April 21, 2025 • 37 mins
Dive into an incredible story of maternal strength as Keri Henson shares her journey through a series of life-altering challenges. When her nine-month-old son was diagnosed with cancer, it was just the beginning of an unexpected path that would test her limits. Through her son's cancer treatment, the devastation of Hurricane Harvey, and a horrific accident where her seven-year-old was struck by a truck while riding his bike, Keri emerged stronger with unwavering faith.
Her story explores the lasting impact of being a cancer parent, the fear that lingers even years after treatment, and the vital role of community support during life's darkest moments. With her son now nine years cancer-free, Keri shares how she found purpose in pain and turned her experiences into a beacon of hope for others.
🎧 Listen to this powerful episode to discover how one mother's extraordinary resilience and faith helped her family survive unimaginable challenges, and learn valuable lessons about finding strength in vulnerability and community.
Her story explores the lasting impact of being a cancer parent, the fear that lingers even years after treatment, and the vital role of community support during life's darkest moments. With her son now nine years cancer-free, Keri shares how she found purpose in pain and turned her experiences into a beacon of hope for others.
🎧 Listen to this powerful episode to discover how one mother's extraordinary resilience and faith helped her family survive unimaginable challenges, and learn valuable lessons about finding strength in vulnerability and community.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What do you do when life throws unimaginable challenges your way.
For Carrie Henson, the answer has been to embrace resilience
with unwavering strength and grace. A mother of six, Carrie's
journey through motherhood has been anything but ordinary. From the
heartbreaking diagnosis of childhood cancer for her nine month old son,
(00:25):
to losing her home to Hurricane Harvey and navigating her
husband's battle with anorexia, Carrie has faced adversity head on.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Most recently, she has.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Experienced the trauma of her seven year old son being
struck by a one on struck. Yet through it all,
Carrie has emerged not just a survivor, but a beacon
of hope, illustrating that beauty can indeed rise from the ashes.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Join us as.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
We explore carries incredible story of survival and preparedness in
motherhood on Life Jack The Rebelience Podcast and learn how
she has built resilience in the face of life's most
daunting challenges.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Sometimes life gives us lemons, sometimes it gives us lemonade.
Other Times it gives us something entirely out of left
field that makes us say w t F. But no
matter what obstacles come there is most often a way
out on the other side, and we are once again victorious.
(01:42):
My name is doctor Rome and you are listening to
my podcast about resilience. Every guest shares a tragedy to
triumph story to give listeners like you the inspiration to
push through every single day. Now as my next guest
(02:02):
shares how they.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Were life Jack, Hi, Carrie, welcome. Thank you so much
for being a guest on my show.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
How are you?
Speaker 4 (02:12):
I am doing so good? And thank you so much
for hosting me and hosting this incredible podcast.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yes, no, thank you so much for being a guest.
And you know, I'm always excited to talk about resilience
with each and every guest because although the theme is
the same, that everybody's experience is different, and it just
gives people hope and it allows a space for people
to be vulnerable, and that is kind of what I love.
(02:40):
So thank you for coming on here and being vulnerable today.
Of course, Now, Carrie, your journey as a mother has
been filled with significant challenges. As those of us who
are parents, we know you know there's no manual right
that's right that you read, but just like any job,
you can read everything that you can, and it still
(03:00):
doesn't prepare you for the things that come along. So
can you share what it was like to receive your
son's cancer diagnosis? Because poor thing, he had just arrived
in the world. He hadn't even made it his first
year yet, so you know, what was that like as
a parent, and then how did it impact your family?
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Well, it's so funny you mentioned the parenting books, because
there are no parenting books out there that say what
to do when your child is diagnosed with cancer. And
trust me, I looked. I looked, and I showered name
Internet and you know, a podcasts were pretty new at
that time when he was diagnosed, so there wasn't even
there really wasn't even podcasts out there that talked about
(03:43):
childhood cancer. And it was just it was a total
atomic bomb that just landed in the middle of my motherhood.
It landed in the middle of life, and we were
already a big family. I was expecting child number five
when aild number four was diagnosed with cancer. He was
diagnosed with neuroblastoma, and I had three older children and
(04:08):
we were, you know, in school and extracurriculars and church
activities and PTO and I was a stay at home mom,
and my husband was climbing the corporate ladder and doing
very well in his career, and everything just blew up.
It just blew up, and it stopped, and it had
to stop because we had to focus on this nine
(04:29):
month old little cherub baby boy with a full head
of dark hair. And I always say that because hair
is kind of a big deal in the cancer world.
And that was one of the first thoughts I had
as a mom. And it's so silly to think about it,
but it was so significant and important. But when the
(04:51):
doctor came in and said, you know, your son has cancer,
I just thought, oh, all of the hair, all of
his beautiful hair, because he wasn't a bald baby when
he was was born. He just had so much thick hair,
and and that was it was just tough. I mean,
it just it was a ripple effect that that really
still continues today. And any cancer mom will tell you
(05:11):
that being the cancer mom is never it never stops
like the cancer is going to end. That's what I
tell nearly diagnosed parents. You're going to get through it.
But what none of us know is what the end
is going to look like. Is it going to look
like our child's crossing over into heaven. Or is it
(05:35):
going to look like our child surviving and living a
full life, or is it going to look like our
child surviving and having such serious side effects from the
treatments that you have to argue what kind of quality
of life is that it is? It is truly an
ongoing process. My son is nine years cancer free. He's
doing amazing. He's just a we call him. He really
(05:59):
is a superheat He's got super strength and superhealing powers.
I swear he's just an incredible kid. But you know,
he has scars, like visible scars that at first he
was embarrassed of. But we've talked him up so much
through the years, like be proud of these scars. And
he has some hearing loss from the chemotherapy. So there's
(06:19):
just there's just always this thought in the back of
your head too, like what if it comes back? What
if my other kids get it? Like it truly is
an atomic bomb. It is a doomsday event that lands
in your life. Can't predict it, you can't prepare for it. It
just it just hits you like a bucket of ice water,
(06:40):
you know, like the icewater challenges they used to do.
So it was definitely jarring, and and I thought once
we got through it, I thought, oh good, the worst
has passed.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Ray, Oh my goodness.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
Well I can say, well, you know, it's one of
those things when we talk about being life jack right,
and so sometimes we ourselves as the individual, we are
life jacks. Right.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
You're going along, everything is great, you get a promotion, you.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Know, you're you know, pilling it, you know, just in life,
and then all of a sudden, this thing, whatever it
may be, whether big or small, comes along and knocks
you off your path or course, right, but we don't
think about sometimes that life being like our children also
get life jacks, and not only does it affect them,
it also affects us.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
It affects the family.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
And so whenever one person in our family goes through something,
it's not just that person. We're all going through it
because we have to adjust our schedules, we have to change,
you know, how we go about doing things we have
and that's just an extra added amount of stress that
gets placed on us. And so you know, again, like
you said there, you could try and read a book
(07:54):
up on cancer, okay, if you ever received that information
for your kids but you really don't know what to do, so,
you know, but it seems like y'all band together as
a family and got through it. And I think that's
really what it's all about, is just you know, going
through it, like you said, like you tell other families
that you will get through it.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
It is going to end.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Of course, you can't predict what the ending is going
to be. But I guess that's it. Is it really
about just keeping your eye on I don't want to
call it a prize right at the end, but I
guess keeping your eye maybe on a positive result.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Is that really more so what it is?
