“I feel ashamed to share our story.”
I wish this mom didn’t feel that way.
Misty didn’t choose to be sick. And she certainly didn’t choose to be a mother of three boys facing the frightening reality that her doctors say she needs urgent surgeries and that her life could be in jeopardy without them.
Still, when she reached out to me, she admitted how difficult it was to ask anyone for help.
“I feel ashamed to share our story, but I know how vital it is to reach out for help.”
Misty is a wife and mom to Benjamin, 15, Matthew, 11, and Eli, 4.

Her health crisis began while she was pregnant with Eli.
She says a UTI spread to her kidneys and then her bloodstream, severely damaging the right side of her heart.
Three years later, Misty is living with heart failure.
And now she’s facing another serious fight.
Misty says doctors discovered a severe bone infection affecting her spine, hip and leg bones, while her heart condition has also worsened.

She says her doctor at Cleveland Clinic has told her she needs urgent surgeries within the next 90 days.
The past year alone, she says, has included more than 100 hospital visits.
But sometimes it’s the simplest moments that show what all of this really means.
On a recent really bad day, Misty was swollen, exhausted, hurting and red from crying.
Then 4-year-old Eli climbed into bed beside her and stayed there.
“He doesn’t care that Mommy is swollen, pale, red from crying, exhausted, or sick. He just wants to be close to me.”
Then came the words that got me:
“That little boy gives me a reason to keep fighting when my body is screaming at me to give up.”
“I fight for him.”

That’s what I want people to see.
Not a woman who should feel ashamed for reaching out.
A mom fighting for more ordinary days with her boys.
“As long as God gives me another breath, I’m going to keep fighting.”
So let’s surround this mom with the prayers she asked me for.
Pray for Misty’s heart and for doctors treating the infection.
Pray for the surgeries ahead.
Pray for her husband.
And pray for Benjamin, Matthew and Eli.
Especially that 4-year-old little boy who doesn’t care what Mommy looks like on her worst day.