Almost two and a half years ago my daughter had a stroke. This was a total surprised, because she had always been extremely healthy and one day she just dropped to the floor and next thing we are calling 911, she is being air lifted, and then we began the journey of learning to speak, walk and use her right arm/hand. Her recovery has been amazing! Thank God! Soon she was talking and walking, with the help of intensive therapy. After that we continued with therapy to improve her use of right leg/foot and arm/hand.

May is pediatric-stroke awareness month and here are the things I have learned from this journey:

• Every day is a gift from God, so live it to its fullest.

• Live life so that if you have to look back you don’t have regrets.

• Never give up. I know it sounds like cliche but its so true! Hang in there, SPECIALLY when things get tough.

• Kids are resilient.

• Kids need parents to be strong for them.

• Parents need to be emotionally healthy to help their kids be healthy too. (Do whatever you need to be emotionally healthy….see a counselor, exercise, have an accountability partner, find some time for your self, even if it means waking up a little bit before your kids to have some “me time”)

• Patience is SO IMPORTANT. I haven’t always had this and I am having to develop more, and more.

• When kids are ready to give up, you have to find the strength to keep going and encourage them to hang in there. Kids cannot make this decision. They need us to teach them to be strong. My daughter doesn’t want to do therapy sometimes and I cannot let her make that choice, I encourage her and help her to keep on going.

• I have embrace that my (our) life is a little different now and we have a new normal. Accept circumstances and make the best.

In conclusion, we want to make awareness to pediatric stroke and hope that everyone can educate themselves, specially if you have kids, even babies. Baby’s can have strokes, even in their mother’s womb.

Here is our story of the stroke click here

Here is our raw feelings after the stroke click here