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When Life Gives You Second Chances
After nearly dying, I stood at the precipice and leaped toward change.
“I don’t want to die,” I told the nurse as the medical staff wheeled me to the OR for the second time that evening.
“You’re not going to.”
But the worried look in her eyes belied the confidence in her voice.
26 bags of blood and two operations later, doctors told me I was lucky to be alive and holding my newborn child. I’d almost died giving birth. It would take several days of recovering in the hospital for the depth of what that meant to sink in.
My sons almost didn’t have a mother.
My life almost ended too soon.
How much more time was I going to waste caring what people thought about me? When was I going to do something about the low-level misery I’d been feeling for longer than I cared to admit?
These questions and more whirled around my mind as I sat in the hospital watching my newborn sleep.
Before I almost died, I was a compulsive people pleaser, and I was living a life I knew I’d eventually regret. Teaching and being a mom were about the only two endeavors I could be proud of. And while I could be proud of myself as a teacher, I knew it was the wrong calling…
