My name is Mary Beth Ballard Murray. I’m a survivor and a seeker. I’m a grateful mother to a precious son and a proud wife to an incredible man. I’m a daughter to the most loving parents and a sister to an adventurous brother. I’m a yoga teacher, a fierce friend, and a writer. I’m all these things and yet much more. I keep evolving and changing and life has provided me with plenty of opportunities for growth. It’s knocked me down pretty hard a few times…but I refuse to stay there.

This blog and website serve me as a platform to share my experience, connect with others, and enhance parts of my healing that can only be expressed through writing. I have been contemplating starting this project for two years now, and that I find myself and my whole world in the midst of a pandemic, I say now is truly the time to move forward with it. Plus, I’m almost 35 week pregnant so I really don’t have much time 🙂

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In a nutshell, my adult life has been punctuated by significant health challenges that I’ve had to overcome to keep living it fully…

In 2014, I was diagnosed with bladder cancer at age 28 and spent two and a half years in surgeries, treatments, follow-ups, maintenance, scans and hope building. My life completely shifted and I learned so much about who I am, what I value, what it means to heal and how long-held beliefs were keeping me back from greater joy. I truly felt I transcended my cancer experience to become a better, more complete person, in fact, I’m grateful for it. I plan to use this blog to discuss many of those changing beliefs and ways I healed through different approaches.

Most recently, however, I have had to deal with a much different and more intense health experience that I’m still trying to understand. I do believe this blog will help me. I have to share what happened in order to transcend the pain, the shame, the anger, the regret, the fear, and the big question that I often wrestle with – WHY? What is the purpose of such a traumatic experience? Especially after having and beating cancer, at 28.  I believe that we have the power to shape our own story, our own interpretation of events, and we can learn more about our life through contemplation and integrating that into story. It doesn’t matter what society says, what others say, what friends and even family think. It matters what we believe about ourselves, our soul, our body. Our birthright to live a fulfilling life even in the midst of tremendous adversity.

There’s a lot to my story. It’s hard to summarize in fact, but here’s a shot: It’s summer 2016 and I get the medical all-clear that I can start growing my family and have a child. My husband Chris and I are so thankful to be at this huge milestone. And crazy enough, I get pregnant soon after and welcome our miraculous son, Beckett, in July 2017. The details of the year that followed will be explored in this blog, but in brief, I ended up getting sick after delivery, but the cause was never determined and written off as post C-section/new mother physical symptoms. Months went by and my illness progressed in mysterious and confusing ways and then reached a tipping point…new doctors finally discovered I had a systemic bacterial infection, which caused endocarditis (an infection in my heart lining), damaging my mitral valve to such a degree that immediate open heart surgery was required to fix it. If I didn’t, I was in extreme danger of having heart failure, stroke, paralysis, and other serious life-threatening conditions. In short, I was facing the reality of death once again.

I had open heart surgery in December 2017, fortunately through a minimally invasive side approach that took over seven hours. The surgeon repaired my heart valve, strengthening it with a titanium ring. What followed, was seven weeks of 24-hour antibiotic infusion through a PICC line in my arm. Simultaneously, I was working to get my physical strength back, heal my heart, regain my voice (I had vocal chord nerve damage post-surgery), and care for and nurse my five-month-old. I don’t know how I made it through all that. Some of it is a true blur. But what gave me strength and hope is the love of my family. My love for them. My desire to regain my life in order to be living in a deeply connected way to those I loved the most. My child. My desire to watch him grow. My gratitude for his light, his smile, his pure little soul shining onto mine and illuminating my darkest days.

Flash forward, and it’s 2020.  I’m in a new and yet familiar spot. I’m nearing the end of my second pregnancy with a second baby boy, my heart is healthy, my pregnancy is smooth, I’m feeling pretty good…and we’re in the midst of a world-wide novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. What’s this about? Prior to this outbreak that has finally reached Kentucky in the past week, and ever since I found out I was pregnant last fall, I’ve been trying to strengthen my emotional health and spirit knowing that I would be entering into a potentially vulnerable medical scenario again. Through therapy and long talks with family and friends and journaling, I have tried to work on PTSD triggers when it comes to my health and reentering the surgical and postpartum period. And now with the prospect that medical facilities and careworkers could be significantly impacted by COVID-19, I’ve had my fair share of freak outs.

So what can I do? I can be smart and follow the guidelines and do all the things “I’m supposed to do” but that doesn’t really get to the heart of the matter. I have to find my source of inner strength, dig deep into it, cultivate what grows and share it – not only for myself, but for my family, who I love so deeply and feel so inextricably connected to. While I acknowledge my fear and validate how real it is at times, I can’t let it cover me up. I won’t let it diminish this experience, this gift of motherhood I find myself in again. I have a miracle growing inside me, and soon he will come into this world… and I want him to meet it with all the love and support that I, my family, and village of friends and community are capable of fostering for him.

What can I do to make a difference and contribute in this wider world that needs all of us to rise up to become our best selves? I can openly and honestly share my journey through cancer, heart surgery, and pregnancy during a pandemic through this blog. I can offer my tools for coping with difficulties, things I’ve learned, and things that delight me and give me hope. I can share parts of myself here in hopes that it might help just one other person feel less alone, scared, unseen or misunderstood.