Now that the surgeries — and the seizures — have passed, Sky is getting his young life back on track. "My mind is much clearer," says the 15-year-old, whose family is slowly weaning him off the seizure-treating medications his life once depended upon.

Back in his Redding, Calif., home, Sky spends his time doing normal adolescent things, like drawing and creating twist-tie figurines. But there are still a few things he has yet to do.

For instance, Sky is not permitted to swim until his brain fully heals.

Leah Harper, Sky's mother, is elated at the progress her son is making and attributes his successful surgeries to the NorRelmuk Wintu tribe's belief in the positive effects of a person's "medicine."

"I felt it was Sky's medicine. That he would touch people all around the world — just didn't know how."

It was also good medicine that the family found in Dr. Victor Perry. He was open to their cultural beliefs and readily accepted the medical contributions Harper had to offer.

"I believe in creating a healing environment," says Dr. Perry. "Because while there is a lot we understand, there is also a lot we don't understand."

It's been five months since the last surgery and Sky has not had one seizure. His father, Dan Titus, says Sky's right arm — which underwent spasms during the seizures — is doing better, too.

"He still has a little numbness in his right hand, but it hasn't affected his motor skills; you ought to see him on the video games."

Titus says Dr. Perry is confident that Sky's seizures are gone for good.

After the family buried the part of his brain the neurosurgeon had removed, Sky immortalized the ritual as a gift of his appreciation.

"I made a picture of the tree — the Ponderosa and the oak tree twisted up together."

Two trees twisted up together ... much like the union of Western and tribal medicine, that led to a miraculous result.