“At her 6-month checkup, the pediatrician casually asked, ‘Does she switch toys back and forth between both hands?’ When I answered no, she said, ‘Oh no. This really isn’t normal.’ In the center of her brain was a burst vessel. This was both shocking and devastating. We were done waiting for her to ‘discover’ her arm. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. This was not in my plans, at all.”
‘Maybe she hasn’t discovered her left arm yet?’ My baby was only using her right hand. Something was ‘wrong’ with my perfect, healthy girl.’: Daughter’s Hemorrhagic Stroke misdiagnosed for months, mom ‘beyond proud’ of her despite disabilities
‘My daughter was your server. She is a hard working single mom to my grandson. She’s been working 2 jobs to come up with the money to give him Christmas and pay her bills.’
“She tries so hard not rely on anyone else. You guys left there without knowing what an impact this has made on her life. She’s prayed for a blessing like this to come her way.”
To The Person Who Made Me Feel Guilty For Using An Elevator (From An Invisible Illness Patient)
“I know you didn’t mean for your words to affect me the way they did, for them to hurt me as much as they did. But here’s what you didn’t know.”
‘He guided us through the storm. The water was over the road. I had a sick feeling in my stomach. Stopping would put us in a more dangerous position.’
“It was so bad I could see only his brake lights at one point. We noticed the truck moving over to the left and I asked my husband, ‘Do you think he is pushing the excess water off the road for us?’ The driver of this truck restored my faith.”
‘It’s the mom who won’t look at you because she’s afraid she will say something stupid. It’s the girl who sends 50 text messages in 1 hour because her thoughts tell her you don’t like her.’
“The photo on the right was a week after I got out of psych ward that I posted to social media with a hashtag #happy.”
Please Stop Telling Me How I Should Celebrate Christmas
“If I want to scurry around every morning, freaking out about forgetting to move the darn elf the night before, and panicking that I’m going to get caught by my 7-year-old while trying to place him in a new spot…that’s my choice. If I want to sing ‘Baby it’s Cold Outside’ while sipping egg nog in front of the fire, next to my handsy husband… don’t be concerned for me.”
‘Will she survive? Will she breathe?’ This was it. There was no turning back. I heard her loud cries.’: Mom births baby with Lymphatic Malformation, condition makes her ‘love her little girl so much more’
“I’d carried her 9 months and soon doctors would be taking her away from me to save her life. ‘When can I see my baby?’ I asked the nurse. ‘Not yet.’ I was finally able to gaze at her through a plastic incubator. There were wires all over her new skin and into her tiny little nose, tape securing them down. But nothing could ever steal away what she was. Beautiful.”
‘I yelled upstairs for Carson and his brother to come eat. Carson did not answer. This is the second my whole world turned upside down. I screamed. My whole family rushed upstairs.’: Mom loses son to ‘pass out challenge’
“He had recently started taking gummy vitamins and drinking 2-3 glassed of milk each day so he could ‘buff up his bones.’ In that conversation he mentioned the ‘pass out challenge,’ but he did not elaborate, and with much regret, neither did I.”
‘Evan was suddenly tired. I truly thought he’d caught something in Mexico on our honeymoon. The word was Leukemia.’: Infertile couple adopt son, say he ‘doesn’t carry our blood, but carries our whole heart’
“We were given the news that chemo would cause us infertility. Always being the patient, I’d never known what it meant to be on the other side of it. To watch your loved one suffer and feel so completely helpless your insides were miserably aching. But that was all about to change. How did this happen? What about all our plans and the family we were going to have? I was headed down the road to be a widow before we even had a chance to experience marriage.”
‘I was the only one that could protect her, I was the only one that could take care of her, I was the only one that really loved her.’: Sisters fight to stay together as they transition through different foster homes
“Two ladies were standing in the doorway. I questioned how they found out. My father was going to be so angry. I screamed, ‘Where are you taking my sister?!’ Why were they doing this? She was all I had.”
‘I was tired. I was irritated. I sent my husband a text. I was fed up with how much he works, and with all I have to do every day by myself.’: Wife realizes she should really feel ‘thankful’ for husband
“The full-time job, cooking dinner, bathing kids, weekend trips without him, keeping up a home. You name it, I was resenting it. Then this happened.”
