The Christmas Dinner She Thought She’d Never Taste Again

Christmas is a special time for Anna Berman and her family—especially Christmas dinner.

It’s a pleasure Anna was told she’d never have again. At ten years old, she developed food allergies that limited what she could eat.

“And then by the time she was fourteen to fifteen, she would wake up in the middle of the night screaming in pain and she just started dropping weight,” recalls her mother, Cynthia.

Desperate for answers, her parents sought help from multiple doctors and specialists, some of whom blamed Anna’s symptoms on an eating disorder

Anna remembers that time. “I was very angry during that time. I knew something was so wrong with my body, but I couldn't fix anything.”

“It was excruciating,” Cynthia adds. “Because you didn’t have a rote answer to what was going on.”

As Anna grew sicker and spent more time in the hospital, she was forced to withdraw from her active life. Frustrated and feeling helpless, she cried out to God.

“I had to relinquish all the control that I had of my life to God. And so, the only hope I had was having hope that God would take control of the situation and make it for the better. Because nothing I did or could do could fix the situation.”

Anna clung to her faith in Christ as she and her parents spent the next several years going from doctor to doctor and hospital to hospital. After countless tests and procedures, including x-rays, an endoscopy, a colonoscopy and surgery to remove her gall bladder, they finally had an answer.

“She was eighty-three pounds,” Cynthia remembers. ‘“And they were like ‘You're doing all the great things, trying to get her help, but that's not her real big problem. Her big problem is her stomach, her whole GI system's not working.’ When they finally did the motility testing in our local hospital, it was one of the worst GI motilities that they've ever seen.’”

Anna had a rare disorder called Chronic Intestinal Pseudo-Obstruction.
Dr. Jeffrey Rudolph explains. “When you have pseudo-obstruction, there's something wrong with the motility or the way that the bowel moves so that you can't handle food. And in this case, it was very severe so that she could barely eat anything and at times didn't eat anything at all, or she would get bloating and nothing would leave her stomach, essentially. And so,that was the reason for her intestinal failure.”

Anna’s condition affected the whole family.

“I'd walk into a grocery store, I’d wanna cry. I didn't wanna cook food that had smells because I felt guilty,” says Cynthia. “We stopped eating as a family. We would eat in moments. And Anna loved food. That was also what was really tragic-- she's a foodie. She loves all food.”

“I learned to kind of humble myself before the Lord and let him take the control,” notes Anna. “And then I found peace in that, knowing this is not our home; my life is God's. I resonated a lot with Job. 

Life was fine and it was all taken away in the blink. But Job never stopped worshiping the Lord. And that's kind how I felt. Job can do it, so can I.”

By now, Anna had endured more surgeries to install tubes to deliver nutrition and remove waste. In 2016, her doctors operated again to place a central line, which supplied nutrition directly into Anna’s bloodstream.

“She was suffering so much it would be a gift to go home, for her,” Cynthia observes. “I had relinquished the thought of her ever marrying or having a future living out of the home.”

Anna developed sepsis thirty times and became resistant to antibiotics. her family and friends interceded, praying God would intervene.

“Prayer was vital to her survival,” Cynthia adds. “I really had to keep giving it to him every day. I know he answered prayers by keeping us going and keeping as our family intact. He walked with us the whole time.”

“It actually meant a lot,” Anna agrees. “People were thinking about it and thinking about me and literally praying for me.”

Anna’s only chance for survival was a transplant, so her family moved from Texas to Pennsylvania, where there was a world-renowned intestinal transplant program. 

Anna was put on the transplant list, and on May 17, 2024, exactly three years later, got the call that she was getting a new intestine. The nine-hour surgery was risky.

Cynthia knew Anna wasn’t out of the woods yet. 

“No one knew she'd survive the surgery just because her body was already so frail from all the things she had dealt with.”

“The biggest risk of transplant is rejection or having your body attack the organs because it looks at it as a foreign entity in the body, notes Dr. Rudolph. “And so, we use immunosuppressive medicines. With the immunosuppression, the drugs themselves are not benign. And then there's the whole myriad of other problems as they're getting adjusted to the new organ.”

“It was all a God thing,” Anna claims. “I mean, I can't even explain it. He literally kept me healthy enough and the person was a perfect match. Nothing ever went wrong with it. And the surgery went so smooth. It was all God's timing. No infections, no rejection. I’ve battled some sort of here and there things, but nothing to the extent.”

Dr. Rudolph agrees. “She was really sort of top of the curve of how well she did.”

Seven months later, Anna was able to enjoy her first Christmas dinner with family in ten years.

“I got so used to not eating that it was honestly weird for me to eat again. It was crazy. It was weird being able to go pick up a plate and put food on it,” Anna recalls.

“It was just really special,” Cynthia agrees. “I mean, watching her eat, it's just surreal. To see her happy, feeling good and eating. I don't even think there's words.”

Today, Anna is living a life without limitations. She and her family credit prayer and their faith in God with giving them the strength to carry on.

“He's the one who gives us strength when we feel the weakest,” Anna notes. “This is a miracle. I never thought I would be able to be where I am today.”

“I see where he's taken us, allowed us to walk through and how he's provided,” says Cynthia. “This is a good day; I'm not gonna take a good day for granted.”

“You have to have a lot of faith to go through this kind of ordeal,” notes Dr. Rudolph. “I know that Anna and her family were very strong in faith, and I think that that was very helpful. Anna always knew someone else was looking out for her, and that's important. In some ways we're tools of God that are helping kids get through these illnesses. We don't do it ourselves. And so, you know, I think that when we have a strong faith, and a good foundation in which to build from, it helps everyone.”

“Don't lose hope because your hope is found in the Lord,” Anna declares. “God will give you the strength to keep on going and, and miracles do happen.”