. But it could never happen to us, right?

Did I mention that we serve an awesome God?

On September 30, 2007, a year and four days after I had brain surgery, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition showed up and we heard Ty yelling through the megaphone, “Good morning, Woodhouse Family!” A week later, we had a home. A safe home.

God blessed us so immensely, and we hadn’t “done” anything. Except pray. And pray. And pray. And pray… through the good times and through the hard times.

Now, we have a house with a massive air conditioner that keeps our house steadily at 62 degrees. A house with a movie theatre, a bowling alley, and an ice cream parlor. It was founded on love and it was built on love. Now it’s filled with love.

We are eternally thankful to everyone who helped with our house, and even more thankful to our God who brought everything about.

But hey, don’t think the story ends there! :) God never stops blessing us… never. Even trials are blessings.

Because I have to stay inside practically 24/7, I have a lot of hobbies. My brother and I are homeschooled, I paint, I sketch, I play the piano and sing, I knit and sew and cross-stitch. I am a swimmer, an avid reader, and the “coolest” David Phelps fan (the title thus given to me by other DP “Phans”) out there. LOL :)

I am also a writer. And—get ready for another surprise blessing—I am now the youngest published full-length novelist by a royalty paying publisher. Meaning that I am the youngest author to have written a full-length book that was published by a paying publisher.

I got published when I was twelve, because of a “God’s-hand-was-in-control-every-second-even-when-I-wasn’t-looking” situation. In short, Momma had published a book about our story called Welcome Home; Our Family’s Journey to Extreme Joy and thus she had a lot of author/writer/editor/publisher friends. And one friend in particular told Momma that she would help me with my writing.

I showed her my writing, she started crying… and she said that I should be published—now. I was twelve years old.

Within six months, Momma and I had signed contracts and written No Safe Haven, my first book. It released in February of 2010. Then a little over a year later Race Against Time, the second book in our series, came out.

Would I have ever started writing if I hadn’t been “confined” indoors? No, I don’t think so.
Would I have ever wanted to be an elite swimmer? I don’t think so. Swimming started out as a therapy for me, now it’s the sport I love. Many people have predicted that I will be in the Olympics one day. Maybe I will… we’ll just see what God does next. :)

It hasn’t been easy. In fact, it’s been just the opposite. I’ve battled with medical conditions, deadly situations, depression, and a devil who “prowls around like a roaring lion” (1 Peter 5:8) on a daily basis.

But, I have my awesome, all-powerful God who counsels me, who guides me, who protects me, who teaches me, who loves me, who died for me.

I have my magnificent and wonderful beyond wonderful family. I have a house with air conditioning. I have a six-month old Yorkshire Terrier service dog who already alerts me when I’m getting too hot.
I am blessed. And ya know what? You are too.

You may not be able to see it right now, but hey. We don’t always know when God sends a blessing our way. In fact, most of the time we don’t know until after the fact.

You may struggle with depression, rejection, doubt… and/or a million other things. But please re-read the verse at the beginning of this article (Phillipians 4:6-8).

First off, God tells—not suggests—us to come to Him in prayer. To, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” He assures us that His peace is there. That He “will never fail [us] nor forsake [us]” (Joshua 1:5).

God also tells us to “Dwell on these things”…
What things? Whatever is true… whatever is honorable… whatever is right… whatever is pure… whatever is lovely… whatever is of good repute… anything excellent and anything praiseworthy…
What is true? God. His Word. And… those are about the only things we can know every time—without fail—that are true. :)

So…Is depression true? No. Depression is a hole that we put ourselves in when we “feel” like we can’t go on. (Trust me, I know, I still battle with this.)

Are feelings true? No. Feelings can let us down. Besides, do we always know if what we are “feeling” is from the Lord or the deceiver? When we get stuck in depression, we have a bad habit of giving up because we can’t “hear” or “feel” God… But we’re not supposed to be focused on whether or not we’re hearing or feeling God. We’re supposed to trust Him.

What is honorable? Well, praise is honorable. :) After all, God is praiseworthy. You may not be able to see Him putting into action blessings in your life right now. But then, if we saw and knew everything that God did… where would the lessons be? How would we learn?

How would we learn to trust? To lean on God?

Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.”

Who do we trust? God.

How do we trust Him? With all of our hearts. It’s not a matter of, “how do I feel that I am trusting Him?” or “how do I trust Him?” God tells us to trust Him with “all of [our] hearts”. So, surrender.
What do we do to trust Him? We, again, surrender. We “lean not on [our] own understandings” but “acknowledge Him in all [our] ways.” Just because we don’t feel Him working in our lives or we don’t feel Him next to us and leading us doesn’t mean that He’s not there. When we can’t see past our doubts, the only thing we can do is think on the truth—i.e. God’s Word. God’s character. Did He abandon Moses? Did He abandon Esther? Did He abandon David? No, He didn’t. If God is/was so perfectly in control in those situations, what makes you think that He’s not going to help you? Here’s a thought: we don’t have to know everything. God is God. Let Him rule your life and trust in the Lord—with all your heart. Then acknowledge Him in all our ways. In other words: Pray.

What will God do? He will “make our paths straight.” Notice that it doesn’t say “right now.” :) God is God. And we are not.

So, even if the road seems never-ending… even if you feel like giving up… even if you can’t “feel” God next to you… even if you don’t have any friends or family to turn to… even if your life seems so bleak and dreary…

Just remember: God loved you so much that He sent His one and only Son Jesus Christ to die for your—and my—sins. You may not have realized this, but Jesus was a teenager once too. He was an adult that was rejected. He was an outcast. He went through trials and temptations. But He didn’t sin.

And He also didn’t give up. Why? I personally think that it was because of us. Because of His love for us.

Here’s another thought… Jesus died for us… why? So that we could live for and with Him. So that we could share His light. So that we could learn lessons, and then help others who are going through similar situations. So that we could dwell on the truth. So that we could trust in Him… no matter what.
He didn’t give up on the cross…

What makes you think that He’s going to give up on you?

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally brethren, whatever is true…

Dwell on these things.

In God’s blessings and love,
Kayla R. Woodhouse

Fifteen-year-old Kayla Woodhouse is the youngest author to have a full-length novel published by a royalty paying publisher. Her zest for writing comes not only from her natural ability, but also from her love of the written word as witnessed by her voracious reading appetite. One of only a few dozen cases in the world, Kayla was born with HSAN, Hereditary Sensory Autonomic Neuropathy, an extremely rare nerve disorder. Unable to sweat, or feel pain, she’s also been through brain surgery. But even through a life of extreme hardships, her ever-present smile encourages others to pursue their dreams, no matter the obstacles. In addition to being homeschooled and writing with her mom, she’s an amazing swimmer, and spends up to thirty hours a week in training. She has appeared on ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, The Montel Williams Show, Mystery ER, and numerous other national programs as well as hundreds of national radio interviews. She’s been on the cover of Clubhouse Magazine, Homecoming Magazine, and featured in Susie Magazine. Her suspense novels—No Safe Haven and Race Against Time—written with her mother, Kimberley, received Christian Retailing’s top pick and both received 4 stars from Romantic Times Reviews. You can find Kayla at http://kimandkaylawoodhouse.com and http://facebook.com/KaylaWoodhouse.