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Yeah, but I think it really is that. I think
it is keeping your eye on the price. So the
first weekend we had to do chemotherapy. We were very nervous.
We didn't want to do it. We had all of
seven days to prepare. Once we were diagnosed, they made
the appointment, so you have to come back. We got
all our ducks in a row and we're in the room.
We've gotten into our room and this doctor comes in
(08:54):
and I'll never forget her. We never saw her again.
And she was just this beauty, a full, extremely tall
woman and she was just full of life and full
of light. And she's a pediatric oncologist and she comes
in and she's like, okay, guys, are we ready for this?
Ready to get this started? And it was our first chemo.
You know, we didn't know what we were getting into.
(09:16):
We didn't we we were scared to death. We were
told our son would not see his first birthday. We
were just terrified. And we went up, really, we're going
to get excited about this. And she pointed her finger
at us and I'll never forget this. He said, don't
do it. Don't do it. That chemo therapy is the
(09:38):
light at the end of the tunnel, and you will
get through this. It's going to be dark, it's going
to be hard, but you've got to keep your eye
on the light and that chemo therapy is your light,
and it kind of it's it has stuck with me
that through all the mom's day moments that we're going
to talk about today, that one conversation that that one
(09:59):
doctor had with us in the fifteen minutes that she
was in our room has sustained me over and over
and over again, because we do get life jacked, and
when your children, I think you hit the nail on
the head. When our children's lives are life jacked, it
affects you as a mother because we are molecularly connected
(10:20):
with our children and we feel their pain and we
feel what they're going through, and our instincts are to
protect them. But sometimes you can't, Like you can't get
in there and fix cancer. As much as you want to,
you can't do it. So you have to walk through it,
and you have to get to the light. And sometimes
the tunnel's very dark.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
No. Absolutely, Now, in addition to this cancer diagnosis that
you receive for one of your children, for those of
us who live in Texas, because you live in you
live in Texas just like I do. And actually listeners
don't know which you actually lived in the Houston areas.
It's like I do. Yeah, And we went through this
(11:03):
dorm this hurricane Hurricane Harvey in twenty seventeen devastating, right,
you know, many parts of Houston were just devastated.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
I mean, homes ended up being gutted.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Of course, I was fortunate to not lose my home,
but the water got pretty close. We did evacuate to
text Orkana, Arkansas. But we were watching the cameras as
long as we could until they just went out. But
in that devastating loss, you know, how did you you
some kind of way you found this strength to rebuild
(11:34):
and move forward? But I can understand, like, just like
the people in La with the fires. You know, you
lose your home, that's your home, right, you have the
difference there. So when you are faced with that kind
of life Jack moment, I like, where do you find
the strength to rebuild and move forward after such a
(11:57):
devastating loss, Because it seems like from the outside has
like it looks like, oh well, you can just buy
another house and just move on. But it's not that way, right,
That's not what it feels like.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
It's fun because you can't buy another first baby's blanket
for your child that's ten years old. Yes, you can't
buy another your parents' wedding album that gets destroyed, Like
you can't. There are things you can't buy. But I'll
tell you it was Hurricane Harvey, any kind of hurricane.
If anyone's like in Midwest or up north and you
(12:33):
don't experience these hurricanes, it is like a war zone.
I mean, when the hurricane is over and everyone's mucking
out their houses and you see mattresses and toilets and
personal belongings just piled up in people's front yards. It
is a war zone and it's really traumatizing and shocking
just to see that. But to have it be your
(12:54):
own things and your own items, it was really it
was difficult. It was more difficult for my children, my
older children, and my husband, I think than it was
for me. I was thirty seven weeks pregnant when Hurricane
Harvey came into town with my sixth child, and everything
(13:15):
was destroyed that we needed for the baby. We had
no crib, no blankets, no diapers, no nothing. We didn't
even have a hole to have her in. And that
was a little job. That was the most jarring thing
for me, like, oh my gosh, where am I gonna
have a baby? Like what am I do with this baby?
Because when you have a baby, you need time to heal,
you need time to recover, you need time to establish
(13:35):
or you know, a bond with the baby. And so
that was that was a little upsetting. But where I
found my strength through all that, honestly, is through my
faith and my community. So I had seen these incredible
miracles on the oncology floor with my own son that
God provided, And I wasn't very faithful at that time either.
(14:00):
I was still kind of like, I don't know, questioning,
I guess, or on a journey maybe just kind of
trying to figure things out. But He was showing me
miracles left and right. And by the time Hurricane Harvey
came around, I was like, you know what, We're going
to be fine. God's going to provide, and he did.
We were able to get into a rent house almost immediately,
(14:22):
love it. Our church paid for the rent for the
entire time we were there. From an anonymous donor. We
were able to rebuild our house, like within six months,
we were back in our own home. But it's the things,
you know, it's the yah. It's the things that were
hard to let go of because you can't replace the
(14:42):
memories that are attached to the items. And it was
just really hard for me to watch my kids go
through it because they were so young and they're like,
but we want our favorite stuffy, we want our favorite shoes,
and everything was just gone.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
So I had to now talk about it, your son
being hit by the truck, and you know, so you've
gone through the cancer diagnosis, you've gone through Hurricane Harvey,
losing your home, and how Carrie, you've dealt with your son,
your child that, like you said earlier, we were supposed
(15:18):
to protect.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Them and keep them from harm. And you know what,
so talk talk through.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
You know that moment and that trauma of your son
being struck by a struck.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
Well, here's my here's my take on all of this.
There is always a purpose and the pain that we
go through. And that's a hard thing to tell a
cancer mom because I'm almost ten years removed from childhood cancer.
So a lot of new cancer moms will come to
(15:54):
me and they'll talk to me, or a lot of
wives whose husbands have addictions, like my husband was diagnosed
with anorexia, and that was that was very difficult to
go through. You don't want to go through the pain,
You don't want to feel the trauma. I did not
want to see my son laying in a ditch, completely
(16:16):
broken and bloodied. I didn't want to have to go
through watching another son fight for his life. You know,
it was so traumatic and it was so hard, and
in that moment, it broke me. I had just gone
through so much what I call Mom's day moments, these
(16:37):
big events like Hurricane Harvey, childhood cancer, and orexia, but
there were a lot of mini Mom's day moments in
there as well, and it brought me to this moment
where my son was. We were on vacation, we were
in Alabama, and they got up super early to go
hunt for crabs and they were coming back and it
(16:57):
was just unfortunate timing. I mean, it wasn't some crazy
he was texting and driving or you know, it was
just an unfortunate timed event. And the guy just kind
of veered into the bike lane and clipped my son.
And I was not with them. I was in the
I was in the home, and my my other son,
(17:18):
my cancer survivor, came running in told me what happened.
I ran out. All of a sudden, There's police officers
everywhere and ambulances everywhere, And the most terrifying thing was
that my son never lost consciousness. He was conscious the
entire time. And it was so terrifying to me because
he was in so much pain as s femur was shattered.
(17:40):
He had over twelve broken bones, he had four lacerated organs,
road rash and it was all instantaneous, and I remember,
you know, looking back now, I can remember the most
terrifying things for me when G when Super G got
we call him Super G. When my son got cancer
was that he was a baby. It's like, oh my god,
(18:01):
he's just boys, so little, he's so young, you know.
