My Story

I remember feeling trapped like I couldn’t get out…I had a job, a family business and two little kids to take care of.

Life seemed like a never ending cycle of monotonous tasks, chores and constant fires that needed to be put out. I was overwhelmed with the stress and pressure I was going through every day…

I had a job and my husband was struggling with his own business, we were barely making it by, usually with a lot of month left at the end of the money. At night a feeling of uncertainty would creep in making me feel like I was suffocating from not knowing whether or not we will make it through the month.

I knew I was reaching my limit and I wouldn’t be able to continue living my life the way I did much longer, but I never took the time to stop.

Little did I know that I was about to experience my worst nightmare… On the day of my birthday I woke up with a terrible headache that made me feel like my head was about to pop. I’m no stranger to migraines and headaches, but that pain was whole another level!

Instead of going to Sting concert like my husband and I had planned for that day, we drove to the hospital 🙁

Hydrocephalus_CDC

turns out

that I have a life threatening condition called hydrocephalus. 

The doctor went on to explain what it all meant and that surgery needed to happen as soon as possible, along with what complications I could be facing…

Fear sunk in and I could no longer hear him…all I could think about were my 3 & 5 year old boys that I could be leaving behind if something went wrong.

I was thinking about the fact that I didn’t have a chance to show my boys the world or that I didn’t share with them all the valuable lessons I had learned in life. There were so many things left for all of us to do together

I couldn’t believe this was happening and I certainly wasn’t ready to die.

Renata in hospital

After the brain surgery

I woke up after surgery only to find out that although I was alive… there was unfortunately no cure for my condition and I would have to battle it for the rest of my life. And that wasn’t all…

I also realized that I could not remember the last time me or my family went on vacation. It dawned on me that I’ve spent too many years of my life “putting out fires” just so my family could eat and have a roof over our heads.

  • We were not living, but simply surviving while life was passing us by.
  • I knew I couldn’t continue this way any longer. Not if I wanted to stay alive and watch my handsome boys grow up.
  • I knew I needed to make changes that I had so often delayed, thinking there would be a better time.

“Well, the time has come!” I told myself.

The first thing I did after I got out of the hospital, I booked a family vacation. Swimming in a crystal clear ocean and sinking my toes in the warm, soft sand, reminded me once again what life was about.

renata at the beach2

I was reminded once again what a precious gift life is and how bad I wanted to spend more time with my boys and my husband.

  • I also realized that I wanted to do something meaningful, something that mattered.
  • I no longer wanted to settle for repetitive and meaningless tasks that I used to do at my job.

Although I did not know what I was going to do or how I was going to do it, one thing was for certain, I wasn’t going to stop until I find it. As luck would have, not long after we came back from our family vacation I found myself

Make your life count!

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