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Blog – McCall Dempsey - Speaker – Writer – Advocate - Page 13

Smashing It Forward

Three years ago today, I loaded my car up with scales, sledgehammers, painted signs and a dream. A dream to pay it forward, a dream to fulfill a promise I made to those who had helped me on my journey to recovery. As eager as I was, I was completely aware of the path I was about to blaze for myself. Most of my friends and family were still unsure about what on earth I was doing. To be honest, I…

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Why I’ll Never Take Dirty Dishes For Granted

Why I’ll Never Take Dirty Dishes For Granted Guest post written for Red Stick Mom’s Blog “Sunday evening, I stood over a sink of dirty dishes and my eyes welled with tears. Manning, Jordan and Marjorie were playing in the living room. Giggles and happy squeals filled our house with noise. Happy noise. In that one moment as I stood over the kitchen mess, everything was good. Everything was normal: a dirty kitchen, loud children, toys scattered and a momma…

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Finding Your Mary and Christy

A moment of silence requested, but the air was anything but silent. The heartache and sobs pierced my cold ears. A mother whaling cry was too much. I turned my head upward and gazed upon our nation’s capitol building. She wore a green shirt. She lost her baby to an eating disorder and that is not fair. How? Why? Why not me? How have so many millions suffered? How did I suffer so long and survive? Why these parents? Why did they…

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Muddling Through Grief

Grief is a funny thing. One minute you are doing laundry and paying bills, the next you are in a puddle of tears, frozen from the rest of the day’s to dos. I always thought grief was strictly assigned to the death of a loved one. It wasn’t until my eating disorder recovery I realized grief goes far beyond the burial mounds. Recovery forced me to grieve memories, time lost and years of pain inflicted by a cruel disease. While…

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We are MOMs, hear us ROAR

You know that moment. It happens in the blink of an eye. A fire rises in your chest and your soul rumbles. You are moments away from unleashing your Mom Roar. Your baby is hurting and you will do anything it takes to fight for your child and take away his or her pain. Sadly, no matter how loud we roar or how tough we seem, sometimes we can’t take away their pain. And our roars turn into sobbing moans…

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Your Fire is Calling. Answer It.

“What do you want to be, McCall? Where is that fire inside telling you to go?” I was 18-years old and just weeks away from starting college. My mom and I were driving to orientation and talking about my future. It was one of those moments and conversations I will forever remember. I wanted nothing more than to blurt out, “I want to be in front of people. I have a fire inside me, momma, to speak and help others.…

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Cancer Semantics

Cancer. Chemo. Cancer Free. Metastasize. NED. NBD. Blah. Blah. Blah. If cancer has reminded me of one thing, it is to not get lost in the labels of life. We as a society get so caught up in labeling: fat, thin, pretty, rich, cancer, cancer free. How about we just live our lives? I spent this morning on the phone with Marjorie’s nurse going over yesterday’s CT and PET Scan results. She said words like, “decrease in size” “little areas are…

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Redefining Cancer FREE

Tonight as I rocked Marjorie to sleep, I began to cry. A few tears at first and then full on uncontrollable sobbing. Emotions flew through me faster than I could identify them. Anger, relief, gratitude, sadness, grief, joy. It was too much. I have been so focused on getting through the actual two day process of the scan, that the possible outcome of this scan hasn’t sunk in. Cancer Free. We just might be able to say CANCER F-ING FREE…

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Mom Fear: Speak It, Shout It

Guest blog written for New Orleans Mom Blog … Anxiety built through my veins like a warehouse fire.  I was leaving my daughter, Marjorie, for the first time with a sitter I did not know. I was flying to speak at the National Eating Disorder Association conference in California. I would be gone three days. Three long days all the way across the country.  Inhale. Exhale. […click here for full blog]…

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To My Darling Daughter On Your First Birthday

To my darling daughter, One year ago, my world came crashing down and you came kicking in. Small, but mighty, you proved that size means nothing. Born into this world at 2:08pm, the nurse quickly held up your tiny 1-pound, 15-ounce body and took you away. I didn’t get to hold you or nuzzle you or even have time to see if you looked like me or your daddy. All I could do was lay, paralyzed on the table, your daddy’s arms…

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