The doctors kept saying, no, you don't understand. That is
the most biggest blessed. Yeah, because the younger they are,
the higher chance they have to survive. And when I
when my son was hit by the car, I was
(18:22):
so upset. I just kept saying, just pass out, just
pass out so he wouldn't feel the pain. And the
doctors came in later and they said, no, you don't
understand the fact that he didn't lose ontously is how
he's alive right now. So when he was hit, he
landed right on his face. The pictures were and came
(18:43):
in and then their knowledgists came in, their whole team
and they said listen, and he landed on his head
one centimeter in a direction your child would be dead.
We landed in the exact spot he needed to to survive,
and he kept his consciousness. You live in the well
like we're looking at our children and they're in so
(19:04):
much mein and we want to protect them. Sometimes that
pain has been and we have to just walk through it,
and we don't want to walk through it. I have
a good friend right now who's going through a mom
SA moment and she's been calling me and she's like,
this sucks. How did you do this? So many times
I said, I don't know, but you know how I'm
saying right now, you just sudd you just got to
(19:26):
stay in it. I mean, Carrie, I'm saying it.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
I'm thinking the same thing as I'm you know, going
through these different events as you're retelling them and I'm
playing them through my mind and I'm like, my goodness.
But all I can say, Carrie, is just God is good.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
That's That's just all I.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Can say, right And I mean I can't see how
you cannot rejoice and call out his name because I mean, yeah, no,
I'm not luck or anything. But I mean it's just
just God is good. And you know, as me are
are going through life. And when we are believers, I
(20:02):
mean I know that sometimes people say, well I'm a
believer and this happened to me, But when we truly
are believers, I just know that He does put an
armor of protection around us and around our families.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
I really do believe.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
That absolutely he protected Hank that day one. He protected him.
He protected my son. He has protected our family over
and over. He's protected me more times than I can
even you know, imagine, you know. And that's the thing,
like he is working in our lives on such a
minute level and a molecular level that we don't even know.
(20:36):
I can't see it, but you got that's where faith
comes in, right. And when he was hit by that
car and I was in the ditch, and you know,
all this chaos is happening, I was. I was pissed.
I'm not gonna lie. I was person his name. I
was doing it publicly. I was putting it on on
social media, like I can't believe God did this again.
But people are more likely to be struck by life
(20:57):
than have something like this happened. And I was looking
up that's I was pulling the numbers. I was like,
I'm gonna put it this. God sucks, Like what the
heck is happening? Yet all these kids and all these babies,
and why does this keep happening to our family? And
when the anger subsided, when the anger kind of went away,
and I knew my son's gonna be okay. And we
were back in Texas and things were kind of calming down,
(21:20):
which took about six weeks. To be honest with you,
I was just livid. For six weeks. I was able
to hear him. I was able to hear his voice,
and he said, Carrie, stop messing around. You were not
living your purpose for me.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Hmmm.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
And and that's when Prepper was really worn. And that's
when the podcast was born. And I thought, Okay, if
this has happened to me, this is happened to a
lot of other moms, and we need to we need
voice it. When we need to put a voice it
needed to it. We need to call something, we need
to We need to be able to go to the store,
(21:58):
to the stupid books or Amazon and order a book
that says, hey, mom, say moments really suck and it's
going to be really hard. But if you hold onto
your faith and you hold onto your community, and you
you have your finances set, and you have your memory
set and you have your you know, you're aware. Awareness
is a huge piece of this because there are so
many like the medical community had no idea childhood cancer.
(22:22):
I couldn't even pronounce neuroblastoma, let alone spell it when
we were diagnosed, Like, just be aware of the world
that we're raising our kids in, you know, And it
was so powerful.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
You know, I really just wanted to say, you know what, Carrie,
when God speaks to you, right, you don't have a
point but to sit down and go okay God, Like
you know, you could fight him.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
If you want to, right, yeah, you could say it,
but when.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
He seeks and he's final, like he's like listen, I know,
but to go okay God, Okay, yes, yes, sir.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Right, I got it. I love that.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Now. Earlier you mentioned the power of community support.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
You talked about how your church you know, banded together,
you had an anonymous.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Donor help you all out after Hurricane Harzy in twenty seventeen,
and you truly believe that it is definitely essential during
those tough times. So you know, overall, you know, what
advice would you give to other mothers who are seeking
similar support, Like how you go about it, because sometimes
you do have to seek it out right, Sometimes it
(23:36):
doesn't just have to Somebody sees you when it comes
and supports you. But it is hard for people to
ask for help. So what advice could you.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Give to moms?
Speaker 4 (23:45):
Humble yourself. Yeah, it's a funny. How do you ask
for help? Well, you gotta humble yourself. You have to
put pride back on the shelf. The community is one
of those tricky things. I and I sometimes get a
little like chuckle or even an eye roll when I workshop.
When I do moms say prepper workshops, I'll say, this
(24:06):
is an unpopular thing. But Facebook is not your community.
Instagram is not your community. It is a tool to
reach your community. Of course, it is a tool to
communicate with your community. But if you don't have in
person interactions with people on a regular basis, you don't
(24:27):
have a community. So, and this is hard for It's
not hard for me because I'm an extrovert. I love people.
I love putting myself in uncomfortable situations where I have
to go, you know, just meet new people all the time,
whether it's a wine tasting event or a book club
or you know whatever, some kind of sporting thing. But
you have to put your face in front of their face.
(24:49):
You have to handshake, give them a hug, see how
they're doing. That is your community, and those are the
people that are going to stop up in your time
of need. Now, how do you do that? You know
you're going to have to get uncomfortable. It's really hard
to make friends when you're an adult. Yes, it's really
hard to do that. And that's because we're all in
different places in our lives. You know, we're just we're all.
(25:11):
Some people are getting married, other people are being babies,
some people are starting new careers. And when you're not
on the same playing ground like when you were at
fourth grade or sixth grade or whatever, you know, it's
just difficult. So you really have to push that. You've
got to get community now before when of these events happened.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Now you've mentioned the best way to build resilience is
through pain. Now, Carrie, you're gonna have to elaborate on
that one. So what does that mean? How have you
applied that through your life? Because I don't think anybody
wants to go through pain.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
I know we have to. I know it happens, But
how are you building resilience out of the pain?
Speaker 4 (25:51):
Because I think with pain comes with them, with cain
comes a knowledge that you are so strong. Look at
the pain you've endured. You are so strong, and you
can get through it, even when you just think you're
going to break, and even when you are broken. You know,
(26:13):
my oldest daughter was sixteen years old when my son
was hit by that truck. And she did not with
the witness it. She was in the house of me,
but we we came out. We were restraining him in
the ditch. She was calling nine one one. There were
lots of nine one one clocks. But that event spent
her into a spiral with complex PTSD. It was almost immediate.
