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If you can make it through this post, you can probably make it through what I’ve been through 😂 Also, remember to subscribe at the bottom with your email 😉

2020... the craziest year of my life.

March 14th, we head to one of our favorite places, the brewery, for the start of St. Paddy’s day weekend. We’re walking down to the Biergarten and our song (it all started with a beer, because of course it did) starts playing over the loud speaker; the man I love got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife. Of course it was a no brainer; YES. He makes me laugh so hard I cry, he keeps a smile on my face even when I don’t want to smile, he dances around the kitchen with me, he infuriates me when he leaves his shoes in the middle of the floor and he’s been by my side every step of the way when I don’t know that many people that would stick around. I don’t know what I would do without him. He’s my person and I’m so glad our paths crossed.

March 15th, we finally get to go out and celebrate our engagement by ourselves. It’s one of the best nights we’ve had in a long time. Cold beers and espresso martinis, laughs, and lots of love. 

The big covid shut down. I’m home from work, he’s working from home, and I’m not feeling like myself. I have Achalasia. A rare swallowing disease that affects the esophagus and also causes me to get aspiration pneumonia multiple times a year. 

March 23rd, I start coughing up blood and it’s hard to breathe. My Apple Watch is telling me resting heart rate is 157. It’s never happened before so obviously it’s concerning. My fiancé brings me to the Melrose Wakefield ED where he has to drop me off because of the new covid policies and that was the last time I saw anyone in my family for 68 LONG DAYS. 

The short story; I was intubated, my lung collapsed, my health was rapidly declining and it wasn’t looking good. My fiancé, my dad and my mom made the decision to have me transferred via Med Flight Ground to Tufts Medical Center in Boston and no one knew if I would even make the ride there.

I made it. My family said it was the longest 20 minutes of their life. I was met by Dr. Brinckerhoff, Dr. Walters, and Dr. Patel who quickly brought me in for a CT scan where it was discovered that I had a perforated esophagus in multiple locations and one perforation had attached itself to my lung and all of the bad food and toxins in my body were draining in there. I was immediately brought in for surgery; I was intubated and put on ecmo to try and give my body time to heal and I made it through. 

Flash forward I wake up and it’s April. APRIL. Where did that time go? What happened and where am I? 

My body is well enough to come off of ecmo and to be extubated. I have no muscle strength, I can barely move in bed, I have a g-tube to give my body the nutrients it needs to keep pushing forward. I still can’t see my family, but I have my “nurse mom” Cindy and she’s helping me get through it. I’m getting better...

So we thought...

My health starts to rapidly decline yet again. My sats were low, I was coughing up blood and I had to be intubated and put back on ecmo. My body wasn’t ready and needed more time to heal. 

I’m sedated but not enough to not understand what’s going on around me. I’m fully aware that I am on machines that are keeping me alive and I’m scared. I still haven’t seen any family except for on a FaceTime call and thank god for that because I don’t know what I would have done without any communication with my family at all. I’m having nightmares, panic attacks. I want my dad to hold my hand and my mom to rub my head and my fiancé to kiss my forehead. I need my support system like I’ve never needed them before.

It’s the beginning of May and I’m well enough to come off these machines again. My body is so de-conditioned I can barely move. I’m determined. I’m in the surgical ICU still but I’m getting out of there. I’m going to rehab. I’m going to be with my family... it’s now the middle of May and I get the green light from the doctors to be put in a wheel chair and go outside for the first time since March to feel the sun on my face and have my entire family do a drive by to say hi. I have every emotion going through my head but I’m alive and I’m pushing through.

May 20th, I get to rehab. I am pushing myself harder than I’ve ever pushed myself in my life. I want to go home to my fiancé.. SIX days later, I have enough strength to at least walk around, go to the bathroom on my own and get picked up from rehab. 

My fiancé picks me up with flowers and it feels like an awkward first date. Neither of us knows what to say but we’re just so happy.

May.. June.. July.. August.. I rehab at home. Visiting nurses, PT, OT, and the support from my family, friends that have become family, nurses from the ICU still checking in on me from tufts and Dr. Brinckerhoff who answers my emails and silly questions at any time of the day or night. I am getting my strength back slowly but surely and I’m feeling more like myself; physically and mentally.

August 20th, I’m home coughing up blood and I’m scared. It’s happening again. Back to Tufts I go.

