The best news I've had today is that our family member cried when she heard her toddler on the phone.
This mom isn't conscious. She hasn't been since Saturday when she had a stroke, but her eyes filled with tears when her daughter spoke to her today.
We don't really know what the future holds- for her or for any of us.
She's younger than me. None of us expected a health crisis like this.
Too often I delay interactions with my kids. This horror serves a stark reminder that relationships (especially with children) cannot wait.
Play a board game. Listen to a story. Take a walk around the block. Dance in the living room. Hug. Joke.
And please stop smoking.
Smoking greatly increases the risk of stroke (and embolism) in young women. Combined with birth control or other hormones it can be deadly. A little over a decade ago, we lost a beautiful friend in her mid-twenties to a pulmonary embolism resulting from an otherwise minor injury.
With the wrong genetics, smoking can magnify an inherited clotting risk enormously.
If you love a parent who smokes, please support them in quitting for their kids. The catastrophic effects of a stroke can be far more sudden and traumatic than we think- especially in young women.
If you pray, please keep this young mom and her family in your prayers. She's scheduled for surgery in the morning, and we would all be so overjoyed if she would just wake up.
***Baby Toolkit doesn't want other families to go through this sadness and anxiety. We usually discuss geek parenting.
I'm sorry to hear this. I hope she is already doing better, but I know recovery form stroke is a long journey. Have you heard of the book, My Stroke of Insight? It's a brain scientist's memoir of her stroke and subsequent recovery. It may provide useful insight for your family at this trying time. I will keep you all in my thoughts.
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