“When I got back nurses and doctors were running in his room, yelling ‘code blue!’ I wasn’t allowed in the room – they were intubating him. I felt like someone kicked me in the stomach. I was sobbing.”
‘I don’t know why your husband’s in pain, he has no meningitis.’ I’ll never forget when the nurse angrily said this to me when I told her my husband said his head feels like it’s on fire.’
‘It has to get worse before it gets better.’ Some parents never see ‘gets better.’ We almost didn’t. We almost lost our baby.’
“Helicopter moms – I never understood you… I get it now. We never thought it would happen to us.”
‘My husband is on the floor, eyes closed, moaning, ‘Syyydd. I can’t see.’ Is this a joke. He has a flu symptom that doesn’t even exist. Actually I can’t. I should leave. Where is this dude’s mom.’
“The nurse spotted the ‘man flu’ from a mile away. I drive my pregnant butt alone to the hospital while puking in a plastic bag with my husband in front of me, on a stretcher, being doted on. It’s the first time I’ve ever considered divorce.”
‘In the early hours of Christmas Day, my son passed away. His death was rapid and unexpected. My family never saw it coming.’
“Leon’s favorite doggie pajamas were still left beside his bed. Stuffed animal ‘friends,’ previously filled with unique personalities and voices bestowed by our son, appeared unsettlingly silent in his room.”
Even before life began I didn’t have the best chance of survival. I was conceived by two reckless, ill prepared, teenagers being instructed to ‘consider all their options.’
“When I was 15, I would succumb to numerous stresses, triggers, and bullying. I survived my mental health incident of swallowing over 150 pills.”
‘They couldn’t seem to find a cause for her fatal sickness. No one could explain how this happened to our family – again.’
“We found out this was a spontaneous condition. Just 4 months in, our world came crashing down all over again.”
‘I am not your average medical student studying to be a doctor. Beneath MY white coat lives a patient.’
“As I contemplate my situation, there is a part of me that hopes I am never cured. Perhaps I am not meant to be a ‘normal’ doctor.”
‘Even though post-partum depression is what broke me, it also saved me. I wasn’t willing to accept I needed these until I had babies.’
“My husband displayed love, patience, and understanding as I drifted further away from the beautiful, happy, silly girl he wed that October day. But eventually, he encouraged me to face my demons.”
‘In sickness and in health.’ Little did we know how vividly those vows would be tested.
“Just months later, I became acutely ill. I remember running out of a patient’s room to throw up in the employee bathroom. I felt as though I was the one who ought to be in the hospital bed. I started passing out frequently, I vomited every time I ate or drank, and I began to rapidly lose weight.”
‘Parents, I say this with every ounce of sincerity – YOU know your children better than anyone else in this world.’
“The requests I made for more extensive testing went ignored. We were discharged with the diagnosis, ‘virus, probably, she’ll be fine.’ He was wrong.”