Another long story short; my lung is bleeding. They’re trying to fix it and they do. They tell my dad and my fiancé that everything went well and they’re about to wake me up. Now, I don’t know any of this as I’m intubated for the procedure but a few minutes after this, a code blue is called. Code blue, female, interventional radiology; that’s where I am. It’s me. My surgeon Dr. Brinckerhoff is scared; he doesn’t sugarcoat it. I coded for 11 minutes. I died, I actually was without life for 11 minutes. I’m re-intubated and put BACK ecmo for the third time to give me the best chance I have at survival but no one knows what my mental capacity is going to be after this.

They’re letting my family members come in 2 at a time to see me. No one knows if I’m going to be ok or not but I’m responding to treatment and they’re trying to keep me a little less sedated so they can check my brain function.. My fiancé and my mom are in the room at the same time. They’re both crying but Keith jokes that I’m trying to get out of paying the rent again... I must hear this because I slowly lift my middle finger up to flip him off. High fives and hugs all around. They know I can hear them and there’s a glimmer of hope that I’ll be alright.

It’s now September 3rd. I’m off ecmo but I’m still intubated and I’ve lost all this time AGAIN. My sats are finally good enough to come off of the breathing machine but my body is de-conditioned again and I can barely move.

I’m determined. I’m here. I’m alive. I’m pissed. I’m happy. I’m sad. I’m scared. 

How did I make it through this again? Why me?

September 14th, I get to go home. I’m well enough that I convince my surgeon, Dr. Brinckerhoff and the SICU doctor, Dr. Nasraway that for my mental health I need to go home to be rehabbed. 

My mom meets me and my fiancé at my house. I live on a third floor walk up and can barely get up the first 2 steps. They have to basically carry me up one step at a time. An hour later and I made it into the house.

I have a walker, I can barely move around, but I’m moving; pushing myself every day with the encouragement from my fiancé and my parents and everyone else around me that loves me.

I’m here and I’m fighting. Now is the time to work. Due to the Achalasia I need to have my esophagus removed soon and in order to do that I need to be strong. Stronger than I’ve ever been before..

The devil whispered “you can’t withstand this storm.”

Well you know what I say to that,

I AM THE STORM.

I will keep pushing and I will keep fighting.

October 21st.. I wake up coughing up blood and head into the Tufts emergency room. Dr. Brinckerhoff meets me and considers a lobectomy and I’m admitted to the SICU for observation. Nothing happens. My labs, X-rays, and CT scan are as picture perfect as they’re going to be for me.

The next morning we all decide I can go home. Surgery for a lobectomy and esophagectomy are scheduled for Wednesday; as long as nothing pressing comes up in the mean time.

5 days. I need to make it 5 days without the slightest hiccup to get to surgery day; a 12 hour surgery I might add.

My birthday is in 4 days. 4 days until I turn 28 years old and the thing that has given me my toughest trials in life may be over with. Out of my body forever and maybe I’ll be able to rehab and move on with my life.

Plan a wedding. Have kitchen dance parties. Spend time with my family and my best friends. Be as normal of a 28 year old as I’m ever going to be.

THIS is my fight song..

Well it’s October 25th and I’m back in the SICU at Tufts after coughing up a lot of blood, having difficulty breathing, and a long ambulance ride.

If I can stay stable I will make it to my planned surgery and it won’t be so emergent.

Tomorrow is my 28th birthday and I’ll be celebrating with my tufts family.. which at this point we’re just as close. 

We just have to be patient and go with the flow; hoping there are no more bumps in the road..

ADAPT. OVERCOME. CONQUER.....

The SICU, the PACU, the CCU, the CTU, the cct’s, the nurses, the residents, the ECMO team, the respiratory team, the physical therapists; and so many more that I’m sure I’m forgetting. Everyone came together to help me make it through this. This is my tufts family. 

I don’t know where I’d be without a doctor like Brink (he doesn’t know I call him that but I feel like he’s saved my life too my times to be so formal). But he literally pulled me back from the “brink” of death so many times that I can’t help but be grateful for everything he has done. 

I know it’s not over yet. And I still need to rehab and get better and this will all be a learning curve but this is where I’m at and this is where I’ve been. I’m here, and I’m fighting. 

This is it. The storm - that’s me; and I kicked her ass every time ..

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