Update: 09/13/2016 - Last year on today. I had the most devastating, sad, upsetting day of my life. Our son was diagnosed with Biliary Atresia. He had a four-hour surgery that day and it confirmed his liver was in cirrhosis condition and that his only means for survival was a liver transplant.
There is no way to explain the feeling when you are told your child is sick, very sick. I remember initially receiving the news – we slumped immediately to the bottom of the barrel – I was so off my rocker I could barely breathe – it was a devastatingly dark moment was when I walked into the PACU and Brodie was laying in the Anesthesiologist’s arms and she was cradling our lifeless baby who looked so perfect, so angelic, so okay and they had delivered the news to us how very very ill he was.
When you are delivered a diagnosis of your child, self or someone you love and it is bad news. It is knee faltering, ground crashing, earth stopping in the moment devastation like you have never felt. I remember for five minutes I felt like the world was ending (and probably many more times after this as well).
I remember so vividly I cried, sobbed, weeped, prayed in between sobs I was trying to choke out a lullaby to comfort my infant son. The hospital walls stark white, the hospital bed unforgiving and no answers on any of the faces around me. As I scanned the faces in the room – looks of question, disappointment and hurt were painted on everyone. These looks were being were traded by my family with glances around the room and the thickening of uncertainty and overwhelming fear. Nobody knew what to say, there was nothing to say.
I could not sit here being helpless, feeling like I could not do anything, we needed to move. What could we do? What could we do? The key to our diagnosis was that it was fixable and we needed to move towards our solution. All I kept saying. We can fix this. We can fix this. We can fix this.
I didn’t think about how hard, how crazy, how much needed to happen in order for that to happen – I just thought very simply. We can fix this.
Last year at this time I was supposed to be celebrating life making it through our new addition to the family - baby #2 and going on our annual girls trip (one that we religiously go on every year destination different each time) – the destination for 2015 - New York City.
As fate would have it I had to cancel that trip and my bests forged on to NYC – but not without thinking and calling me every day and paying one of the first tributes to Brodie on none other than the Today Show. Signs in hand and cameras filming Brodie’s Good Vibe Tribe was captured.
I reached out with my first Facebook post and bore the # #brodiesgoodvibetribe letting you all know what was going on as I shared my heart had broken into a million pieces and was put back together by the strength and resilience of our little warrior.
Little did I know just how much he would teach me and us about life.
Today. One year later exactly from the surgery date to confirm diagnosis and Brodie is doing just amazing.
We just had labs and clinic this week, meeting with our team and he is awesome. Blood levels look spectacular, he is healthy, happy and living his tiny little life – LOUD ;)
Today, right now, I am writing this from a plane – on my way to Portland, Maine to celebrate our annual girls trip and celebrating life in a much different way. I get to go on a trip with my girls and this trip is all about making it through life, life challenges, life tests, just life.
We get to be with one another and laugh and cry and celebrate the fact that no matter what we are going through or what we have gone through – we are doing it together. We have made it together and “my people” have lifted me up this past year through a year that has been more packed with roller coaster highs and lows that would give Cedar Point a run for its money.
But we have made it. We have been TIGUE TOUGH to the core. You see, Tigue Tough is not just for us Tigues – but it is for the warriors of life who fight through every day, who believe in the great good and who live the battles of life.
I challenge you to reflect on how far you have come in a year. If you are going through something have hope for what is to come in a years time. Reflect on how far you have come in a years time.
If you know someone who is going through something try to be “their person” the footsteps poem always rings true to me especially when I reflect on this past year we have been lifted and carried by so many.
Live life. Fight the fight. Don't give up.
XO
TT
#DOnateLIFE #brodiesgoodvibetribe #TIGUEtough #sliverofliver#biliaryatresiawarrior #thegoodstuff #give2live #BGVT