A Matthews mother of five is marking an incredible anniversary today after losing all four limbs during a life threatening battle with the flu.
Doctors told her husband she wouldn't survive last Thanksgiving, and this year she is training for a run.
Things are always kind of crazy in the Seaford house. There are five kids after all.
Jeannie, the youngest just turned 2; there are 6-year-old twins, Lauren and Maizie; Caroline is 8, and the oldest is 11-year-old Ben.
He's the one who found his mom after church in her bedroom unconscious last year.
"It was kinda scary, it was really scary," he remembers.
It was exactly a year ago as she was prepping to have 30 people for Thanksgiving dinner that Kristan, the mother of five got the flu and strep throat.
"I went upstairs and said, 'hey mommy, wake up' and I turned her over and she was blue."
Kristan was rushed to the hospital-- turned out she also had pneumonia. And that turned into Sepsis.
Husband Brook remembers the doctors telling him to say goodbye several times.
"She was in the ICU and the nurse said, 'you have to understand she's not getting better.' You know, I made a lot of deals with God. I was just like, 'I don't care what it takes, let my wife get out of here alive.'"
It would take a lot to save her.
Doctors had to amputate both of Kristan's hands, her left leg and much of her right foot.
Ben wasn't sure how to handle it at first.
"I was afraid she wouldn't be the same person, but she's still the same on the inside, and that's what counts."
After 100 days in the hospital, she came home, but Jeannie, just a baby at the time, didn't remember her mom.
"It was a bit scary, and she was scared of me, rejected me and hit me away. I cried myself to sleep a lot of nights," Kristan recalled.
"I really wanted to be able to rock her and read her a story and walk to the bed with her in my arms and put her to bed, and at the time, that seemed to be an insurmountable thing to do."
She slept on Jeannie's floor hoping to reconnect.
And she got two robotic hands and a prosthetic leg to help her get around.
"It looks like someone ripped them right off the terminator," Ben says of his mom's new arms.
She started small.
"I started just walking to the mailbox, and then I started walking around the cul-de-sac, and then I would go around the cul-de-sac twice, and every day I just went a little bit further."
Once a marathoner, she's back running, training for a 5k.
And incredibly, she is back teaching step class at the YMCA.
And Jeannie is back in her arms.
"So I'm just so thankful she and I have come such a far way."
There is much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.
Ben says, "I'm thankful my mom is here, that she's with us."
Brook gets emotional.
"I'm thankful for Kristan to be able to join us at the table. It was very sad for me to have that empty chair last year. So, to have it filled is what I'm most thankful for. I think that's the best way to describe it, thankful for our family to be together and healthy and whole."
Kristan says, "We can reclaim Thanksgiving as a happy time."
Other Stories to Click:
