Sharing my 🖤

Blood glucose: 548

Normal range: 80-100

Bicarbonate: 6 

Normal range: 21-29

A1C: 15.7

Normal range: Below 5.7 

These were the numbers we were told when Lyric was brought to the children’s hospital. So much was happening in her little body for weeks and we had no idea. She lost so much weight and we didn’t notice. We have been told more than once, “she is lucky to be alive.” We know. We have processed that daily since day one of this. We have held each other and wept over this fact. If I think too much about the “what if,” it feels as if I’m suffocating. 

It was only two days prior to being at the children’s hospital that I received news about a loved one that felt soul shattering and then I was standing there looking at my daughter in a hospital bed. Her tiny little body fighting hard to regulate to where it was supposed to be in order for her to be herself again. Why does it all have to happen at once? I felt such a lack of emotional capacity as I grieved a loved one’s story taking an unexpected turn and then somehow I found more capacity when my nine year old needed her mom more than ever. It felt like too much. It felt impossible to carry it all. Yet I did. I have been. And I will continue to. Because something I learned when my mom was diagnosed with cancer and passed away 6 weeks later, is that I can do hard things. It royally sucks. It aches deeply. It sometimes beings the most unbearable emotional pain, but I can do it. I can show up for more than one awful thing in life and I can love well through it. 

That doesn’t mean it’s easy and it definitely doesn’t mean it isn’t done without tears. I tell my kids all the time that “being brave means doing something while scared.” Im going to support, love, and show up. But I’m going to do it scared. Because denying the reality of how scary this season is becomes a disservice to myself. It just leaves me in a state of bottling it all up and doing it numb. So yeah, I’m scared. Im scared of what has happened, what is currently happening and what the future holds. 

I also won’t forget to remain thankful for what we have in the midst of the hard. So many people have been there to support us, show up, check in, offer help, give kids rides, feed us, hug us, and love on us so well. We are surrounded by such a beautiful community of friends and family that we know care so deeply for us and are walking with us as we do this all really super scared. Thank you to ALL of you. We couldn’t have made it through these past 12 days without you. 🖤