I've never had anything wrong with me until that day when everything happened
at once I was twenty nine weeks pregnant and I was on my way to work at Hershey
Medical Center a 16 year old just didn't see the light
he hit me in the driver's side door my first and foremost was Lillian is she
gonna be okay when I moved my neck I knew something
wasn't right and I want to move my extremities my legs and I couldn't feel
my left leg once we got to the trauma Bay then I told him that look my husband
works here too the phone call came from the ER chaplain at the time chaplain
automatically makes you think she's gonna die so I dropped everything ran as
quickly as I could to the ER they basically kept me stable until they lost
her heartbeat and then once they lost her heartbeat and that was it they
rushed me right to the OR the doctor says we have to put you under we're
gonna have to move your neck there's a good chance that I wouldn't make it out
but you know she may I said we'll do what you need to do just save my
daughter so I I didn't think twice yeah I get to say goodbye but I think it
wasn't long enough and I said if anything happens it's name are Lillian
Coral and that was the last time I saw him
when they woke me up after seven and a half hours of surgery they said
congratulations your mom it was a really good feeling but I I knew that there was
a long road ahead for both of us they told us that it didn't look good
she was so young and so underdeveloped at that point there was a lot that she
had to go through to get to a viable stage besides her lungs not being
developed she had a heart issue she also had a grade two brain bleed she went
through a GI type of infection I wanted to be right by her side but I wasn't
able to obviously because I wasn't stable enough to do that it was a week
before I met Lilly I was on one floor fighting and she was in the NICU
fighting today Lilly is 12 and 3/4 if you ask her but she's still my little
girl I love to dance I love to sing and I do that a lot
it's super fun for me my mom could tell you I do it every day
when I grow up I want to be a singer or chef because if I were a singer I would
be able to share my voice with the world and if I were a chef I could make people
happy with the food I make oh we're doing - she's an eclectic fun-loving
happy kid I can't ask for a better daughter I really can't do to the brain
bleed her fine motor skills are just a little off sometimes she feels
discouraged cuz other kids can run faster or they can do this better than
what she can do but she doesn't let it faze her you can
beat your boundaries you can beat those problems that happen to you in the past
the past can't define you your future does just because the challenge seems
hard doesn't mean when you face it it will be hard I've done 5Ks the
people from Children's Miracle Network have meant to me a big deal because
they've kept me here they kept my mom here and they probably saved my dad a lot
emotional distress and it's awesome that they help all these different kids with
all these different problems if you go in and NICU at Hershey take a look
around almost every piece of machinery bed everything in there it's a little
plaque on it and it says donated by Children's Miracle Network without the
donations and the sponsors they wouldn't have that and I don't know if I'd have
her my message to the people who support Children's Miracle Network
I can never thank you enough don't stop donating it helps so many kids and you're
helping kids you may not realize it right the second just by donating a
dollar but dollar can do so much I think what you can learn from Lily is really
just never give up I think she has a very very very awesome future ahead of
her yeah she can do anything