LANSING, Mich. — In Saint Mary Cathedral in downtown Lansing, Danielle Laurion said she experienced not one, but two miracles.
Danielle, 46, was diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome in 2009. She's been in a wheel chair for the past 13 years.
"Almost 10 years—better part of 10 years on and off—I was in probably, was it seven different facilities?" Danielle looked to her husband, Doug, who agreed. "When I was out of there, I was living in Cheboygan in a senior community."
In 2017, Danielle had a tracheostomy.
"That was put in because of repeated pneumonias and infections in my lungs," Danielle said.
Since the start of this year, she has been on a ventilator 24/7 due to excessive dynamic airway collapse and tracheobronchomalacia. She said she has not been able to breathe on her own.
"She felt like she was—when she was created, God had used leftover pieces," Doug said.
"We were getting ready to have a stint put in to keep it open at Henry Ford, which wasn't a great option but I didn't have other options, except for prayer," Danielle said.
March 15, while at church, Danielle says everything changed.
"I just took my hands and I put them up and I just asked for God to hold me, told him I needed him and just to take care of me, and it was the first time in my life—I had always been a faithful person but nothing compared to that moment when there was nothing in between us and it was just Him and I. After that I turned to you," Danielle looked to Doug.
"Yeah and she—her mom was sitting on the other side of me—and Dani had taken off her vent because there was a word of knowledge that somebody's lungs were being reinflated," Doug added.
Danielle said she took a breath, and it worked.
"Then I realized I had another one that came after that," Danielle said.
"Then they did an altar call to say if anybody had experienced anything, come forward," Doug said.
That is when the Laurions experienced their second miracle.
Danielle stood up all on her own and walked from a middle pew up to the altar.
"I was technically in confessional when it happened but the whole rest of the night, walking around no vent," Father Karl Pung said. "I've seen her, not every, but quite a few days since then and just...it's amazing."
Danielle said she's been walking on her own ever since.
"I had nursing and therapists coming out to the home still and the nurse was the first person—she came out the next day and she was blown away," Danielle said. "She was instantly believing that God definitely had his hand in this. She had listened to my lungs."
"And said they were the clearest she had ever heard," Doug said. "Now, just Friday prior, which would've been the 11th of March, we had been to the primary care physician and he had said the exact opposite. 'Boy, your lungs are—there's almost no air flow.'"
Her doctors have told her that whatever she's been doing, to keep doing it.
The couple's goal is to dance together, unencumbered, this New Years Eve.
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