It’s still hard to believe how suddenly and completely my life changed. One day everything felt picture‑perfect, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in the SICU with tubes, wires, and cords attached to nearly every part of my body, unsure how I got there or what had happened.
It all began with an emergency C‑section on May 23, 2017, because my daughter was breech. The delivery itself went smoothly, and we joyfully welcomed our baby girl into our family. Life felt full and hopeful. My husband and I owned a small business that was thriving, we lived in a beautiful rented farmhouse, and we were planning to buy our first home. For the first time, we felt financially stable, happy, and excited about the future. But that perfect life was about to disappear.
Three weeks after my daughter was born, I began experiencing intense chest pains and nausea. I told my husband, “I’m having chest pains, and I think I need to go to the ER.” At the time, we weren’t overly worried. He drove me to the hospital, where doctors diagnosed me with gallstones and said I would need my gallbladder removed. No one seemed alarmed. The staff reassured me, saying, “No worries, this is just run‑of‑the‑mill gallstones.” After IV medication, I felt better, and they sent me home with instructions to call on Monday to schedule surgery. It was Father’s Day weekend, and no surgeons were available, so I was discharged.
Later that afternoon, the pain and nausea returned with a vengeance. My husband had gone back to work, and I was home alone with our newborn. I became so violently sick that I had to place my daughter in her bassinet while I leaned over the toilet, vomiting uncontrollably. Terrified, I called my husband and said, “You need to come home right now. Something is seriously wrong.” When he arrived, we waited briefly for a friend to come watch the baby, but I was so ill and scared that I cried, “We have to go now—even if it means leaving the baby.” The guilt was overwhelming, but the situation felt urgent and life‑threatening.
We rushed back to the hospital, and I was admitted immediately. After that, everything went dark. I only remember fragments—being transferred to one of the best hospitals in Wisconsin, doctors unsure of what was happening, and then nothing. The next clear memory I have is waking up four weeks later in the SICU. I had been rushed into emergency surgery after becoming septic. I had undergone so many open‑abdomen surgeries that I lost count. When I woke up, my hands were restrained in giant mittens, IV lines were in my arms, neck, and legs, and I had a tracheotomy tube in my throat that left me unable to speak. I couldn’t move. I was terrified, confused, and completely unaware of how close I had come to dying.
A gallstone had traveled into my pancreatic duct and became lodged there, causing my pancreas to necrotize and die. When the pancreas fails, it releases caustic digestive fluid that destroys surrounding organs. My pancreas wreaked havoc inside my body, causing severe damage and multiple fistulas.
What I didn’t notice right away when I woke from my medically induced coma was the massive, open hole in my abdomen. When I finally saw it, I was horrified. My internal organs were visible, along with the fistulas. I couldn’t understand how this had happened or how I was supposed to survive it. Before this, I didn’t even know such a thing was possible. Doctors told me bluntly, “You shouldn’t have survived. Every possible complication happened. Everything went wrong.”
Over the next year, tubes and drains came and went. My tracheotomy was eventually removed, and I slowly regained my ability to speak. But my overall condition didn’t improve much. The hole in my abdomen remained. I fell into deep depression and anxiety, feeling hopeless and trapped. Doctors admitted they had never seen a case like mine, and there was no clear treatment or solution. They told me I should be grateful just to be alive, even though I had no quality of life. My family became my lifeline—especially my husband and my mother, who never left my side. Medically, my only hope was that the fistulas might heal on their own.
In August 2018, I underwent a series of bowel resection surgeries in an attempt to close the hole in my abdomen and reconnect what remained of my digestive system. Surgeons performed a skin flap procedure, using skin and veins from another part of my body to cover the area, creating a hernia.
Thankfully, many of the surgeries were successful. My abdomen is now mostly closed, and my digestive tract is reconnected, though much shorter. As a result of the resections, I no longer have my gallbladder, pancreas, spleen, large intestine, or most of my small intestine. This has left me with severe short bowel syndrome. Because of this condition and my remaining fistulas, I’m not allowed to eat or drink. I receive all my nutrition through an IV, something I will rely on for the rest of my life. It has been over two years since I’ve eaten food or had anything other than water to take my medications.
I was always a huge foodie, so losing the ability to eat has been devastating. I miss cooking for my family and going out to dinner with my husband. My lowest point came when a major surgery was canceled just days before it was scheduled because doctors realized I was too sick. I completely broke down, crying for days as it finally sank in that I would never be “normal” again. This was my new reality.
Over time, everyone disappeared except my family. Friends showed support early on, but I quickly became old news. Visits stopped. Messages faded. No one checked in anymore. Without my family, I don’t know how I would have survived. There were many dark days and even darker thoughts, but slowly I began to understand that I had to focus on what I still had, not just what I’d lost.
I still have my mind, my ambition, and my determination to get stronger. I have an incredible support system in my family. I have a loving, devoted husband who has stood by me since day one, and I have my beautiful daughter, who motivates me every single day. I need to be here for her.
They say, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” If that’s true, then I’m Captain Marvel.
