COLLIDE

July 8, 2024.Reading time 13 minutes.

I stand in the Atlantic Ocean jumping the waves as they attempt to crash over me. Some are too big to jump and I dive under them at just the right time. With each dive I hear the force of the wave breaking above me. The impact as it breaks – pounding… booming… swelling…nature’s most powerful force.

37 weeks pregnant, I feel my baby boy kick and turn inside of me as I take on wave after wave after wave. I hold my belly and for a moment all of time stops and the world slows down till it barely moves. I feel a surge of emotion and an unbelievable protection over something I have yet to hold or see or meet. And yet in the same breath the mountain that’s been emerging, somehow getting larger each day, looms before me.

I point my face towards the sun and close my eyes for a second. I feel so free in this moment. Standing in water there is no pain. No gravity pulling my belly downwards. My back doesn’t continuously ache and even my re-injured ribs, potentially my re-broken ribs feel better than they have done in months. In this moment there is nothing. Just the ocean, the waves, the sun, the wind and my body. Standing in unity. Flowing in sync.

I feel the swell of the water start to pull around my legs and I open my eyes just in time to dive under another thunderous wave. The peaceful moment disappears with a whirlpool of foam all around me as more waves come crashing through… one after another after another. There’s barely time to catch a breath.

The hospital wanted to induce me this week at 38 weeks. The baby is very big, but more than that I get the feeling they’re just trying to control the situation as much as they possibly can. For the first 6 months I had kept myself in a great place with the pregnancy. But after losing my OB practice at 30 weeks pregnant, because they suddenly decided out of nowhere I was too high risk to be seen by them any longer and refused to see me again… fear slowly crept in. For 6 weeks no one would see me. Finally a call from the medical director at the high risk OB group asking me to come in and see her personally definitely made things feel a little better, but for some reason I haven’t been able to quite shake that initial fear that managed to hook itself onto something refusing to let go.

“It’s not your pregnancy that’s high risk, it’s the labor that’s very high risk.” “Every patient here is high risk… you’ve been promoted to high HIGH risk.” “Your situation is so unknown and so unpredictable we’re going to have to have every specialist on standby just in case.” The words ring loud in my ears. High risk. Unpredictable. Unknown. Every medical professional I’ve seen keeps saying the same thing. No one knows how my body is going to respond going into a situation as traumatic and stressful as labor.

I jump through another wave. Emotions are suddenly high. I feel angry, lost, out of control and very fearful of the unknown. Every medical observance weighing me down, my feet planted in the sand, my legs suddenly feeling heavy. Last year when my body started attacking itself after the horrendous miscarriage I went through… it was one of the worst and hardest times of my life. Being stuck in a hospital bed for 6 weeks unable to move, needles every day, medications that made me feel out of it, the excruciating physical pain of constantly dropping oxygen and fighting for air, memory loss due to the lack of oxygen and intense body cramps from lying still for so long. When I let myself go back there I feel claustrophobic and panicky… Will my body do the same thing again when I go into labor? Or potentially as soon as the labor is over? Doctors have told me there’s a real possibility it could. They’re avoiding a c-section because surgery is a trigger for autoimmune. Labor or post labor can apparently also be a trigger.

I stare out into the depth of the ocean. There’s a point where the ocean meets the sky and you no longer know which one is which. Both sky and ocean – they just keep going. The vastness of both makes me stop and take a deep breath. Baby boy is coming one way or another. I’ve had an amazing pregnancy. Yes it’s been very painful. From my pelvis, to the crazy pressure that never let up, re-injuring my broken ribs, some breathing issues and an asthma flare up… but overall… I have worked out 6x a week at high intensity for 9 months straight without missing a beat, walked my dogs every day of the week, worked without having a sick day or missing a show, and not needed to change anything in my day-to-day routine. I mean that’s something I should be proud of! Now I just need to get through the final part. The most important part. Bringing this beautiful miracle into the world safely, while staying alive myself!

I dive under the next wave. I’ve probably been doing this for close to an hour. My legs feel less heavy again. Fear’s little hook hasn’t let go, but for a moment it doesn’t feel quite as intense. I gently place my hands back on my belly. He never stops moving. I visualize my ultrasound from the previous week and follow his spine, move over his little bottom and find his little hands and feet. Out of nowhere tears jump into my eyes. 5 and a half years I’ve waited for him. I didn’t think it would ever happen. I’m so close to holding you baby boy. I’m so close to smelling your head, and feeling those little feet which have been kicking me painfully for so long. We’re so close. I promise I’ll keep you safe. I promise I won’t let anything happen to you. Even if my body does start failing again, I promise I’ll bring you out safely.

