By Emilie Ng
DIVINE assistance from Australia’s first saint led Brisbane woman Carmel Gribban to doctors who saved her from a life-threatening fistula on her brain.
In 2007, Carmel was diagnosed with a rare dural arteriovenous fistula where her cerebral artery, which circulated blood into the brain, was abnormally connected to the main cerebral vein, which pumps blood away from the brain.
Only one in four million people are diagnosed with this type of fistula, and in many cases, patients die from a severe stroke.
Carmel underwent six surgeries in Brisbane, all attempting to close off the fistula with a metal catheter inserted through the groin towards the brain and attempting to block off the fistula with super glue.
“I had trouble right through,” Carmel said.
As well as the fear of having a stroke, Carmel’s eyes were also feeling the pressure of the cerebral fistula.
“My eye was pulsating and blowing right out because the blood was pulsating right back into the eye,” she said.
“When (the Brisbane specialists) looked into the eye, they couldn’t do any more, and told me I might lose the eyesight in one eye and then eventually in the other.
“I knew my time was going.”
Losing hope in the medical support she had received, Carmel decided to turn to her favourite Australian woman, Mary MacKillop, who at the time, was not yet declared a saint.
“I was a training tour guide, and I used to come to St Stephen’s Cathedral, St John’s, all of them,” she said.
“I took tour guides in to see the Mary MacKillop statue (in St Stephen’s Chapel), and I was most impressed by her story.
“And then when this happened, I went back to there by myself to pray to her to find the right surgeon.”
That night, Carmel searched for a fistula specialist on Google, and within five minutes, had the name of a world-renowned doctor working in North Sydney.
After consulting with another specialist who mentioned the same name as the doctor she found on Google, within a week, Carmel was preparing for surgery in North Sydney.
After two lots of surgeries, Carmel’s fistula was closed up.
Carmel said it was not a miracle, but that Mary MacKillop’s intercession did lead her to the right person, and was a constant comfort in the surgery room.
“When I got to Sydney from first diagnosis, I kept praying to her,” she said.
“When I went back to the operation three weeks later, that was the day the miracle happened.
“I got out of the train station, walked to the hospital, and here’s her picture on the front cover of the New South Wales paper.
“So I bought two – one to put under my bed, as I went into the operation.
“I said to the surgeon, ‘Don’t you lose that’.
“I came out of the surgery and when I woke up, there was her picture looking at me.
“And I just thanked her that I was alive.
“So I decided I would go and celebrate with my husband with a glass of soda squash.
“I love the beach, so we went to Bronte beach, and sitting on the beach, I prayed to Mary MacKillop.
“After the big long walk I had two weeks’ rest, and I first went to St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney, and had Mass offered for the two surgeons, to make their hands always protected so they could save other people, because they’re so brilliant.
“Then I went to Mary MacKillop’s chapel there. I found it was at North Sydney and on the same train line I was going in every day to get to the hospital, so stopped in.
“I had never been so excited, so elated.
“I just wanted to dance, sing, and I was actually skipping up the street and when I got there I was just praying up against her tomb.
“I had the biggest black face you could imagine, and this nun came up to me.
“She said, ‘Are you alright?’ and I said, ‘I’m absolutely excited, absolutely happy’.
“She asked what happened to my face, and I told her about the surgery and I had the professor’s card and gave it to her.
“And I said ‘I’m just praying to say thank you to Mary MacKillop who I believe led me to find someone, and also praying for my sister who passed away from cancer, and a friend who had a brain tumour’ – other reasons I was praying.
“And she took me aside and she gave me three relics – one for my friend who has since died, one for me, and one for another friend who has a brain tumour.”
Carmel carries her relic, a cut-out of the cloth Mary MacKillop rested on in her coffin, close to her in her handbag.
“It’s just amazing,” Carmel said.
“You just don’t know the power; it’s all a mystery.
“But when in doubt, you pray. You never give up.
“And if you can’t find the right solution, you don’t just take no for an answer.
“You ask, you search, you find.
“You’ve got to be positive.
“I remember smiling going into the surgery, as though I was just going to the theatre, going to see a movie.”
Carmel said when she heard Mary MacKillop was to be canonised, she felt nobody else deserved it.
“I just see (St Mary of the Cross) as an absolutely incredible person, despite all the worries, and all the controversy,” she said.
“I think Mary MacKillop deserves to be a saint.
“We’re often very selfish, but she’s selfless.
“She was a pioneering woman, of great strength, but a quiet achiever.
“She never gave up.
“Her strength is something you can look up to, saying if she can do that, you can do anything.
“If you think you’re going to give up, don’t.”