(26:38):
She was very suicidal. It was very difficult to watch
her go through that and have my son be broken
in a million places. It felt like, you know, and
like I'm basically keeping two children alive. Darin, I called her,
She's going to go work at this camp and I
called the camp director and that, you know, the family,
beautiful family, want of family. I said, hey, this is
(26:59):
what's how up and this was going on. She's not
going to come work for you this summer. I can't
let her out of my sight. And she said something
to me that was very profound, and she said, no,
we are only as resilient as a rubber band. You
can pull that rubber band far far far far, and
it'll come back and you pull it again, far far,
far far far. But eventually that rubber will start to
(27:22):
get a little looser and a little worn down. And
one day you're going to pull that rubber band so
far it breaks and all you can do is tie
it back together and hope it holds. And she said,
her rubber band just broke, but she's going to get
tied back together. And so I thought, I thought that
was so profound, profound when it comes to resiliency, because
(27:42):
we are all resilient, but sometimes rubber bands are a
little smaller than others, or sometimes we need to tie
our bands back together.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Now that's all you've endured. How do you maintain a
sense of normalcy, enjoy in your daily life with your
children and your family, because you don't go through a lot.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
You know?
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Yeah, we have one through fuck, you know, but you know,
and even like you just mentioned, you about your daughter,
and so how do you keep it all together?
Speaker 4 (28:19):
How do I keep it all together? I usually I
like to throw in a joke like lots of wine
or which which is not true. Actually I'm not much
of a drinker, but you know, what I do love
to do is to get into nature. I do a
lot of grounding. I've done a lot of feeling, like
feeling is so essential to motherhood. And I do a
(28:40):
lot of hiking. Where we live, we have elevations, so
I do a lot of hiking and and a lot
of therapy. I mean, when you go through events like this,
you cannot have this attitude of oh, I don't need therapy.
I'm hind No, you need therapy, like you've got to
get it out of you. And when you go through
(29:00):
a trauma, you really need a counselor who is trauma
informed and does trauma processing. So I used a technique
called em DR and it's like voodoo magic girl. I
mean it's like it rewires your brain and you can
just handle things better. And I found that like way back,
you know, years years years back, with the first couple
(29:22):
of Moms Day moments that we that we went through,
I wasn't taking care of my mental health. I wasn't
taking care of the of that part of it. And
I was just muscling through, you know, because that's what
we do here in America. You muscle through things.
Speaker 5 (29:34):
Right.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
If you have ever been played a sport. You ever
had a coach, you know, like you broke your leg,
get out there, hnts do it again? You know, take
me there, right, We're trained to do that. But as
I was muscling through it, my temper was short. I
wasn't sleeping well, I was short with the kids, like
(29:55):
I wasn't being the best mom I could be. And
I learned very quickly. And that's that where this pain
and wisdom and knowledge all come to play. Like you're
going to go through pain, have the wisdom to heal
the pain. Yeah, because more pain is going to come,
hopefully not on the astronomical levels that it has in
my life, but but we all go through situations that
(30:16):
are painful.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Right, So I have to ask you because you know
we've this this conversation has really been about motherhood and resilience,
and I love it.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
I love this conversation so much.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
And you know, before we all became mothers, we had
an idea right of the type of mother that we
thought we were going to be and how it was
going to be with that first baby coming, and we
were just going to tackle it all or maybe we
were scared, who knows, but we all had an idea
of what we thought that motherhood would be, and it
was different for different people.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
For you, Carrie, what is motherhood mean for you?
Speaker 4 (30:57):
Oh man? That is you're so intuitive with these questions,
because I would say one hundred percent of the guests
on my podcast Mom's Day Bunker, where I bring moms
in to talk about their own Mom's Day moments, every
single one of them brings us up where they had
this fairytale motherhood of what motherhood was going to be,
(31:20):
and then an event like childhood cancer or you know,
a sentinel, and one of the moms lost her child
a sentinel, and another mom lost her child to actually
a car accident, and it's just you can't prepare for that.
The fairy tale's gone, you know, it's you're never going
to get it. And so what motherhood means to me now,
(31:44):
as opposed to what I thought it was going to be,
it's more of a mission. I think motherhood is a mission,
and it's it's my mission to take motherhood back. And
I want to take it back not just for me,
but for all of them, because this world is going
to come after our children. It's coming after them every day,
(32:05):
it's coming after them. Through social media, human trafficking, spent
and all. It's coming after our kids. So we need
to we need to fight back. We need to take
our motherhood back, and that's through I believe these preps
that I talk about that I workshop, which is community
Find moms here, will help you stay strong in your
(32:28):
motherhood even through the hard times, because there will be
hard times. Find that community. Find your faith. Like I'm
a Christian, I believe in the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit. But I'm going to love you wherever
you are. Please, please have a face. Please, You're not
going to get through it without a foundation of faith.
(32:49):
Make sure your money's in order. That's one of my friends.
It's a big prep because hey, there's not a penny
you will not spend to save your.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Child, that's right, amen.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
But you also also got to put gas in your
car to take your child to the hospital. Yeah, Like,
you've got to get your finances in order, and you've
got to start making memories. I talk about memories a lot,
because memories go far beyond Disney World. Okay, you don't
need to go to Disney World to make a memory.
Go make a mud pile in your backyard and play
in the mud with your kids, get all money, take
(33:20):
pictures of it and put it on your wall. That's
your memory. That's what your kids will remember.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Right, No, that's true that I found that to be
true with my kids. The things that they remember the most.
Although we've taken our trips and we've had a great time,
and we do have those memories and they talk about
those too, but it's those moments, those off the cuff,
random moments that we did not plan for, are the
ones that we laugh at and remember the most and
(33:48):
the longest.
Speaker 4 (33:50):
Absolutely, absolutely, yes.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
And looking back on your looking back on your experiences,
what lessons have you learned about rezils that you would
like to share with our listeners who may be facing
their own struggles.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
You know, I think one of the ways to keep
that rubber band from snapping is to just be present
in the pain. And it's hard. I think it's a discipline.
I think you have to be. You have to you
have to practice at it that. You have to practice
being sad, scared, anxious, breathe through it, talk to a friend,
(34:31):
call a friend, but don't try to busy yourself out
of feeling present in the pain. You know, I think
we do that as women in general, but we do
that as moms too, like, Oh, I need to do
the launder right now. I need to busy myself. I
need to go to the grocery store. I need to
email this teacher. I need to clean my kid's room.
I need to clean out the closet. I need you
(34:52):
need to sit and need this. Need to feel the pain.
And that's going to help prevent that rubber band from
snapping on you. And it's going to make that rubber
bands thicker and longer so that you can carry more
and you can have those callouses on you when when
the painful moments come in life.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Thank you Carrie for sharing your incredible.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Story with the listeners and with me to those as
a guest on Lifejack the Resilience Podcast. Your journey is
a powerful reminder of the strength we can find within
ourselves and the importance of community and overcoming life challenges
and also remembering that social media is not your community.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
I loved it when you said that if it's cool
to get to your community, right, but I love that.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yes, as a mother, teacher and survivor, you exemplify and
I mean that when I say that the spirit of resilience,
showing us that even in the darkest moments, there is
hope and beauty to be found. So how can listeners
find and connect with you?
Speaker 4 (35:58):
Well, thank you for saying that. I truly appreciate that,
and they can find me. I have a website. It's
called Mom's Day Prepper dot com. They can find me
on Facebook, Carrie Moms Day Prepper, Instagram I think is
Carrie Moms Day Prepper. And if they have their own
story and they want to be a guest on The
(36:20):
Mom's Day Bunker, which is my podcast, you can find
that on all podcast platforms. They just need to reach
out to me, either on social media or on the
website and we'll get them set up.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Any last words of encouragement for the listeners.
