Celebrate Dress - Claire print

Claire's story touched us so much. She ordered a Celebrate dress in the previous floral print and need it to be longer in order to cover her new leg and then God told me to ask her why...

READ HER STORY. This Celebrate Dress print is dedicated to her, to celebrate her life and what God has done and also to encourage you that there is always hope. Reach out.

Claire's story: "I have struggled with anxiety and depression since I was a teenager however, I never wanted to truly acknowledge that I was struggling or that I had a weakness. I am a very strong minded, tick the box, high functioning and efficient person. I felt that I didn’t have  time to show weakness or emotion because that would just slow me down - but the reality is, internally I had been struggling for a long time and not dealing with the root issues but instead pushing those feelings aside whilst continuing to function at a high capacity. 

I felt extremely tired. Everything that I was struggling with was starting to catch up with me and I felt like I couldn’t carry the weight of it on my shoulders anymore. 

My close friends and family knew that I was struggling and that I was seeing both a psychologist and psychiatrist and that I was prescribed medication for depression. 

I had flickers of suicidal thoughts. Mostly when I was driving. A thought would pop into my head that would say: “it would be easier to just end everything and then you won’t feel tired anymore” but due to my nature of shoving feelings down, I immediately would take that thought and push it aside, not realising that I wasn’t effectively dealing with those feelings and thoughts and they were compounding. 

On Wednesday 24 January I woke up feeling much the same as I had been for the last couple of months, but I did not have ANY suicidal thoughts. I drove to work and within the first few hours of the morning I started to feel very anxious and emotional and in an instant I decided I was going to end my life. It was as if something had snapped in me. It wasn’t a long drawn out plan. I had not spent time thinking about it. I decided in that moment that I was tired and I wanted to stop the pain and exhaustion. 

I decided I needed to choose a way that would guarantee I don’t survive - and being in that dark place, I thought the best way to go would be if I stood out in front of a moving vehicle on the highway. 

Now, on the other side of surviving this and being in a much better state of mind, dealing with all those shoved down feelings and emotions, it is hard for me to even imagine having those thoughts and even harder to believe that I actually was able to walk in front of a moving truck. 

I wasn’t supposed to survive. I was in critical condition. I was in a coma for 2 weeks with my organs shutting down. The doctors thought I would not wake from the coma, that my body had been through too much stress. I had to have over 20 pints of blood transfused as I had lost so much blood through the accident. I had to have continuous dialysis as my kidneys were failing and the doctors thought that if I did survive, that I would have to have continual dialysis going forward as the function of my kidneys was so low.

After two weeks of being in a coma, statistically the chance of waking up decreases. My family took turns at my bedside praying over me, reading scripture and even in my coma, I could hear them. I could hear them but I couldn’t respond. My family was begging me to respond and I could hear them, but I couldn’t respond. It was terrifying. I was awake after the truck hit me and I knew what my leg had looked like. So even in the coma, I had thought I had lost both my legs. 

After two weeks, I woke from the coma, still ventilated, so unable to breathe or talk on my own. It was confirmed that I had lost my left leg. It had to be amputated above the knee and my right leg was covered in roasties. The unbelievable thing was that I didn’t have a single scratch anywhere else on my body. Not a single scratch above my waist. My organs were struggling from the trauma not because they had been injured. 

Two days later they were able to take me off the ventilator and when I breathed in that first breath of air in my lungs it was an incredibly emotional experience and I felt like God said to me in that moment that I have saved you for a purpose and a reason. You have air in your lungs because your story is not over yet.  Every part of me wants to run and hide from all that happened on January the 24th, every part of me wants to not share my story because of shame or embarrassment that I was struggling, but despite that, I feel convicted that even if it will help one person, I must share. 

I spent 5 weeks in hospital waiting for my kidneys to recover. I left the hospital with one less leg, on medication for my kidneys and my heart. Nine months later, I have come off all the heart and kidney medication. My kidneys are back to normal functions. My heart is back to normal functioning. I have been using my prosthetic leg for a couple of months now and am slowly adjusting to it and learning how to adapt to it. I have a lot of PTSD that I am still working through and new challenges due to the loss of a limb but I also have more peace and purpose.

I have a husband and two beautiful boys that I am so grateful to God that still have their mom and a supportive and loving family that have helped carry me through such a dark and difficult time.

I pray that my story will encourage you to know that your life does count, that there is help, that you can reach out, that there is a God and His heart is for you. We all have struggles - but may His peace and love comfort you. May you be brave to put up your hand. God has a plan for your life - do not let the enemy win."

May you be inspired by Claire's story. Every life is worth celebrating - including yours! 

This fit and flare dress is made from a Spanish viscose in a pink and green festive palm tree print.

* Claire is the woman in the last two pictures ~ wearing the first Hadassa Celebrate Dress.