Chronically Strong

Who is Chronically Strong?

Su***de is up by 72% in high school teens. Su***de rates across the U.S. have spiked in the past 20 years. According to the CDC, the su***de rate in PA has risen by 34.3% and it is the #3 cause of death in ages 15 to 24.

On April 6, 2019 I received a phone call that my daughter Katie was in the hospital and that she was not likely to make it through the night. On April 8, 2019, Katie was pronounced brain dead after more than 50 previous su***de attempts and dozens of hospitalizations.

As parents, we can hardly think of anything worse than surviving our own child. What I remember most about that night I got the call is sobbing in the waiting room, and thinking how much I wanted Katie’s life to count. I think it is easy for us all to go through times in our life that we feel like we don’t matter. We can feel buried in our emotional pain until we aren’t able to see light anymore. When we can’t see light, we begin to only see the pain, and sometimes the only way out that we see is death.

Katie was an amazing young woman. She loved animals. She had a gentle spirit. She had a smile that lit up the room, and a mind like no other. Katie saw things as they are as well as how they could be. She would sacrifice herself to help another, and would smile through the pain. One of her greatest dreams was to become a doctor and it is through her death that she was able to help countless others through organ and tissue donation. Katie’s life mattered. Your life matters too.

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