“The doctor tried to comfort me. ‘I see it very often.’ Then she looked at him. What we found was worse than we could ever imagine.”
‘Mom, what’s wrong with that boy?’ She was looking at MY boy. It broke my heart forever.’: Mom advocates for son with rare genetic abnormality
‘Your mom has taken her own life.’ The room spun as I screamed. If I had answered her call, could I have stopped her?’: Woman loses mom to suicide, advocates for mental health
“She ran away for the first time just before I turned 9. She drove straight to the airport and headed across the country. ‘I promise I’ll make it home for your birthday.’ She wasn’t there.”
‘He said, ‘You’re in the thick of it right now. One day you will be having coffee at the kitchen table in silence again. There’s an end.’: Mom to toddlers urges ‘I’m going to miss this’
“I looked down at my sweet smiling two-year-old, eyes following a bird in flight above. ‘But I’m going to miss this,’ I answered in a soft, quiet voice. Because gosh, I’m going to miss this.”
‘I looked in the mirror. ‘There’s no way I have anorexia. I’m not thin enough.’: Woman recovers from eating disorders, ‘I finally feel at home in my body
“In fourth grade, I remember looking over at the girl sitting next to me. ‘Why don’t I look like her?’ Her stomach was flat, not round like mine.”
‘They asked, ‘Does she taste salty?’ Panic began to sink in.’: Mom says daughter’s cystic fibrosis is ‘a mama’s worst nightmare’
“If you kissed Alexis on the forehead and licked your lips, it would taste like the ocean. All the blood drained from my face.“
‘What began as a single kitchen turned into 2,100 TONS of food.’: Man serves 15 million meals to homeless community during pandemic
“I had NO idea how I’d do it or where I’d get the money. I just knew I HAD to.”
‘Your pregnancy is extremely high-risk.’ No baby had ever survived this.’: Disabled mom survives near-fatal pregnancy, shares mental health journey
“My body has more implants and bionic body parts/organs than human parts. I’m not the mother I envisioned myself being, but I get out of bed anyway. For my kids, for my husband, and for myself.”
‘I sat in my mom’s kitchen, bawling. She was the first person brave enough to say, ‘You need to talk to a doctor.’: Mom shares journey with postpartum depression
“I’d drive my car to the river and sit there, thinking about how long it would take to break through the ice. I just wanted to leave this world. I never shared this with anyone.”
‘I had a once in a lifetime, freak emergency. When I tell doctors what happened, they don’t believe me.’: Chronic illness warrior urges ‘hold on to joy’
“I had severe pain on my right side that wouldn’t go away. I was taken to the ICU, where the fight of my life began. I was hospitalized for over 40 days while they tried to save me.”
‘When I told him, his response was, ‘And I could get hit by a bus.’ None of us know what the future holds.’: Woman with rare disorder lives with intention
“I’ll never forget having my whole life ahead of me one day and the next, being told, ‘There’s no cure. Your life expectancy is 5-10 years.’ I was scared and alone.”