Sunday evening at the downtown Christmas celebration, there was a very special sight. Not only with the live nativity production, music and lights, but because Amiee Carter was able to participate with her family ice skating in downtown Columbia.
The fact that Carter was even there to ice skate is a miracle. In September, she was sent to hospice in Hattiesburg with only a few hours expected to live.
Carter, a Brooklyn resident, was diagnosed with colon cancer in Dec. 2018. At the time, she was only 38 years old, and it was already at stage three. The family had no history of colon cancer; yet she had it. By January 2019 it has progressed to stage four.
“The news of cancer was hard to take,” Carter said when she first found out.
However, in another way, she was relieved. She had been sick for a while and they could not figure out what was wrong, so she was glad she knew what she was fighting. She said telling her family was hard, but they all rallied behind her. Her family includes her husband, Kevin, twin girls, Carlee and Courtnee, who are 16 years old, and 6-year-old Lucy.
Carter said before she had the colonoscopy, she and a nurse were talking church. Afterward, when she found out the news, the same nurse asked her if she was OK. She told the nurse that God was right by her side and that he would see her through it.
“God wasn’t surprised. He knew this was coming,” she said of the diagnosis.
By the time the nurse had wheeled her back to her room at the hospital, the nurse was making comments that she (herself) needed to get back in church to have a faith like that. For Carter, it told her that God was already working on the situation. Carter was crying by the time she got to her room and told her husband, who was in the room waiting, how God had already used her in this situation. As it turned out her husband hadn’t been told yet and was in shock.
She said that her faith and knowing she was not battling this fight alone made it a bit easier.
For the next two years, Carter has had different types of radiation, chemo and treatments. In July 2019, she started what she thought would be her last four rounds of chemo. She rang the bell signifying the end of the treatments. Because she was having abdominal pains, she had her scans done a couple of weeks early in September 2019, which showed a new large mass in her abdomen, beginning more chemo treatments the following week.
In September this year, she was taken to the emergency room because she was so ill. It turned out she was in liver and kidney failure and was also septic. She was then placed in the hospice facility because the doctors felt like she had only hours left to live.
At the facility, she said she was in and out of consciousness. She remembered seeing people praying for her. Carter said she could see her family, and they were very upset but were having a hard time trying to talk.
With hospice, it is more about comfort than treatments so nothing was being done to treat what was causing her to be so sick. Yet slowly, day by day, she began to improve, and after a week she was discharged to go home.
“This was all God. We are all amazed that I am still here. It’s a true miracle!” Carter said.
While she knows the cancer is still in her body since that fateful day in September, she has been getting stronger and stronger. From being so weak that she needed help doing even the most basic things, such as standing and rolling over in bed, she is now able to stand unassisted and walk a few steps. She has a wheelchair now, which goes a long way in helping her have some independence.
She and her family strongly feel like this has all been God. To be knocking on death’s door to being granted extra time to make each moment count, it is all about God, Carter said. They are so grateful for the extra time God has given them to stay as a family.
Carter said when she was first diagnosed two years ago, she started then to try to make every moment count. With the virus shutting everything done, it has given her family even more time to spend together.
“I am so grateful for the extra time to love my girls, to talk to friends and make memories,” she said.
Last year, with all of the treatments she was receiving she was able to do a lot of things with her family at Christmas time because she felt so bad. This Christmas, Carter is determined to do everything she possibly can. Her family decided they wanted to come to Columbia for the Experience Columbia Christmas celebration. She was on the website looking at the FAQs and saw that sleds can be used for wheelchairs. That was a game-changer for her.
“I was so excited! The chance to be out there with my family and not just taking pictures from the sidelines,” she said.
While it was hard to control a wheelchair on a special sled, she said it was amazing to have her husband pushing her around and being able to enjoy the special time with her family.
Through this battle, she knows God has been right by her side. Whenever she has been scared or felt alone, He sends someone to her to calm her nerves and fears. She marvels at how God has placed new people in her life that she didn’t know she needed. She knows there have been times when He has carried her because she hasn’t been strong enough to do it on her own.
“Never give up, even when it seems like you are at death’s door. Pray without ceasing for a miracle because sometimes you get it,” Carter said.
Carter concluded that, even in the midst of trials, God’s blessings are there. She knows everyone will die at one point because it is part of life, but it’s important to cherish each moment you are given and spend the moment with the people you are given.