The tears fall as I jump through the next wave. This one hurt as it crashes through me. I should have dove under that one but I didn’t have enough time between the two waves. That’s what the looming mountain in front of me feels like right now. Going from pregnancy to labor is going to be so quick, I won’t have time to make a decision. It’ll just happen. It’ll be painful but there’s no stopping it.

Fear has hooked himself firmly inside of me and for now he’s not going anywhere. But as I breathe in the ocean air deeply and continue to jump each wave I know I have a choice to not let fear be the only contender right now. Breathe, jump, breathe, dive… I’ve been given this miracle to carry and it was far from luck and most definitely not by my own doing that this pregnancy came to be OR that I was able to healthily carry him for the last 38 weeks. I breathe in HOPE. Deeply. Saturating as many parts as I can. I stare out again at where the ocean meets the sky. Limitless. Endless. Infinite. It’s all so far out of my control. Just like I can’t control these waves, or the vastness of the ocean, the sky that never ends… I can’t control how this baby will be born. I breathe it in deep. FAITH fills my lungs. You’ve got me this far in life. I know with every fibre in my being that You won’t leave me now. Whatever that looks like. Even when it feels so out of control, I KNOW He’s completely in control. I take one more deep breath… peace gently floods in. Like a warm sip of tea slides down your throat and thaws a cold body, peace tingles through me and numbs the nervous anxiety mixed within the fear as I stare up at the mountain looming before me. It still stands before me, towering high. But the peace makes it feel just a little less threatening. Whatever happens – I can do this.

I dive under one final wave, come up for air, turn and slowly make my way back to shore. The sand glistens in the sun before me. “We got this baby boy. You and me. We got this. No matter what happens.” The fear of the unknown, the uneasiness of the ‘what ifs’, the stress of the ‘what could be’… they continue to linger. But I breathe in deep again… hope, faith, peace. Hope, Faith, Peace. I look back at where the ocean meets the sky one more time. The waves crashing under it. In a matter of days or potentially a few weeks they’re all going to meet. Fear, what ifs, unknowns and stress… but also hope and faith and peace, beauty, a miracle and a promise complete. All in one place. They’re going to collide and meet and crash and pound and swell as my body brings this little one into the world. There’s no stopping it and there’s certainly no predicting it. There’s just moving forwards towards it. And in that moment I realize once again that all I can choose to do. Choose to move forward. Taking it all in my stride. Focusing on the good and putting my faith in the rest.

40 DAYS

April 16, 2023.Reading time 21 minutes.

It’s a calm and peaceful Saturday morning. I hadn’t planned much in for today which is rare for me! I only flew back home two days ago. My trip to the UK had been amazing and refreshing! It had been exactly what I’d needed to rest and recuperate from surgery. The miscarriage, as awful as it had been, seeing friends and family back in the homeland made the pain of it all seem a little less intense. I stare at the vacuum as I’m attempting to push it through our brand new rug and get all of the dog hair. The new rug is the perfect color to conceal Charlie and Gracie’s mammoth amount of shedding! I pause… my chest feels tight.

Three days ago, right before I flew back home to Virginia Beach, my sister had gotten sick. “Don’t you dare give that to me!” I’d jokingly said to her. But unfortunately the germs were shared. No surprise really after what my body had gone through the past few weeks. Immune system was down and I was still recovering. It had been years since I’d been sick. My throat felt like I was swallowing razors and my skin was hurting bad. Strange symptoms but I was thankful it wasn’t covid or anything more serious.

I continue pushing the vacuum through the rug. I should have bought a less fluffy one! I pause again… Too familiar with these symptoms, l start praying against any asthma exacerbation. I sit on the couch for a minute and reply to a message from a friend. I share my latest symptoms with her… “looks like the head cold is moving into my chest.” Before I get back up she’s responded. “Go to Patient First and get a breathing treatment before it gets worse!” I look around the house. I’m almost done cleaning, might as well finish. I get the mop out and start mopping as I consider my options… Ignore the tight chest and pretend I’m fine, or actually be pro-active and go to Patient First. I hate going to the doctors. I avoid it at all costs. But usually by avoiding it, I make it worse and end up in hospital or if it’s asthma related – the ICU. I decide to make the wise decision, be pro-active and head out to Patient First.