‘There’s a Christmas tree. There’s a gingerbread man.’ But it’s what she said next that took my breath away. ‘And there’s Parker,’ my daughter recited.’
“As I looked at the plate of cookies, sure enough, there was a cookie angel I had decorated. I smiled at my daughter as my eyes welled up with tears.”
‘I thought his bunk bed was safe. His doctor said he has a significant, horrible concussion, one of the worst she has ever seen in a child.’
“Please reconsider the use of bunk beds/loft beds for your kids, even with a safety rail.”
‘YOU ARE BETTER THAN THIS.’ I decided enough was enough.’: Single teen mom of special needs child details journey
“Now I was really scared. Here I am, 19 years old, with a kid – a special needs kid at that – and totally alone.”
‘Her eyes were huge, her skull was misshapen. Even though we had prepared ourselves as best as we could, it was still a shock to see Emmy in the flesh.’: Mom gives birth to baby with Pfeiffer Syndrome
“My honest thought when I first saw her was, ‘It wasn’t supposed to be this bad.’ Our doctor didn’t say anything. The nurses were silent. Emmy was silent. It was eerie and terrifying. We know she will always look different and will face bullies in her lifetime, but our goal is to always show her how loved she truly is.”
Love What Matters Makes The 2018 Chartbeat List Of Most Engaging Stories – Twice
In February, we launched Love What Matters with the dream of building a community around hope, support, compassion, healing and …
18 Things I Learned About Life After My Grandfather’s Death
“Say the nice stuff, the uplifting stuff, the encouraging stuff, the emotional stuff. Pick up the phone. Start texting. Drive to their house.”
‘Mommy, when will I have a sister?,’ she asked. As my eyes welled up with tears, I said, ‘I don’t know honey. You’ll have to talk to God about that.’
“Although I was pregnant with what I believed to be a baby girl, I knew I wouldn’t be for much longer. Shortly before dropping my daughter off at school that morning, my water had broken.”
‘The doctor knelt beside my bed with our baby. ‘There are things I want to point out to you.’ Those words hit me hard. ‘No she’s perfect. That’s not possible – she was already tested for that.’
“This was not how it was supposed to be. I was grieving the perfect baby I had in my head for 10 months. I felt pity for not only myself, but her. I wanted to know ‘why us?’”
‘As I looked in the mirror, I immediately started critiquing myself. Then I heard my daughter tell my husband, ‘She really IS Wonder Woman.’ My heart just stopped.’
“I go to bed and beat myself up for all the things I didn’t do perfectly that day. They go to bed with smiles, and I fall asleep with a panic attack. I see scars everywhere from the life I’ve survived.”
‘Was it my fault?,’ he wrote down. I ran to get his mom. ‘Is everyone else okay?’: Husband makes miraculous recovery after car accident, months in ICU, ‘completely overcome’ on wedding day
“His coworker saw one of their work trucks in a bad accident on the highway. My heart started to race. I frantically called Brian over and over again. Still no answer. Driving to the hospital is all a blur. I turned to my right and saw a crew of doctors performing surgery on a person’s head. With horror in the nurse’s eyes, she realized I belonged to the man under the operating light.”
‘I’m about to share a coveted family secret with you. With ears prone to infections and broken eardrums, I use this all the time.’
“Your child ever wake up screaming in pain of an ear infection? Because it takes 30 minutes for pain meds to kick in, this is the handiest trick you will ever learn.”
‘I’m finally happy, and now I’m going to die?’ I was losing blood from somewhere. My heart sank. I was terrified. All I could think about were my children and my husband.’
“My periods were out of control, I did nothing but bleed constantly. I would fill overnight pads within an hour. I stayed in pain, it was unbearable. My husband came home on his lunch and found me doubled over in the floor, unable to move.”
‘To the 18 year old kid I stopped, you were minutes away from an unspeakable Christmas tragedy. If not only killing yourself, you were on your way to killing an innocent person.’: Police officer pens letter on public safety
“You said you didn’t realize how fast you were going. That’s a lie. You were scared when I stopped you. You were visibly shaking and breathing hard. Unfortunately, you were scared for the wrong reason.”
‘I have no—I mean NO—idea what I want. When I’m with my kids, I crave alone time. When we’re together as a family, I wish it were just my husband and me.’
“Anyone else? Just me? I don’t want to be discontent. I don’t want to accept my heart’s crummy tendency as normal.”