Humbly Courageous

Hello and welcome back! Living in Indiana, one of my favorite things about living here is that we get 4 distinct seasons. There is truly something I love about each and every one. Fall is my favorite though for sure! 😍 I just love the beautiful colors during that time.  Fall hikes are my favorite  Living with a lifelong disability, I’ve definitely gone through distinct seasons of how I’ve have viewed my disability during my lifetime. I can also say I can pick out things from each and every one of these seasons that I have come to love too. The season I am in now though, is by far my favorite. I’ve never felt more comfortable in my own skin. I think part of it is just age. As we get older we discover more and more that we don’t need to live our lives to make others happy, or to make them accept us. We don’t need to try to be something we aren’t. We just are who we are. As a little girl with a disability, I was pretty naive in my thoughts about how others would accept me until ...

Hello and welcome back! Boy mom. That’s me, and I absolutely love it. The connection between a boy and his mom can be a special one. I always thought before having kids that I would love having a girl, so we could be close like my mom and I. I was wrong. I love each unique relationship I have with each of my sons. Before having children, I couldn’t envision myself as a mom. I felt very strongly about that, and told everybody around me, every chance I got. No kids for me! I told myself I wouldn’t be able to handle a pregnancy, let alone taking care of a child with my disability. I think it was a defense mechanism to keep me from feeling the deep sadness that “realistic” thought brought with it. It was a done deal in my mind.   However, Jamie really wanted to have children, and I knew that. Somewhere along the way, something changed, and I felt like it was something that maybe I could actually handle. Funny how that happens when it’s meant to be. He also has said so many times that G...

Hello and welcome to another blog! As we begin the new year each year our minds are often in renewal mode. In the past, I found that I had this magnified motivation to want to change so many things each year, and would always start out with a bang! Then, by the time the end of February rolled around, I would lose my momentum. I also felt like in doing so, it made me feel like what I was doing before wasn’t good enough, that I wasn’t trying hard enough. I don’t think that was the case, I think our minds just get easily distracted by things like…life.  I’m not saying I’m against goal setting. In fact, it’s something that we do as a family each year. We all four write down our goals, and then on January 1st of the next year, we take a look and see how we did. This year, I was able to check off all of my goals from last year. That was a pretty good feeling I must admit. Not sure I’ve ever checked them all off before. I think it was because they were more realistic and smaller goals....

Hello and welcome back! Happy New Year! I can’t believe it’s already been a year since I started on my stem cell journey. Last month, I had my 3rd Stromal Vascular Fraction stem cell treatment. If you would like to know more about that treatment or how it became an option for me, please refer back to previous blogs where I explained  the first and second treatments.  Always wear my lucky shoes! In the blog about my second treatment, I mentioned I did a double procedure, meaning I had twice the amount of cells extracted, so that I could bank some cells, and not have to go through the actual procedure of removing the fat for the stem cells again.  To say this time was a breeze would be a very accurate statement. I had my cells delivered to my doctor the day I went in. I got there, he prepared the IV, and it was as easy as a needle poke for the IV, and maybe 20 minutes tops to get my cells and then be on my way.  When I was there my doctor told me how he had been showin...