12/18/2024
Hi everyone, this will be a LONG post but I’ve been compelled to talk a little more about my story, and how it has affected my life forever.
It’s been 9 months since my life would be changed for good. The day I was told that I was going to be having a life saving surgery, not knowing if I was going to come out on the other side. My world literally stopped and felt like it was crumbling down. I thought I was going to lose our baby, if I, myself, did not die in the process. Being literally hours away from death was the scariest thing and the biggest giant I’ve ever faced. I couldn’t believe what was happening to me, at only 9 weeks pregnant…
At 23 years old, it was discovered that I had a Bilateral Pulmonary Embolism (blood clot that was connected and going through both lungs). I have lost about 75% function in my right lung and 25% function in my left lung. I had two surgeries in 5 days to remove as much of the clot as possible. While in the first surgery, I was kept awake, due to fear of not being able to come off of the ventilator once asleep. During the surgery, it was discovered that I was a rapid metabolizer of medications so the pain medication wasn’t working, I felt EVERYTHING for the duration of the 2 1/2 hours I the OR… Since then, I’ve suffered from PTSD, Insomnia, increased anxiety. On the physical side, I still suffer from Pleurisy, muscle spasm’s surrounding my lungs, infarcts on both lungs, and constant shortness of breath, along with chest pain. During the first surgery, it was also discovered that I had a hole in my heart which caused a fear of tearing my aorta. Ever since, even on beta blockers, my resting heart rate sits between the lower 100s to 140bpm, and up to 180bpm just from walking at a slow pace. And I’m on oxygen as needed!
I’ve had three surgeries, three blood transfusions, two iron infusions, constant tests and CT’s/X-rays ran on me, over 400 shots in my stomach, several blown IV’s, sometimes daily. I had more ultrasounds and monitors on my belly more times than I can count. At times I felt like the most unlucky person on this planet but at the same time, I was the luckiest because my life was spared along with sweet Emmy’s.
I remember the day I was told that I may need to consider terminating my pregnancy, but I knew that was not an option for me. I was going to fight as much as I could to get our baby here and was so glad I did because I knew that would be mine and Colin’s (my husband) only shot at having a child of our own. At times, I wanted to give up, I just wanted a break, to not be in pain. To this day, it breaks my heart that this will be my only experience with pregnancy. Though I’m grateful it worked out, I never got to go to ultrasound appointments with excitement, I never got to have a baby shower, never got to truly celebrate our new life we were about to begin. I spent several days crying because I couldn’t be with my baby, I couldn’t feed her, change her, hold her, and comfort her like a mother should be able to. I felt like this was my fault, like I was the reason Emmy was struggling… I couldn’t stop blaming myself, I didn’t even want to look in a mirror because I would cry every time I looked at myself. Thankfully I had an army of people behind me.
I never experienced the feeling of love that I did through this experience. Hospital staff, strangers, friends of friends, and family praying their hearts out that I would be okay. I had so many people come up to Colin and I, the short amount of time I was out of the hospital, asking to pray for us, not knowing anything about us and the journey we were on. It still makes me emotional to this day thinking about it. The outpour of love and support will forever leave me in awe. But above all, I’m grateful to serve and ALMIGHTY God. He didn’t put me through this… but He carried me out!
I’ve always believed in God, have always had faith in God. But at this specific time in my life, my faith has been the strongest it’s ever been. At the beginning of this journey, I had so many emotions, I mean my world was crumbling down around me.. It is very easy to lose sight of faith and question why God allows certain things to happen. You’re human, it happens to so many people every day. I would sit in the hospital, crying, saying, “God, why is this happening to me? What have I done to deserve this? Why can’t me and my baby to be okay?” But today, I can confidently say that I don’t deserve anything. God didn’t do this to me, but he sure saved me and my baby from being defeated by this. And that all along God knew that we would be okay. I’ve prayed my whole life but never personally felt the POWER OF PRAYER like I did this past year. At the end of the day, faith was all I could count on. Without my faith in God and without prayer warriors, I don’t believe that I’d be here to tell me story today! I give him all the glory 🙌🏼
I know I’ve had a lot of prayers sent my way, but I ask to please pray for me as I begin this process. It feels terrible to be 23yo, not being able to walk a decent distance without having to take breaks, sweating and panting just walking from our vehicle into a building and having constant chest and back pain. I still have a lot of problems surrounding my lungs and heart, I just get tired of talking about it because I feel like I’m constantly complaining when I do and that’s not who I am. - If you read all of this, I’m impressed.
BLOOD WARNING‼️I’ve not done this before, but below I’m going to attach pictures of my pulmonary embolism and scans of my lungs, and pictures of me through my journey.
Feel free to also share this… I felt so alone (though I wasn’t) through my whole pregnancy and postpartum experience because I had no one to talk to that could understand EXACTLY what I was going through. I want to show other moms or any young adult who has suffered from a PE out there going through a rough battle that it CAN work out and you are SO STRONG! Just keep the faith 🙏🏼🤍