Speaker 4 (36:35):
Oh my gosh, fight like how take your motherhood back?
Stand your ground. Know that you are a daughter of
God and there's a powerful army out there fighting for you.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Wonderful Kerry.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
I appreciate the insights you've shared, and I hope the
listeners take away some key principles that can help them
take their fave or take their motherhood back. I wish
you and your family nothing but blessings and abundance in
this year.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Please take care, Thank you you too, very Hanson.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Everyone be sure to join me next time for more
uplifting stories and insights on resilience. Until then, keep pushing forward,
embrace the journey, and remember that every setback could lead
to a greater comeback, Doctor Rowe signing off.
What do you do when life throws unimaginable challenges your way.
For Carrie Henson, the answer has been to embrace resilience
with unwavering strength and grace. A mother of six, Carrie's
journey through motherhood has been anything but ordinary. From the
heartbreaking diagnosis of childhood cancer for her nine month old son,
(00:25):
to losing her home to Hurricane Harvey and navigating her
husband's battle with anorexia, Carrie has faced adversity head on.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Most recently, she has.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Experienced the trauma of her seven year old son being
struck by a one on struck. Yet through it all,
Carrie has emerged not just a survivor, but a beacon
of hope, illustrating that beauty can indeed rise from the ashes.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Join us as.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
We explore carries incredible story of survival and preparedness in
motherhood on Life Jack The Rebelience Podcast and learn how
she has built resilience in the face of life's most
daunting challenges.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Sometimes life gives us lemons, sometimes it gives us lemonade.
Other Times it gives us something entirely out of left
field that makes us say w t F. But no
matter what obstacles come there is most often a way
out on the other side, and we are once again victorious.
(01:42):
My name is doctor Rome and you are listening to
my podcast about resilience. Every guest shares a tragedy to
triumph story to give listeners like you the inspiration to
push through every single day. Now as my next guest
(02:02):
shares how they.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Were life Jack, Hi, Carrie, welcome. Thank you so much
for being a guest on my show.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
How are you?
Speaker 4 (02:12):
I am doing so good? And thank you so much
for hosting me and hosting this incredible podcast.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yes, no, thank you so much for being a guest.
And you know, I'm always excited to talk about resilience
with each and every guest because although the theme is
the same, that everybody's experience is different, and it just
gives people hope and it allows a space for people
to be vulnerable, and that is kind of what I love.
(02:40):
So thank you for coming on here and being vulnerable today.
Of course, Now, Carrie, your journey as a mother has
been filled with significant challenges. As those of us who
are parents, we know you know there's no manual right
that's right that you read, but just like any job,
you can read everything that you can, and it still
(03:00):
doesn't prepare you for the things that come along. So
can you share what it was like to receive your
son's cancer diagnosis? Because poor thing, he had just arrived
in the world. He hadn't even made it his first
year yet, so you know, what was that like as
a parent, and then how did it impact your family?
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Well, it's so funny you mentioned the parenting books, because
there are no parenting books out there that say what
to do when your child is diagnosed with cancer. And
trust me, I looked. I looked, and I showered name
Internet and you know, a podcasts were pretty new at
that time when he was diagnosed, so there wasn't even
there really wasn't even podcasts out there that talked about
(03:43):
childhood cancer. And it was just it was a total
atomic bomb that just landed in the middle of my motherhood.
It landed in the middle of life, and we were
already a big family. I was expecting child number five
when aild number four was diagnosed with cancer. He was
diagnosed with neuroblastoma, and I had three older children and
(04:08):
we were, you know, in school and extracurriculars and church
activities and PTO and I was a stay at home mom,
and my husband was climbing the corporate ladder and doing
very well in his career, and everything just blew up.
It just blew up, and it stopped, and it had
to stop because we had to focus on this nine
(04:29):
month old little cherub baby boy with a full head
of dark hair. And I always say that because hair
is kind of a big deal in the cancer world.
And that was one of the first thoughts I had
as a mom. And it's so silly to think about it,
but it was so significant and important. But when the
(04:51):
doctor came in and said, you know, your son has cancer,
I just thought, oh, all of the hair, all of
his beautiful hair, because he wasn't a bald baby when
he was was born. He just had so much thick hair,
and and that was it was just tough. I mean,
it just it was a ripple effect that that really
still continues today. And any cancer mom will tell you
(05:11):
that being the cancer mom is never it never stops
like the cancer is going to end. That's what I
tell nearly diagnosed parents. You're going to get through it.
But what none of us know is what the end
is going to look like. Is it going to look
like our child's crossing over into heaven. Or is it
(05:35):
going to look like our child surviving and living a
full life, or is it going to look like our
child surviving and having such serious side effects from the
treatments that you have to argue what kind of quality
of life is that it is? It is truly an
ongoing process. My son is nine years cancer free. He's
doing amazing. He's just a we call him. He really
(05:59):
is a superheat He's got super strength and superhealing powers.
I swear he's just an incredible kid. But you know,
he has scars, like visible scars that at first he
was embarrassed of. But we've talked him up so much
through the years, like be proud of these scars. And
he has some hearing loss from the chemotherapy. So there's
(06:19):
just there's just always this thought in the back of
your head too, like what if it comes back? What
if my other kids get it? Like it truly is
an atomic bomb. It is a doomsday event that lands
in your life. Can't predict it, you can't prepare for it. It
just it just hits you like a bucket of ice water,
(06:40):
you know, like the icewater challenges they used to do.
So it was definitely jarring, and and I thought once
we got through it, I thought, oh good, the worst
has passed.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Ray, Oh my goodness.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
Well I can say, well, you know, it's one of
those things when we talk about being life jack right,
and so sometimes we ourselves as the individual, we are
life jacks. Right.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
You're going along, everything is great, you get a promotion, you.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Know, you're you know, pilling it, you know, just in life,
and then all of a sudden, this thing, whatever it
may be, whether big or small, comes along and knocks
you off your path or course, right, but we don't
think about sometimes that life being like our children also
get life jacks, and not only does it affect them,
it also affects us.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
It affects the family.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
And so whenever one person in our family goes through something,
it's not just that person. We're all going through it
because we have to adjust our schedules, we have to change,
you know, how we go about doing things we have
and that's just an extra added amount of stress that
gets placed on us. And so you know, again, like
you said there, you could try and read a book
(07:54):
up on cancer, okay, if you ever received that information
for your kids but you really don't know what to do, so,
you know, but it seems like y'all band together as
a family and got through it. And I think that's
really what it's all about, is just you know, going
through it, like you said, like you tell other families
that you will get through it.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
It is going to end.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Of course, you can't predict what the ending is going
to be. But I guess that's it. Is it really
about just keeping your eye on I don't want to
call it a prize right at the end, but I
guess keeping your eye maybe on a positive result.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Is that really more so what it is?
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Yeah, but I think it really is that. I think
it is keeping your eye on the price. So the
first weekend we had to do chemotherapy. We were very nervous.
We didn't want to do it. We had all of
seven days to prepare. Once we were diagnosed, they made
the appointment, so you have to come back. We got
all our ducks in a row and we're in the room.
We've gotten into our room and this doctor comes in
(08:54):
and I'll never forget her. We never saw her again.
And she was just this beauty, a full, extremely tall
woman and she was just full of life and full
of light. And she's a pediatric oncologist and she comes
in and she's like, okay, guys, are we ready for this?