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It’s 7am. The sun shines brightly into my room as another new morning breaks. For a moment life feels normal. But as my eyes adjust to the light I’m quickly reminded it’s not. I hear beeping around the unit, nurses talking as shift change takes place, doors opening and closing, call bells going off, an IV takes up most of my arm, bruising from hundreds of needles take up the rest and a central line sits painfully in my neck. Life hasn’t been normal for a while.

I had spent maybe all of 10 minutes at Patient First before an ambulance was called. My wheezing had gotten worse by the time I saw a doctor and my oxygen levels hovered in the 80s. My chest had continued to get tighter and by the time we’d arrived to the ER I was ready for the usual magnesium and steroid drips, breathing treatments and oxygen. I’d hoped it would only last a few hours, my asthma would clear and I’d be on my way home. Never in a million years did I expect what was about to unfold.

As I desperately stare out the window wishing I could transport myself outside and feel the wind on my face, it’s hard to keep the tears from falling. More than five weeks had passed. Memories are blurry, time obscure, an hour in this bed could feel like days yet five weeks had vanished just like that. For a second words fail me as I try to take in the magnitude of what had unfolded and attempt to understand the reality of what was still taking place.

Four hours on and my asthma hadn’t cleared after getting to the ER. Pneumonia was also found at the bottom of my lungs and the doctor came in and told me he was admitting me. I was frustrated and annoyed. Sometimes I hated my body so much. First a ridiculously complicated miscarriage… now this. Really? It’s only February. As I was wheeled to Unit 4D Room 375 at Sentara Princess Anne Hospital, I was trying to get my head around spending the night here. I had too much to do. I had a crazy work-week coming up, scripts to write, stories to shoot, shows to produce. I didn’t have time to spend tonight in hospital. Little did I know I wouldn’t physically be walking out of there for the next 40 days. FORTY. I was about to be bed bound for almost 6 weeks.

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The thing about life is that you can’t predict it. You don’t know what’s going to happen from one moment to the next. Sure, you can plan and organize, you can attempt to have your life straightened out, ordered and efficient. But the reality is that in a second everything can change and there’s nothing you can do to control it or have any influence over it. I went from being a 34-year-old athlete, training 9x a week for a triathlon, working 60 hour weeks as a producer in live television to being bed bound in a hospital unable to walk more than a few steps without my oxygen bottoming out.

One moment I was healthy and unbelievably fit. The next… my lung capacity dropped to 11%. I went from having a resting heart rate of 43 BPM to not being able to walk 5 steps without it sky rocketing to 150. I went from being able to breathe without oxygen sitting at 98-100% to dropping into the 70s, 60s and even the 50s anytime I removed the oxygen or tried to walk. Life… you can’t predict it. You most certainly can’t control it.

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For 6 weeks I went through every test. Hundreds of needles. More doctors than I’ve ever seen in my entire life. And yet no answer was discovered. There were theories, hypotheses, beliefs and suspicions, yet nothing concrete was found. 8 rounds of IV IG later and I saw slight improvement in my significant muscle loss. Some strength had returned. Yet my oxygen continued to drop. Eventually plasmapheresis was decided on and a central line was put in. I’d go through 5 rounds of treatment every day other. The Red Cross came in to do it and they would take out all my plasma and replace it with new plasma. I felt hopeful, yet also completely desperate. If this didn’t work… would I ever be able to go home? Would I ever be able to return to the life I loved? Would I ever be able to breathe again without being attached to oxygen?

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As I sit on the couch in my living room I feel every emotion return as I think back to the last few months. There’s been a lot of tough moments in my life. Too many to count. But I can honestly say the last 6 weeks have been some of the hardest of my entire life. Those who know me, know I can’t sit still for more than 5 minutes without getting antsy. 40 days being bed bound was difficult on a level I will never quite be able to describe. I never knew how much pain your body could be in from not moving. I never realized how unbelievably sore restless legs and a restless body was. About halfway through my time in hospital I remember praying to Jesus, not just praying, but crying out and asking if I was going to die? I’ve come close to death so many times. Yet this felt different. I remember asking God that if this was it to give me a peace about it because I wasn’t ready to go. I loved this life. I felt like I had so much more to give. Tears flooded down my cheeks as I thought about leaving Ryan, my family and friends, the unbelievable life I had been given, the people in it and the incredible job I loved so much. I wasn’t ready. But for once I also wasn’t quite sure how this was going to play out. My body was exhausted, depleted, weak, I had lost 15lbs of muscle, my vision was getting more and more blurry and with every oxygen drop my memory was getting more hazed. I was on so much medication and sedation that I didn’t remember entire days or people visiting. Full conversations were lost and it was hard to stay in the moment. I’m not a big cryer yet the tears that have hit have come from a deep place I didn’t know existed and pray I never have to feel again.

