Barbara Houser doesn’t pause when asked what she’s thankful for this year.

“The Lord and St. Luke’s Miners hospital,” comes her immediate response.

This woman of faith from West Penn Township believes they are the reasons she has survived more medical troubles than most people experience in a lifetime.

At 55 she has experienced diabetes, heart valve problems, lung disease, depression and anxiety, a protein called MGUS that is often a precursor to leukemia and advanced kidney failure.

Most recently, she experienced agonizing headaches. She had temporal arteritis, an inflammation of the blood vessels going to her skull, which put her in St. Luke’s Miners Campus for three days in July and required a biopsy.

Houser has seen her share of suffering and death, in her family and as a certified nurse assistant in hospice at St. Luke’s Lehighton Campus. She lost her husband nine years ago. She has been on medical disability for two years, aware that her body is failing her.

She’s thankful for the doctors at St. Luke’s Miners.

The nurses, technicians and other staff there who have played a role in her care so she can go to church every Sunday and spend quality time with her sister and brother.

She returns to the Miners Campus every three weeks for a special shot that keeps her weakened lungs working.

When there, she chats with the staff and other patients, after receiving her life-sustaining treatment and being thankful the hospital is just a 25-minute drive from the home she shares with her sister.

Houser is looking forward to sharing the Thanksgiving meal with her sister at home, safe from the threat of the virus.

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Madalyn Jucewicz-Major shared this message for the holiday:

“This Thanksgiving I’m thankful for my parents and the fact this year they will be married 40 years. They’re so giving and do all they can for their kids and each other without batting an eye. Incredible people.”

Send your messages of Thanksgiving to tneditor@tnonline.com and we’ll share them online.