It is not often that one can point to an inanimate object and say, “this is what saved my life.”
But in Colleen Rowe’s case, it all comes back to a bowl.
In December of 2004, Colleen was cooking in her kitchen when she reached up to grab a bowl from a cabinet.
“I had soap on my hands and when I went to reach for the bowl my hands were a little slippery so it slipped out of my hands and hit my nose,” she explains.
Almost immediately after, she heard the phone ring— it was her son, Michael. The two began talking and Michael recalls noticing his mother’s change in demeanor.
“She started slurring her words and the next thing I heard was her collapse on the floor and the phone fall out of her hands.”
Colleen was rushed to the hospital, where a CT Scan revealed a massive tumor in her brain, one that had been growing for several months.
Doctors informed her family that the tumor could instantly become fatal.
“It could cause breathing to stop, or the heart to stop, or someone to become suddenly paralyzed in their arms and legs— irreversibly,” one of her doctors explains.
As a result, she underwent a six hour operation, after which she was expected to endure at least a ten day recovery and intensive therapy to learn how to walk and talk again.
But miraculously, three short days after her surgery, Colleen was sent home— with nearly no ill effects from the surgery.
For Michael, it is hard to believe that a simple glass bowl saved his mother’s life.
“It’s pretty amazing to think that this set in motion a series of events that probably saved her life,” he says.
Colleen’s husband, Bill, agrees; he believes the bowl to be a blessing.
“It’s a blessing in very deep disguise, but it’s a blessing nonetheless,” he affirms.
