Covid Stories: Dr. Christy Russell

Hey Readers,

Welcome back to Life, Faith &Love where I share YOUR stories. We just wrapped up our, "What I Wish I Knew Before I Got Married" series where I shared the stories of men and women who have been married anywhere from 6 months to 5 years. They shared a lot of wisdom from their personnel marriage stories. Make sure you go check it out if you missed. I'm now starting a new series titled Covid stories where I share YOUR stories from during this pandemic. If you want to share your stories with me feel free to email me @ Ngongang94@gmail.com. We're going to start this new series with a lovely woman name Dr. Christy Russell! She has a lot of wisdom to share: 

Before I share Dr. Christy story I wanted to let my readers know that I am doing a give away in the month August and September. With everything that's been going on in the world, I feel led to give back to others. In the month of August and September I will be giving away a little something to people in need. 3 people in August and 3 people in September. If you or someone you know is in financial need, please let them know to send me an email and explain their story/reason for need @ Ngongang94@gmail.com. 

Now let's DIVE into Dr. Christy's Story

My COVID-19 Story:

In November of 2019, I was diagnosed with stage 3 Metastatic Breast Cancer. As anyone can imagine, I had a lot of anxiety, worries, and uncertainties about the impact this would have on my life. As a woman of faith, I knew I had to trust that God would bring me through.

In late February, COVID-19 began to increase, and it soon became apparent that we were facing an unusual outbreak.  In the first week of March, I was sent home to work remotely because I was in the midst of chemotherapy.  This was really hard for me and caused my anxiety level to increase because I thought this could possibly lead to my position/job being phased out.

Little did I know that in just a few short weeks everyone was going to be working remotely and Quarantine 2020 was in full effect due to COVID being deemed a GLOBAL PANDEMIC!  Strangely enough, this all worked in my favor. My anxieties and fears about my job were calmed because I was not the only one working from home - everyone was working from home.  Working from home enabled me to structure my time in a way that made it easier for me to balance my work, family, and blogging. I learned how to structure my time in ways that increased my productivity and enabled me to spend intentional quality time with my husband and daughters.

Quarantine forced me to think outside the box and be more creative in terms of my blogging, ideas I had on taking photos, and how to communicate more effectively through my social media outlets.  I was able to stay connected to friends through fun zoom tea parties and other virtual social events that were surprisingly a lot of fun!  I made so many wonderful memories with my two daughters and came up with creative ways to engage my 20-year-old and my 12-year-old.  I was able to re-connect my husband and learn how to communicate better with him because we "were stuck in the house with nowhere to go".  

In conclusion, I am a firm believer that adversity has the potential to make us stronger, and push is to become great. Between, Breast Cancer, COVID-19 & Quarantine 2020, I have learned how to be more intentional in my interactions with those I love and be more focused and aggressive in finding creative ways to problem-solve.  My goal is to become stronger, better & wiser by the end of COVID-19.

I leave you with this quote from Walt Disney - "The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all"