What I Want My Daughters to Learn from My Health Struggles

Dear Maddie and Marlee,

When I was 28-years-old my whole world was changed forever. I thought I had life figured out. I fell in love, I got married, I graduated university and I had a good career started. I bought a house and had a beautiful daughter and a second on the way. I was so happy and was excited for what my future held for me. Your dad and I had goals we wanted to achieve and plans we wanted to see fulfilled. The most important thing to us was to have a healthy and happy family. We were living our dreams.

Everything changed in an instant when I went into the hospital at 6 months pregnant with what I thought was an extremely painful migraine. They did an MRI to outrule any serious diagnosis. I will never forget when the neurologist told me that the results of the MRI showed bleeding on my brain and the best case scenario was that it was a stroke that had caused it. I couldn't grasp the magnitude of the suffering and obstacles that were in my near future when I heard those words spoken out loud. I just kept thinking "how could this happen to me?" You never think something so life threatening could possibly happen. You hear stories of illness and disease and death, but never think those things will occur in your life. I just knew it wasn't fair and I was terrified. I was thinking about the two of you, your dad, and the rest of my family. I wanted to live. I wanted to be your mother and a wife and I was prepared to fight for my life, because my life was beautiful.

When I had the emergency surgery and the abscess was discovered, the love I have for you helped me fight through the physical pain and healing, and the emotional struggle. You are the reason I am alive. Without you, I would have given up. I felt like giving up many times, but I knew you needed me and I would push through another day. I'm so glad I fought. I can't imagine not seeing you grow up and missing all the milestones and happy moments that lie in our future.

It took some time to come to accept what happened. The abscess took a lot from me, but it also taught me some very valuable lessons about life and I'm hoping my story, along with the guidance from your dad and I, will teach you the same. I learned to appreciate the people in my life. The overwhelming love and support I felt when I was going through this nightmare amazes me every day. People cared about us. They wanted us to get through the struggle. They celebrated our victories and were saddened by our setbacks. I learned to tell people how I feel about them. Many people reached out to me and told me how much I had affected their life in a positive way and I had no idea I had such an impact on them. It was heart warming to see how many people loved me. I also learned time is precious and the most important thing in life is to enjoy it. Nothing is worth giving up your happiness. We weren't put on this earth to be unfulfilled. Look forward to tomorrow, but also enjoy today. You need to go for what you want, be passionate, laugh until your belly hurts, be silly, spend time with good friends, love as hard as you can love, and be yourself. You are enough and you are beautiful and I will always love you. You have the biggest cheerleader in me. I believe in you and you can conquer whatever you want to conquer and overcome any obstacle in your path.

I want you to know what happened to me and how it challenged our family in the most terrifying way. When I was going through this experience, I felt that I would never get to a place of normalcy, that I would never feel like myself again, that I wouldn't be able to feel needed and loved and I couldn't be a good mother anymore because my abilities had changed. This was heartwrenching for me and these new, unwanted beliefs consumed my days in the hospital and in the weeks following my discharge. The thoughts I had and shared with others during this time were raw and unedited and I want to share them with you, as well. Come to me whenever you have questions. I will be honest with you and tell you how miserable I was, how I cried myself to sleep every night, but how strong I was and how I adapted and grew into a new version of me. I want you to know that life has ups and downs, and just because you have a bad day/month/year does not mean you have a bad life. You can move on from situations you feel like you can never move on from. You will move forward and you will grow stronger and braver each time you do. Please know your happiness is my happiness and when you hurt, I hurt too.

I loved you both before I had even met you. You saved me and I am so grateful. You are my world and you made this life worth living.

Love,

Mom