And yet there was so much beauty all around. Isn’t it amazing how the deepest and darkest of places brings out the brightest of lights? You can’t see light unless there’s an element of dark. When it’s pitch black, the light can radiate at full intensity. Hundreds of people walked through the doors of the hospital to come and see me. Guitars were brought in, full worship sessions broke out. Thousands of prayers were spoken over me from all over the world. People I had never even met heard about my story and were praying and sending messages of support. I met and got to know so many people in the hospital because I was there for so long. From doctors to nurses, the respiratory team, bed transport people, security, food & nutrition, PT’s, check in people, the list goes on & on. Some of those people have genuinely changed my life forever. I got an inside look into the unbelievable and life-changing job the nurses do. Without them I wouldn’t be alive today. They are the glue which keeps hospitals together and I never understood how hard their jobs were until I watched them in action for 6 weeks straight. I cannot put into words the way they have impacted my life. From helping me with puzzles, to popping in every hour to make sure I was doing ok, so many of them – even when they weren’t my nurse for the day were invested in my journey and recovery and fought for me and with me to get to the bottom of what was going on. They supported me through my worst and celebrated with me in the highs. There are not enough words in this world to thank them and help them understand how their support kept me going through some of the hardest moments of my life. I look back and even though it was dark, I see light which far engulfs the dark. I see the miracles and the testimonies. I see God so close even when He seemed so far. I see the hundreds of coffee dates I got to have with people, the relationships which were deepened and the new friendships which were formed. I see the fight I found in myself even when I didn’t think I had any fight left. I see a community of people who surrounded me and lifted me up when I was sinking. I’m blown away by the support I’ve received these past months and as I walked out of the hospital I walked out different, knowing I’ll never be quite the same again. There have been tears, and deep sorrow, intense hopelessness and extreme pain. But there have also been miracles and highs, incredible joys and real genuine happiness. I’ve always said I’ll never understand life. This has once more confirmed that statement. And yet with each season of not understanding I seem to learn more about myself, God and the journey I’m on.

Challenges changes people. Pain deepens you. As I reflect back on the tough I also know it’s made me stronger. It’s made me more determined to not waste a moment. To live purposeful and have a faith that’s unwavering.

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April 6th 2023 I was officially discharged from the hospital. The day before Good Friday. I had been in hospital exactly 40 days and was going home for Easter. Plasmapheresis had worked. After the 3rd treatment I was able to come off oxygen and after the 4th treatment I was able to walk around my unit. By the 5th treatment I was like a new person.

I still have no answers. The journey continues as we try to figure out what happened and if it could return. It’s hard not knowing and occasionally it makes me feel a little wobbly. Cancer, autoimmune diseases, many words have been thrown around yet nothing has been fully confirmed. Tests have indicated my nerves and brain weren’t communicating with each other and more tests confirmed there was something attacking my diaphragm and respiratory system. No name however. And no official diagnosis means no way of knowing how to avoid this from happening again. Fear wants to take charge but I refuse to let it. I might not have the answers but every day I’m given opportunities. Do I live them out in fear of the unknown? Or do I make the most of what’s in front of me and what I’ve been given? Whatever has been attacking my body these last months could come back. If it’s autoimmune it can flare up. But I’ve decided I’m not going to live my life in fear. I’m not going to expect a flare-up. Life is too short and the opportunities too few.

10 minutes before I walked out of the hospital last week a code blue was called on my unit and a man, someone’s father, died before being barely resuscitated and run to the ICU. As I listened to the man’s daughter screaming and crying right outside of my room, it was a very real reminder that life is short and I’m unbelievably thankful to be alive. I’ve heard multiple code blue’s over the last 6 weeks. People have died. And people will continue to die. I got to walk out of there alive, despite having had some close calls. And for that I am indebted with gratitude.

I would love to say that the hard is over but really a big part of this journey is only just beginning. Being bed bound for 40 days is no joke. The muscle loss has been extreme and it’s definitely taken a toll on my body. To get back to the level of fitness I was at is proving to be very painful, hard and will be far from a walk in the park. It hurts to walk and at times it hurts to breathe. But I’m determined and I know I’ll get there no matter how hard it is or how much it hurts.

I’m alive. And I’m home. I’m off oxygen and I can move. There were many moments where I wasn’t sure what the rest of my life was going to look like. So I’ll take the hard and walk head first into it. Because I’m breathing and thankful beyond words that I get to keep on journeying out this thing called life!