Leslie Ellis

Leslie EllisMarigrace EllisShe sat there in confusion asking, “What’s wrong with me?”, “Why am I here?” The doorknob turned slowly, and the doctor walked in without a word to be said. She could tell something was wrong: his face looked panicky. He looked up at the girl sitting in the chair confused about what was happening. His gaze turned to her mom sitting beside her in aghast. Then the silence broke, “Your daughter.” he said “Has...”  

Ever since this day, Leslie Ellis’s life has changed. She has had to prick and prod herself every day just because of her diagnoses of diabetes. She has permanent and emotional scars because of what she was diagnosed with just in the fourth grade --type 1 diabetes (A chronic condition in which the pancreas produces little or no insulin). When she was diagnosed with diabetes, she was not scared, but she was frustrated because she could not do what her other friends did. She would have to stop every now and then and check her blood sugar.  This was a routine she would have to repeat for the rest of her life. As a child, Ellis did not treat her condition as seriously as she should. Instead she “resented it with a passion”. However, as she got older, she realized that her health was very important and that she needed to pay more attention to her diabetes.  

As a teenager, Ellis got her first car. Her dad taught her how to drive, but she was careless in her teenage years.  She had been in eight car wrecks, but she will never forget this one car wreck. Ellis was on her way to her little brother’s baseball game, and she was not paying attention. “Something happened and the next thing I knew, I was off of the road!” The car flipped over several times, and she ended up in someone’s yard.  She was knocked senseless and finally was put at a halt upside down. When she awoke, there was a woman peeking in on her saying, “Are you okay?” “Don’t worry help is on the way!” All Ellis could do was remain upside down. She was just terror-stricken that her parents were going to be disappointed in her. Although Ellis was not drinking and driving prior to the accident, her car was so damaged that it was used in a Christmas parade as an example of what could happen if someone chose to drink and drive.

Later in life during Ellis’s senior year in high school, her blood sugar started to fluctuate up and down to the point where her blood sugar became so low that she had to be rushed to the hospital. She said that she had not been monitoring her blood sugar regularly as she should have, and she could have died. She lost so much weight while she was staying at the hospital because she became extremely ill. It was so close to her graduation that she was afraid that she would miss her graduation day, or worse; she wouldn’t be able to graduate because she missed so much school. During this time she was frightened that she could die and miss her graduation.  This trial made her stronger in her faith and in her self-esteem. 

Later, Ellis got married and became pregnant with a girl. Her pregnancy with her daughter (Marigrace Ellis) was a battle. Marigace was so tiny that the doctors kept telling her that her daughter might possibly die. With Ellis’s faith in God, she would keep telling herself and the doctors “My child is not going to die. God’s got this.” This was not her only complication, however. Ellis had to go into a major hysterectomy surgery (a surgery where all or part of the uterus is removed) where she could possibly die. Ellis said she had faith that God would watch over her and that she would come out of that surgery room alive. The doctor explained risks prior to the surgery, but Ellis stood her ground and told him that if her heart stopped he needed to pray to God and not try to save her.  “God has got this,” she said. During the surgery, Ellis’s heart stopped beating, and the doctor stood there and prayed. Seconds later Ellis’s heart started beating again.

Heroes do not have to have superpowers or a cape. All they need is love in Jesus Christ and family. Being a hero does not mean that you have to have immortality, invincibility powers, or a headquarters. It means that you fight for what you believe in, lift people up, and care for other people. Leslie Ellis is much more than a mom with a job teaching students. Ellis is a hero, everyone’s hero!