21: Healing Beyond PANS: Empowered Parents Prevail | Season 2 Ep 2

This next topic? Well, it's quite personal for me, and it's the why behind starting the pod. You see this generation of mamas, we're up against a lot, and we're only a stone's throw away from even gaining the right to vote, fully participate in the workforce, go after our dreams, create brilliance, and live our lives out loud.

Unfortunately, because we are only a stone's throw away from these advancements and women's rights, we're still brushing up against a system that wants to fully allow them. You see, becoming a mom, it changed everything for me. It made me better, and it humbled me in ways I didn't even know I needed. Humbled, however, having children with health complications.

Yeah, that opened my eyes to not only show me what's wrong in our world, but what's wrong in our society and our workplaces. And it showed me what's literally killing women and children, and what we need to do to improve these dismal outcomes. I think so many of us knew there could be complications during our pregnancies, or we knew the risks, we knew the what ifs, and we knew the tragedies that could be.

And we held our breath and we prayed, and many of us squeezed by to live what one would call a normal life. Of course, we all knew misfortune could and would happen, and if not to us, then by the proximity of experiencing the heartache and pain from watching a loved one struggle with their own calamity, I thought I'd squeezed by. 

I thought we were well on our way towards a normal life, when all of a sudden our daughter woke up at four years old as a completely different version of herself. I remember the day it all happened and I remember the day after it happened. It's odd, honestly, almost like I've lived two completely different lives as part of my motherhood.

Somehow during that time, I'd lost my daughter even though she was physically here. It was like a living death. It was so weird because my family, friends and colleagues didn't understand for the longest time. Some never did. I don't know, I don't think some ever will. How I didn't understand it for the longest time. It's why I invited my next guest to join me on Mama Trauma Barbie podcast.

She took what I was not able to articulate for so long and turned not only my journey, but her family's journey and the many families out here with plans and turned that experience into an educational series to help others. She took something so negative, so misunderstood, and turned it into a positive to help many others who are finding themselves lost and confused in this journey.

Listening to this podcast today could not only help a family, but could change the trajectory for a family and their children for generations to come. That's the power of education. That's the power of loving our neighbors ridiculously well. And that's why I'm so excited to introduce you to my next guest. Emelia Metzel is a sociologist and motion graphics designer from Poland. 

She founded Life Science, the animation studio, with her husband Frank, and together they are trying to bridge the gap between science and the public by turning complex scientific topics into animated videos. When their twins suddenly got sick with a mysterious disease, they struggled to get any help or answers from their health care system. After a few months of intense digging and desperately looking for specialist, they got the diagnosis of their children's illness. 

Pans and pandas. Getting the diagnosis and finding the right doctors was the beginning of their children's recovery. In the process, they realized how huge the gap between science and clinical practice was, and how bridging this gap could help many other parents in the same situation. Once the health of their children improved, Emelia embarked on a mission to educate and raise awareness of the disease through her weekly Pan series, created under the name Beyond Pans. 

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