Choose To Keep Going

The end of 2019, the beginning of what I thought was the end. My ex husband and I separated, and I was now a single mom of two children with no idea where my life was headed, and no idea who I was. Laundry started piling up, dishes in the sink, house was always a mess, and all I could think about was drinking a bottle of wine when my kids went with their dad. I didn't want to face reality, and I just wanted to numb everything I was feeling and not deal with it.

2020 wasn't any better. I knew I was going to have to hit rock bottom before things got better, and when I hit rock bottom...I hit it hard. In July of 2020, I got really sick. I went to the doctors thinking it was just a stomach bug until they rushed me to the hospital. Then I thought maybe it was my appendix. Well, it was far worse than that. I had an infection in my pelvis, which caused me to go septic and into toxic shock. I was rushed into surgery, and they told me if I didn't get there when I did I would have died. What I thought was going to be a couple night stay in the hospital, turned into weeks because I developed pneumonia, and I was on oxygen. Before this, I dreaded waking up the next day, and now here I was fighting for my life. I lost 20 pounds in the hospital and decided to keep going since I was at my heaviest at 230lbs. Food was my comfort, but it was time to deal with my trauma in a healthier way.

When I got out of the hospital, I made a promise to myself that I would never let myself get that low ever again and to never take life for granted again. I went to counseling and really started to feel like myself again. I was becoming the best version of myself for myself and my children. So a few months later, I decided to give dating a try. I fought so hard to become who I was becoming, I decided if the right person comes along maybe it's time to give it a shot. For about a month, it was straight losers and I was contemplating on just giving it a break; maybe it wasn't the right time. Until I came across my current boyfriend.

Anyone that knows me, knows I don't initiate conversations with men but something inside of me told me to message him first; so I did. We really hit it off and decided to go out for lunch a week later. It was like he was my missing puzzle piece. However, just shy of being together a month, I got sick again. Really sick. I had migraines every day to the point where I couldn't get out of bed, I would lose feeling in my hands and feet to the point where I was falling, and the thing that killed me the most...my hair started falling out in clumps, so bad I had bald spots on my head. I was going to doctor after doctor, having hundreds of tests done, bloodwork done every week, and not one doctor could find out what's wrong with me. I told my boyfriend that he didn't have to stay, if this was too much for him I'd understand. But he didn't leave, that man fought for my life as if he had known me all of his life. He came to every doctors appointment, even if it was via video chat when he was on the road for work. When I got rushed to the hospital a couple times, he rushed to my side. That man loved me on days I wanted to give up. He always told me, "Lib, I promise we are going to find out what's wrong with you even if I have to fly us halfway around this world. WE will get to the bottom of this, together." And he kept his promise. In November, we found a doctor out of the area that would see me. That week he had a diagnoses. That week was when I finally got my life back.

Here we are in 2021, I'm still with my boyfriend, I have become the best mom I can be, all while homeschooling my children and being a nurse through a global pandemic. I have lost 60lbs since July, and I have never been happier. I love the woman I have become, because I fought like hell to become her.

Choose life. Choose to live. It has to get worse before it gets better, but it does get better. You deserve to live the life you have always dreamed 0f, and become the person you have always wanted to be. Just, please choose life...and don't take it for granted.