In December 2024 my life changed in a matter of hours.
Doctors found a tumor inside my spinal column — a grade 2 intramedullary ependymoma, growing from the inside out and pressing against the spinal cord. They told me that within a few days I could become quadriplegic. There was no time. It was emergency surgery.
Before I was taken into the operating room, the doctor explained that a cyst had formed beneath the tumor. A sneeze — literally a sneeze — could be enough to damage it. That was how delicate my situation was.
I woke from surgery with left-sided hemiparesis. My left hand did not respond. Neither did my left leg. I had lost proprioception on my entire left side — that sense of knowing where your own body is in space. I felt a strange hollow in my chest and abdomen, as if a part of me simply wasn't there.
But I opened my eyes. And there was my wife. And I knew that my two young children were waiting for me.
That was enough.
What followed was a long process. Day after day of retraining my body from scratch. First I tried to move one finger. Then another. Then one more part. One day I managed to hold myself standing for a couple of seconds before falling. Then a little longer. I was taken everywhere in a wheelchair and the exhaustion was constant.
I have permanent pain — something like a knife lodged in my arm. I've grown used to it; I only notice it when it flares up badly or when I touch that area. The surgery was on my cervical spine, from C3 to C5, and a residual cyst remained that causes cramping sensations, as if someone were squeezing my fingers and toes. My left side always feels tight.
But here I am. I can walk on my own. I've been cleared to drive. I'm still in rehabilitation and every week I recover things I once took for granted.
At the beginning of the process I felt like I was walking alone. That no one could understand exactly what I was going through. And in a sense that's true — each of us carries our cross in a unique way.
But at some point I remembered something: I don't have to carry it alone.
I decided to put everything in God's hands. And what happened from that moment was something I never imagined would happen — not because the pain or the limitations disappeared, but because I stopped fighting them alone. I believe deeply that God guided the hands of the surgeon who operated on me, and that together with his knowledge and skill, the strength that God gave my body made it possible for me to be here, grateful.
Cadena de Oración — I built Cadena de Oración because of that.
Because I know what it feels like to walk in the darkness believing no one else is there. And I want to remind you that it isn't so. You don't have to go alone. You can join someone, accompany them even just in prayer, from wherever you are, without it costing you anything more than a moment of your time.
Everything helps. Trust me, I know it firsthand.
— Cesar R., founder of Cadena de Oración