Kelly Stafford, wife of Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford, took to Instagram on Easter Sunday to give her thanks to God as she revealed she is recovering from a 12-hour brain surgery, which was only meant to last six hours.

The mother of three had revealed a few weeks ago that she had a noncancerous tumor sitting on her cranial nerves that needed to be removed as soon as possible. At the time, she said she first noticed an issue when she started to feel dizzy while playing with her children. Initial blood showed nothing wrong with Kelly, but they found the tumor after the Lions doctor suggested that she get an MRI on her brain.

Kelly said that the surgery took double the time that it was supposed to because of an abnormal vein. Miraculously, the doctor operating on Kelly happened to be an expert on the vein, making him the perfect person to operate.

“He had seen it [the vein] before and written a paper on it,” Kelly wrote on Instagram. “That’s truly God’s work. The prayers for my family, I’m beyond thankful for. A six hour surgery went to 12 hours and although they were anxious and scared, your prayers got them through. Thank you. Thank you so much. Now I am home and learning my new norm. It’ll take some time, but I really just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for all your support, thoughts and prayers. It means more than y’all will ever know.”

 

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This Easter is the beginning of a new life for me. I wanna take a second to thank all of you for all the prayers. They have worked. I know they have. When they opened me up, I had an abnormal vein.. maybe abnormal for other neurosurgeons, but not the one We chose. He had seen it before and written a paper on it. That’s truly God’s work. The prayers for my family, I’m beyond thankful for. A six hour surgery went to 12 hours and although they were anxious and scared, your prayers got them through. Thank you. Thank you so much. Now I am home and learning my new norm. It’ll take some time, but I really just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for all your support, thoughts and prayers. It means more than y’all will ever know. #cupscrew

A post shared by Kelly Stafford (@kbstafford89) on Apr 21, 2019 at 4:35pm PDT

Kelly indicated that she has a long road to recovery ahead of her, but we wish her the best of luck and we will continue to pray for her! Find out more about Kelly’s story in the video below.