Ready to get this started? And it was our first chemo.
You know, we didn't know what we were getting into.
(09:16):
We didn't we we were scared to death. We were
told our son would not see his first birthday. We
were just terrified. And we went up, really, we're going
to get excited about this. And she pointed her finger
at us and I'll never forget this. He said, don't
do it. Don't do it. That chemo therapy is the
(09:38):
light at the end of the tunnel, and you will
get through this. It's going to be dark, it's going
to be hard, but you've got to keep your eye
on the light and that chemo therapy is your light,
and it kind of it's it has stuck with me
that through all the mom's day moments that we're going
to talk about today, that one conversation that that one
(09:59):
doctor had with us in the fifteen minutes that she
was in our room has sustained me over and over
and over again, because we do get life jacked, and
when your children, I think you hit the nail on
the head. When our children's lives are life jacked, it
affects you as a mother because we are molecularly connected
(10:20):
with our children and we feel their pain and we
feel what they're going through, and our instincts are to
protect them. But sometimes you can't, Like you can't get
in there and fix cancer. As much as you want to,
you can't do it. So you have to walk through it,
and you have to get to the light. And sometimes
the tunnel's very dark.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
No. Absolutely, Now, in addition to this cancer diagnosis that
you receive for one of your children, for those of
us who live in Texas, because you live in you
live in Texas just like I do. And actually listeners
don't know which you actually lived in the Houston areas.
It's like I do. Yeah, And we went through this
(11:03):
dorm this hurricane Hurricane Harvey in twenty seventeen devastating, right,
you know, many parts of Houston were just devastated.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
I mean, homes ended up being gutted.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Of course, I was fortunate to not lose my home,
but the water got pretty close. We did evacuate to
text Orkana, Arkansas. But we were watching the cameras as
long as we could until they just went out. But
in that devastating loss, you know, how did you you
some kind of way you found this strength to rebuild
(11:34):
and move forward? But I can understand, like, just like
the people in La with the fires. You know, you
lose your home, that's your home, right, you have the
difference there. So when you are faced with that kind
of life Jack moment, I like, where do you find
the strength to rebuild and move forward after such a
(11:57):
devastating loss, Because it seems like from the outside has
like it looks like, oh well, you can just buy
another house and just move on. But it's not that way, right,
That's not what it feels like.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
It's fun because you can't buy another first baby's blanket
for your child that's ten years old. Yes, you can't
buy another your parents' wedding album that gets destroyed, Like
you can't. There are things you can't buy. But I'll
tell you it was Hurricane Harvey, any kind of hurricane.
If anyone's like in Midwest or up north and you
(12:33):
don't experience these hurricanes, it is like a war zone.
I mean, when the hurricane is over and everyone's mucking
out their houses and you see mattresses and toilets and
personal belongings just piled up in people's front yards. It
is a war zone and it's really traumatizing and shocking
just to see that. But to have it be your
(12:54):
own things and your own items, it was really it
was difficult. It was more difficult for my children, my
older children, and my husband, I think than it was
for me. I was thirty seven weeks pregnant when Hurricane
Harvey came into town with my sixth child, and everything
(13:15):
was destroyed that we needed for the baby. We had
no crib, no blankets, no diapers, no nothing. We didn't
even have a hole to have her in. And that
was a little job. That was the most jarring thing
for me, like, oh my gosh, where am I gonna
have a baby? Like what am I do with this baby?
Because when you have a baby, you need time to heal,
you need time to recover, you need time to establish
(13:35):
or you know, a bond with the baby. And so
that was that was a little upsetting. But where I
found my strength through all that, honestly, is through my
faith and my community. So I had seen these incredible
miracles on the oncology floor with my own son that
God provided, And I wasn't very faithful at that time either.
(14:00):
I was still kind of like, I don't know, questioning,
I guess, or on a journey maybe just kind of
trying to figure things out. But He was showing me
miracles left and right. And by the time Hurricane Harvey
came around, I was like, you know what, We're going
to be fine. God's going to provide, and he did.
We were able to get into a rent house almost immediately,
(14:22):
love it. Our church paid for the rent for the
entire time we were there. From an anonymous donor. We
were able to rebuild our house, like within six months,
we were back in our own home. But it's the things,
you know, it's the yah. It's the things that were
hard to let go of because you can't replace the
(14:42):
memories that are attached to the items. And it was
just really hard for me to watch my kids go
through it because they were so young and they're like,
but we want our favorite stuffy, we want our favorite shoes,
and everything was just gone.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
So I had to now talk about it, your son
being hit by the truck, and you know, so you've
gone through the cancer diagnosis, you've gone through Hurricane Harvey,
losing your home, and how Carrie, you've dealt with your son,
your child that, like you said earlier, we were supposed
(15:18):
to protect.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Them and keep them from harm. And you know what,
so talk talk through.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
You know that moment and that trauma of your son
being struck by a struck.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
Well, here's my here's my take on all of this.
There is always a purpose and the pain that we
go through. And that's a hard thing to tell a
cancer mom because I'm almost ten years removed from childhood cancer.
So a lot of new cancer moms will come to
(15:54):
me and they'll talk to me, or a lot of
wives whose husbands have addictions, like my husband was diagnosed
with anorexia, and that was that was very difficult to
go through. You don't want to go through the pain,
You don't want to feel the trauma. I did not
want to see my son laying in a ditch, completely
(16:16):
broken and bloodied. I didn't want to have to go
through watching another son fight for his life. You know,
it was so traumatic and it was so hard, and
in that moment, it broke me. I had just gone
through so much what I call Mom's day moments, these
(16:37):
big events like Hurricane Harvey, childhood cancer, and orexia, but
there were a lot of mini Mom's day moments in
there as well, and it brought me to this moment
where my son was. We were on vacation, we were
in Alabama, and they got up super early to go
hunt for crabs and they were coming back and it
(16:57):
was just unfortunate timing. I mean, it wasn't some crazy
he was texting and driving or you know, it was
just an unfortunate timed event. And the guy just kind
of veered into the bike lane and clipped my son.
And I was not with them. I was in the
I was in the home, and my my other son,
(17:18):
my cancer survivor, came running in told me what happened.
I ran out. All of a sudden, There's police officers
everywhere and ambulances everywhere, And the most terrifying thing was
that my son never lost consciousness. He was conscious the
entire time. And it was so terrifying to me because
he was in so much pain as s femur was shattered.
(17:40):
He had over twelve broken bones, he had four lacerated organs,
road rash and it was all instantaneous, and I remember,
you know, looking back now, I can remember the most
terrifying things for me when G when Super G got
we call him Super G. When my son got cancer
was that he was a baby. It's like, oh my god,
(18:01):
he's just boys, so little, he's so young, you know.
The doctors kept saying, no, you don't understand. That is
the most biggest blessed. Yeah, because the younger they are,
the higher chance they have to survive. And when I
when my son was hit by the car, I was
(18:22):
so upset. I just kept saying, just pass out, just
pass out so he wouldn't feel the pain. And the
doctors came in later and they said, no, you don't
understand the fact that he didn't lose ontously is how
he's alive right now. So when he was hit, he
landed right on his face. The pictures were and came
(18:43):
in and then their knowledgists came in, their whole team
and they said listen, and he landed on his head
one centimeter in a direction your child would be dead.
