Today we are sitting down with grief, coach and mother of three Tanis Mitchell. We are talking with Tanis about how she navigated her daughter Lukah’s traumatic medical journey, how being a medical mama has impacted her and shifted her perspective on life, the empowerment of feeling through grief and refusing to be a victim of the pain, and how her journey has led her to walk alongside others through grief as a group coach. 

Tanis vulnerably walks us through Lukah’s journey, from taking her into emergency at 11 months old with a diaper full of blood, to finding out she had a massive benign teratoma in her abdomen, and the nine hour surgery to remove it that ended in the doctor telling her that her baby’s organs were failing. She shares the moment she fell to her knees upon hearing her daughter had 12 to 24 hours to live, and the miraculous turn that kept Lukah alive to wait for a five organ transplant. We hear about the impossible situation they found themselves in trying to keep her alive one day at a time for 7 1/2 weeks until they got the news that she had a transplant match, the impossible joy of receiving the gift of five organs knowing another family was living their worst nightmare, the gruelling process of living out of the hospital the entire time and being forced to sit in her grief. 

She tells us why she chose to share her journey on social media, how it helped her navigate and the healing it brought her to have an outlet, the beautiful and unexpected community that it built, and the way that community supported and held their family. We talk about what life has looked like after Lukah’s transplant and how they navigate daily, diving headfirst into learning how to navigate the grief that showed up everywhere, the book she found that was transformational in her grief journey, the tools + supports that have helped her along the way and the transition she made into coaching others in grief. 

PLUS: what she does as a grief coach, the power of letting yourself FEEL, trusting the process and letting life unfold, how to experience joy alongside grief and the power of being held by community.

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Books suggested by Tanis -> The Wild Edge Of Sorrow & Option B

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