BRAIN TRUST: Survivor returns to children’s home _90803

9/5/03

BRAIN TRUST:
Survivor returns to children's home

By Miranda Bradley

Texas Baptist Children's Home

ROUND ROCK–Kip Osborne thinks he's lucky to be the new campus life supervisor at Texas Baptist Children's Home in Round Rock.

But he also thinks he's lucky to be anywhere at all.

Osborne previously worked for the Baptist General Convention of Texas agency from 1991 to 1994 as a specialist with at-risk and runaway youth. He left to pursue a master's degree at Baylor University.

His life flipped upside down in 1995, however, while working as an elementary school music teacher. A persistent headache forced him to ring the front office from his classroom. But as he reached for the call button, he collapsed, knocking out his front two teeth and leaving a room of third graders afraid he was dead.

When he woke up in the hospital, he was told he had a brain tumor.

Osborne recently had become engaged to his girlfriend, Lisa, and they were planning a wedding the next month. But Osborne wondered if he would live to walk to the altar.

An initial surgery revealed a colloid cyst that was immoveable through suction. The next step was major brain surgery–including the possibilities of either dying on the table or being left in a vegetative state the rest of his life.

“Just then, Lisa came in and said she didn't want to go through another surgery without being my wife,” he recalled. He warned her of the risks ahead, but she was undaunted.

The hospital staff agreed on a short reprieve, and the courthouse waived the normal 48-hour waiting period for a marriage license. The couple were married four hours later.

“God called me to marry you,” Mrs. Obsborne had said, and it turned out God had much bigger plans ahead for the couple.

The surgery went beautifully. As Osborne awoke from the anesthesia, he began singing “If I Only had a Brain” from “The Wizard of Oz.”

The Osborne family today includes Kip and Lisa, Victoria, Heath and Emilie.

He was released just before Thanksgiving, arranging to stay with his in-laws until he fully recuperated. On the way to Thanksgiving dinner, however, Osborne collapsed in the hallway. He was rushed to the hospital again, this time with a 107-degree fever. He had contracted bacterial meningitis during his surgery.

His church family at Bosqueville Baptist Church in Waco, where he was music minister, was allowed rare access into the hospital's Intensive Care Unit, where they prayed steadfastly around Osborne's hospital bed that night until he began to recover.

“Doctors couldn't explain what happened,” he reported. “They were sure I was a goner. When I went to thank the doctor who cared for me, he said he wasn't the one to thank. 'God did this,' he said, and I believe him.”

Eight years later, the Osbornes have come full circle. They are parents to three healthy children–Victoria, 4, Heath, 2, and Emilie, 19 months.

He continued working in music at several churches in the Waco area. When the position at Texas Baptist Children's Home opened, he had just received a promotion through the McClennan County juvenile probation office as director of training.

“When I told my wife about the position at the children's home, she said, 'I've always known you would want to go back to TBCH because of the way you look when you talk about it.”

Along with his new position, Osborne continues to minister to others through music and his story of survival. Others with brain tumors call him for encouragement and advice.

What he tells them is simple.

“I tell them to have people pray for them. What that experience taught me is God is with us, and there is nothing beyond his control. With him, there is nothing too big for you to handle.”