We landed in the exact spot he needed to to survive,
and he kept his consciousness. You live in the well
like we're looking at our children and they're in so
(19:04):
much mein and we want to protect them. Sometimes that
pain has been and we have to just walk through it,
and we don't want to walk through it. I have
a good friend right now who's going through a mom
SA moment and she's been calling me and she's like,
this sucks. How did you do this? So many times
I said, I don't know, but you know how I'm
saying right now, you just sudd you just got to
(19:26):
stay in it. I mean, Carrie, I'm saying it.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
I'm thinking the same thing as I'm you know, going
through these different events as you're retelling them and I'm
playing them through my mind and I'm like, my goodness.
But all I can say, Carrie, is just God is good.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
That's That's just all I.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Can say, right And I mean I can't see how
you cannot rejoice and call out his name because I mean, yeah, no,
I'm not luck or anything. But I mean it's just
just God is good. And you know, as me are
are going through life. And when we are believers, I
(20:02):
mean I know that sometimes people say, well I'm a
believer and this happened to me, But when we truly
are believers, I just know that He does put an
armor of protection around us and around our families.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
I really do believe.
Speaker 4 (20:15):
That absolutely he protected Hank that day one. He protected him.
He protected my son. He has protected our family over
and over. He's protected me more times than I can
even you know, imagine, you know. And that's the thing,
like he is working in our lives on such a
minute level and a molecular level that we don't even know.
(20:36):
I can't see it, but you got that's where faith
comes in, right. And when he was hit by that
car and I was in the ditch, and you know,
all this chaos is happening, I was. I was pissed.
I'm not gonna lie. I was person his name. I
was doing it publicly. I was putting it on on
social media, like I can't believe God did this again.
But people are more likely to be struck by life
(20:57):
than have something like this happened. And I was looking
up that's I was pulling the numbers. I was like,
I'm gonna put it this. God sucks, Like what the
heck is happening? Yet all these kids and all these babies,
and why does this keep happening to our family? And
when the anger subsided, when the anger kind of went away,
and I knew my son's gonna be okay. And we
were back in Texas and things were kind of calming down,
(21:20):
which took about six weeks. To be honest with you,
I was just livid. For six weeks. I was able
to hear him. I was able to hear his voice,
and he said, Carrie, stop messing around. You were not
living your purpose for me.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Hmmm.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
And and that's when Prepper was really worn. And that's
when the podcast was born. And I thought, Okay, if
this has happened to me, this is happened to a
lot of other moms, and we need to we need
voice it. When we need to put a voice it
needed to it. We need to call something, we need
to We need to be able to go to the store,
(21:58):
to the stupid books or Amazon and order a book
that says, hey, mom, say moments really suck and it's
going to be really hard. But if you hold onto
your faith and you hold onto your community, and you
you have your finances set, and you have your memory
set and you have your you know, you're aware. Awareness
is a huge piece of this because there are so
many like the medical community had no idea childhood cancer.
(22:22):
I couldn't even pronounce neuroblastoma, let alone spell it when
we were diagnosed, Like, just be aware of the world
that we're raising our kids in, you know, And it
was so powerful.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
You know, I really just wanted to say, you know what, Carrie,
when God speaks to you, right, you don't have a
point but to sit down and go okay God, Like
you know, you could fight him.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
If you want to, right, yeah, you could say it,
but when.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
He seeks and he's final, like he's like listen, I know,
but to go okay God, Okay, yes, yes, sir.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Right, I got it. I love that.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Now. Earlier you mentioned the power of community support.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
You talked about how your church you know, banded together,
you had an anonymous.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Donor help you all out after Hurricane Harzy in twenty seventeen,
and you truly believe that it is definitely essential during
those tough times. So you know, overall, you know, what
advice would you give to other mothers who are seeking
similar support, Like how you go about it, because sometimes
you do have to seek it out right, Sometimes it
(23:36):
doesn't just have to Somebody sees you when it comes
and supports you. But it is hard for people to
ask for help. So what advice could you.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Give to moms?
Speaker 4 (23:45):
Humble yourself. Yeah, it's a funny. How do you ask
for help? Well, you gotta humble yourself. You have to
put pride back on the shelf. The community is one
of those tricky things. I and I sometimes get a
little like chuckle or even an eye roll when I workshop.
When I do moms say prepper workshops, I'll say, this
(24:06):
is an unpopular thing. But Facebook is not your community.
Instagram is not your community. It is a tool to
reach your community. Of course, it is a tool to
communicate with your community. But if you don't have in
person interactions with people on a regular basis, you don't
(24:27):
have a community. So, and this is hard for It's
not hard for me because I'm an extrovert. I love people.
I love putting myself in uncomfortable situations where I have
to go, you know, just meet new people all the time,
whether it's a wine tasting event or a book club
or you know whatever, some kind of sporting thing. But
you have to put your face in front of their face.
(24:49):
You have to handshake, give them a hug, see how
they're doing. That is your community, and those are the
people that are going to stop up in your time
of need. Now, how do you do that? You know
you're going to have to get uncomfortable. It's really hard
to make friends when you're an adult. Yes, it's really
hard to do that. And that's because we're all in
different places in our lives. You know, we're just we're all.
(25:11):
Some people are getting married, other people are being babies,
some people are starting new careers. And when you're not
on the same playing ground like when you were at
fourth grade or sixth grade or whatever, you know, it's
just difficult. So you really have to push that. You've
got to get community now before when of these events happened.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Now you've mentioned the best way to build resilience is
through pain. Now, Carrie, you're gonna have to elaborate on
that one. So what does that mean? How have you
applied that through your life? Because I don't think anybody
wants to go through pain.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
I know we have to. I know it happens, But
how are you building resilience out of the pain?
Speaker 4 (25:51):
Because I think with pain comes with them, with cain
comes a knowledge that you are so strong. Look at
the pain you've endured. You are so strong, and you
can get through it, even when you just think you're
going to break, and even when you are broken. You know,
(26:13):
my oldest daughter was sixteen years old when my son
was hit by that truck. And she did not with
the witness it. She was in the house of me,
but we we came out. We were restraining him in
the ditch. She was calling nine one one. There were
lots of nine one one clocks. But that event spent
her into a spiral with complex PTSD. It was almost immediate.
(26:38):
She was very suicidal. It was very difficult to watch
her go through that and have my son be broken
in a million places. It felt like, you know, and
like I'm basically keeping two children alive. Darin, I called her,
She's going to go work at this camp and I
called the camp director and that, you know, the family,
beautiful family, want of family. I said, hey, this is
(26:59):
what's how up and this was going on. She's not
going to come work for you this summer. I can't
let her out of my sight. And she said something
to me that was very profound, and she said, no,
we are only as resilient as a rubber band. You
can pull that rubber band far far far far, and
it'll come back and you pull it again, far far,
far far far. But eventually that rubber will start to
(27:22):
get a little looser and a little worn down. And
one day you're going to pull that rubber band so
far it breaks and all you can do is tie
it back together and hope it holds. And she said,
her rubber band just broke, but she's going to get
tied back together. And so I thought, I thought that
was so profound, profound when it comes to resiliency, because
(27:42):
we are all resilient, but sometimes rubber bands are a
little smaller than others, or sometimes we need to tie
our bands back together.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Now that's all you've endured. How do you maintain a
sense of normalcy, enjoy in your daily life with your
children and your family, because you don't go through a lot.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
You know?
