COAL GROVE - This time last week, 10-year-old Davin Marcum was a little girl with a big problem.

Today, she is a little girl on the road to recovery after brain surgery.

Her parents are thankful their daughter is getting well, and they are thankful also to those whose love and concern was evident when this family needed it the most.

"We had noticed for quite some time, about a year, really, that Davin was a little uncoordinated," her father, David, said. "But we attributed it to adolescence, her growing, like kids do."

"We thought it was a phase," her mother, Michelle, agreed.

Davin had failed to make the A-list basketball team earlier this year as she had last year. She was slower in getting school work done. In short, she just was not the Davin they knew.

Davin knew something was wrong, too. "I didn't feel like I had any energy," she said.

There was depression, too. The once happy child who showed an interest in things around her began to withdraw. Michelle noticed the child who liked clothes and fixing her hair was not the little girl she used to be.

"I felt like it didn't matter," Davin said. "I thought 'if I don't have to do it, I just wouldn't.'"

They were not the only ones who noticed Davin's problem.

Her school bus driver, Kathy Blankenship, and the teachers and staff and Dawson-Bryant Elementary had begun to notice it, too.

The honor student was having trouble writing, had trouble getting on and off the school bus, keeping her balance and concentrating on her work. Some of them approached Assistant Principal Susan Heyard, who asked them to document what they noticed.

Last Monday, Heyard broke the news to David that something was indeed wrong with Davin, something very wrong. She suggested her parents take Davin to the doctor. She handed him the teachers' observations that detailed what they had seen and why they were concerned.

"When I read those observations, my knees just about went out from under me," Michelle said.

After a basic neurological check, Davin's pediatrician, Dr. Margaret Ng, sent the Marcums to King's Daughter's Medical Center in Ashland, Ky., for an MRI. The Marcums had not even left the KDMC parking lot last Tuesday before Dr. Ng had called them and told them to go back inside and prepare for a helicopter trip to Children's Hospital in Columbus: Davin would need immediate surgery.

The MRI revealed that Davin had a golf ball-sized tumor at the base of her brain. The pilocytic astrocytoma is, in the words of Michelle, "a fluke."

It is not known what causes it. These tumors are usually benign. Typically slow-growing, such tumors can develop over a period of several months, even one or two years.

"Now that this has all come about we can sit back and pick out things we just didn't pick up on at the time," David said.

Doctors said Davin was lucky: With that sized tumor, located where it was, she should have had migraines and nausea.

The five-hour operation in Columbus last Thursday took away the tumor, and left the Marcums in awe of their daughter's strength and the kindness of friends and family.

The staff and students at Dawson-Bryant sent e-mails to Davin in Columbus, along with flowers and gifts. Some even visited her. "I just can't thank the teachers enough," David said. "They saved her life."

"Listen to your teachers," Michelle agreed. "If they tell you something, take it seriously."

Davin is more succinct:"Dawson-Bryant is a good school," she said.

"Our teachers certainly wouldn't want any recognition for what they do but I can't say enough about how proud I am of them. … I think it shows what kind of community we live in," Dawson-Bryant Principal Eric Holmes said.

He described Davin as a sweet, intelligent little girl with a great sense of humor and pleasure to know.

David said he is also thankful to the staff at Childrens Hospital, surgeon Scott Elton and to Dr. Ng, and everyone who cared for their daughter

They are also thankful for David's

colleagues at the Lawrence County Prosecutor's Office, and at KDMC, where Michelle is a nurse,

"Thank you to everyone who thought about us, prayed for us, reached out to us," Michelle said.

The Marcums also have two younger daughters, Lakin, a third-grader at Dawson-Bryant, and Ragin, who is 2 years old.

Doctors said Davin should make a full recovery, except for possible vision problems. The tumor shouldn't come back, but Davin will have to have MRIs periodically for the rest of her life.

She

left the hospital Monday and started physical therapy Thursday to help her with walking, balance and regaining her strength. She starts home schooling next week.

Holmes said the students and staff kept tabs on Davin's progress and have delighted in how well she is doing so soon after a life threatening operation.

"It's just a miracle," Holmes said. "It truly is."