<meta charset="utf-8"><span>In 2014, our son was born. He was my first child at 43 and my husband's first boy at 48. He was perfect in every way a baby could be. He was born 6 weeks early and was breathing on his own. Aside from being a little over five pounds, he was an amazingly healthy for being a preemie; nearly the largest baby in the NICU. He soon became the most important reason, along with my husband, that I had for living. Not two weeks after he was born and the day after he came home from the NICU, an unseen infection that had me in the worst pain I'd ever experienced in my entire life I'd contracted from the emergency c-section was finally visible and it was the worst diagnosis ever. I had infectious gangrene behind my abdominal wall, - necrotizing fasciitis (flesh eating bacteria). When they found it during a CAT Scan at the hospital, they had me being rushed into emergency surgery within 20 minutes. Leaving me the most frightened I'd ever been and my husband terrified as he watched them race me through the doors into the operating room hallway. I'd been given a 10% chance of making it through the first surgery and my family was told by the surgeon that if they hadn't caught the infection, I'd have been dead in less than 24 hours. I'm the girl who always likes a challenge. I do what frightens me the most, from moving from North to South then South to North, to skydiving. I've survived a neurological disorder that could have rendered me permanently paralyzed and breast cancer. I survived this too and four and a half years later, our son had his mommy, my husband his wife and me, well I have my same old 'bring it and watch me face it and not just survive but overcome it. That which hits us hardest does not dictate who we are or who we can be. Never limit yourself because of fear, especially your own. I am not who I am because of these things; I am who I am because I am Stronger, I am a Fighter, I am a Survivor; I am Healed.</span>