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Yeah, we have one through fuck, you know, but you know,
and even like you just mentioned, you about your daughter,
and so how do you keep it all together?
Speaker 4 (28:19):
How do I keep it all together? I usually I
like to throw in a joke like lots of wine
or which which is not true. Actually I'm not much
of a drinker, but you know, what I do love
to do is to get into nature. I do a
lot of grounding. I've done a lot of feeling, like
feeling is so essential to motherhood. And I do a
(28:40):
lot of hiking. Where we live, we have elevations, so
I do a lot of hiking and and a lot
of therapy. I mean, when you go through events like this,
you cannot have this attitude of oh, I don't need therapy.
I'm hind No, you need therapy, like you've got to
get it out of you. And when you go through
(29:00):
a trauma, you really need a counselor who is trauma
informed and does trauma processing. So I used a technique
called em DR and it's like voodoo magic girl. I
mean it's like it rewires your brain and you can
just handle things better. And I found that like way back,
you know, years years years back, with the first couple
(29:22):
of Moms Day moments that we that we went through,
I wasn't taking care of my mental health. I wasn't
taking care of the of that part of it. And
I was just muscling through, you know, because that's what
we do here in America. You muscle through things.
Speaker 5 (29:34):
Right.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
If you have ever been played a sport. You ever
had a coach, you know, like you broke your leg,
get out there, hnts do it again? You know, take
me there, right, We're trained to do that. But as
I was muscling through it, my temper was short. I
wasn't sleeping well, I was short with the kids, like
(29:55):
I wasn't being the best mom I could be. And
I learned very quickly. And that's that where this pain
and wisdom and knowledge all come to play. Like you're
going to go through pain, have the wisdom to heal
the pain. Yeah, because more pain is going to come,
hopefully not on the astronomical levels that it has in
my life, but but we all go through situations that
(30:16):
are painful.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Right, So I have to ask you because you know
we've this this conversation has really been about motherhood and resilience,
and I love it.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
I love this conversation so much.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
And you know, before we all became mothers, we had
an idea right of the type of mother that we
thought we were going to be and how it was
going to be with that first baby coming, and we
were just going to tackle it all or maybe we
were scared, who knows, but we all had an idea
of what we thought that motherhood would be, and it
was different for different people.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
For you, Carrie, what is motherhood mean for you?
Speaker 4 (30:57):
Oh man? That is you're so intuitive with these questions,
because I would say one hundred percent of the guests
on my podcast Mom's Day Bunker, where I bring moms
in to talk about their own Mom's Day moments, every
single one of them brings us up where they had
this fairytale motherhood of what motherhood was going to be,
(31:20):
and then an event like childhood cancer or you know,
a sentinel, and one of the moms lost her child
a sentinel, and another mom lost her child to actually
a car accident, and it's just you can't prepare for that.
The fairy tale's gone, you know, it's you're never going
to get it. And so what motherhood means to me now,
(31:44):
as opposed to what I thought it was going to be,
it's more of a mission. I think motherhood is a mission,
and it's it's my mission to take motherhood back. And
I want to take it back not just for me,
but for all of them, because this world is going
to come after our children. It's coming after them every day,
(32:05):
it's coming after them. Through social media, human trafficking, spent
and all. It's coming after our kids. So we need
to we need to fight back. We need to take
our motherhood back, and that's through I believe these preps
that I talk about that I workshop, which is community
Find moms here, will help you stay strong in your
(32:28):
motherhood even through the hard times, because there will be
hard times. Find that community. Find your faith. Like I'm
a Christian, I believe in the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit. But I'm going to love you wherever
you are. Please, please have a face. Please, You're not
going to get through it without a foundation of faith.
(32:49):
Make sure your money's in order. That's one of my friends.
It's a big prep because hey, there's not a penny
you will not spend to save your.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
Child, that's right, amen.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
But you also also got to put gas in your
car to take your child to the hospital. Yeah, Like,
you've got to get your finances in order, and you've
got to start making memories. I talk about memories a lot,
because memories go far beyond Disney World. Okay, you don't
need to go to Disney World to make a memory.
Go make a mud pile in your backyard and play
in the mud with your kids, get all money, take
(33:20):
pictures of it and put it on your wall. That's
your memory. That's what your kids will remember.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Right, No, that's true that I found that to be
true with my kids. The things that they remember the most.
Although we've taken our trips and we've had a great time,
and we do have those memories and they talk about
those too, but it's those moments, those off the cuff,
random moments that we did not plan for, are the
ones that we laugh at and remember the most and
(33:48):
the longest.
Speaker 4 (33:50):
Absolutely, absolutely, yes.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
And looking back on your looking back on your experiences,
what lessons have you learned about rezils that you would
like to share with our listeners who may be facing
their own struggles.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
You know, I think one of the ways to keep
that rubber band from snapping is to just be present
in the pain. And it's hard. I think it's a discipline.
I think you have to be. You have to you
have to practice at it that. You have to practice
being sad, scared, anxious, breathe through it, talk to a friend,
(34:31):
call a friend, but don't try to busy yourself out
of feeling present in the pain. You know, I think
we do that as women in general, but we do
that as moms too, like, Oh, I need to do
the launder right now. I need to busy myself. I
need to go to the grocery store. I need to
email this teacher. I need to clean my kid's room.
I need to clean out the closet. I need you
(34:52):
need to sit and need this. Need to feel the pain.
And that's going to help prevent that rubber band from
snapping on you. And it's going to make that rubber
bands thicker and longer so that you can carry more
and you can have those callouses on you when when
the painful moments come in life.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Thank you Carrie for sharing your incredible.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Story with the listeners and with me to those as
a guest on Lifejack the Resilience Podcast. Your journey is
a powerful reminder of the strength we can find within
ourselves and the importance of community and overcoming life challenges
and also remembering that social media is not your community.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
I loved it when you said that if it's cool
to get to your community, right, but I love that.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yes, as a mother, teacher and survivor, you exemplify and
I mean that when I say that the spirit of resilience,
showing us that even in the darkest moments, there is
hope and beauty to be found. So how can listeners
find and connect with you?
Speaker 4 (35:58):
Well, thank you for saying that. I truly appreciate that,
and they can find me. I have a website. It's
called Mom's Day Prepper dot com. They can find me
on Facebook, Carrie Moms Day Prepper, Instagram I think is
Carrie Moms Day Prepper. And if they have their own
story and they want to be a guest on The
(36:20):
Mom's Day Bunker, which is my podcast, you can find
that on all podcast platforms. They just need to reach
out to me, either on social media or on the
website and we'll get them set up.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Any last words of encouragement for the listeners.
Speaker 4 (36:35):
Oh my gosh, fight like how take your motherhood back?
Stand your ground. Know that you are a daughter of
God and there's a powerful army out there fighting for you.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Wonderful Kerry.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
I appreciate the insights you've shared, and I hope the
listeners take away some key principles that can help them
take their fave or take their motherhood back. I wish
you and your family nothing but blessings and abundance in
this year.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Please take care, Thank you you too, very Hanson.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Everyone be sure to join me next time for more
uplifting stories and insights on resilience. Until then, keep pushing forward,
embrace the journey, and remember that every setback could lead
to a greater comeback, Doctor Rowe signing off.
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