However, Marcilio said he never made it in. Instead, he awoke inside the operating room with "a great peace inside me and I no longer had the headache. I didn't understand what was happening to me."
The doctors, he said, told him that since he was feeling better they were going to move him to intensive care and put off the surgery until the next day.
Marcilio said he slept through the night without any problems, and that when he met with the doctor the next day, was told to return to his room if the headache still hadn't come back.
Upon returning to the room, "I learned that the abscesses were greatly reduced, just as the hydrocephalus," Marcilio said, referring to the medical term for the abnormal build-up of fluid in the skull, causing the brain to swell.
"The abscesses were reduced by 70% and the hydrocephalus had disappeared," he said, explaining that after another three days of testing "not even the scars of the abscesses were visible."
"At that time I discovered that I was cured," he said, noting that he was able to return home for Christmas.
Fernanda, recounting her experience of the event, said that when she returned to the hospital with Marcilio's parents the day after he was admitted, the doctors told her he was stable and had returned to his room, instead of going into surgery.
"(The doctor) didn't tell me that he was cured but I already knew it strongly from what I had prayed to God through the intercession of Mother Teresa," she said, adding that when she went to Marcilio's room and saw him sitting up and speaking, "I understood that Mother Teresa had healed him."
She said Marcilio was "very surprised" by what happened and attributed the fact that he was feeling better to one of the antibiotics he took after being admitted.
But the doctor, Fernanda recalled, told them that "No antibiotic exists that takes effect immediately, the day after … someone up there loves you a lot."
Marcilio explained that after leaving the hospital, he and Fernanda spoke with their parish priest about what had happened. The priest, who had accompanied the couple throughout Marcilio's illness and who had given him last rites, told them to write to the Missionaries of Charity explaining what happened.
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"My case was a very difficult one clinically," Marcilio said, explaining that his wife prayed for him "ceaselessly," and they were certain "that a miracle happened … I was sure that it was Mother Teresa who healed me."
He noted that the miracle didn't just heal his brain, but went a step further.
"When I began to feel sick, Fernanda and I had been recently married," he said, explaining that the doctor gave them the grim news that they would never be able to have children due to the treatments Marcilio would have to undergo.
Although devastated, the couple accepted it, telling themselves that "if God wants it, we will have children."
Six months after his healing, the couple moved to Rio de Janiero and Marcilio returned to work. It was around the same time Fernanda began to experience nausea.
When the doctor told them she was pregnant, Marcilio said they didn't initially believe it, but that after having some tests, they confirmed that "the child was there."