Lexi

“Dreams are hopeless aspirations in hopes of coming true. Believe in yourself, the rest is up to me and you.”

-Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes

I was born on March 11, 1992. I turned 32 years old last week.

I had a great childhood. It’s always been just me and my mom. She’s my number one supporter. She took me everywhere when I was little. I was always at a party or a museum, I would go to live plays… we did a lot. My mom wanted me to be cultured. 

Throughout my first year of life, I was pretty healthy. Then, when I turned one, I got really sick for the first time, seemingly out of nowhere. My mom rushed me to the hospital and was told that I had a viral infection. When I was two years old, I got very sick again, and we were told in the hospital that it was another viral infection. Both times they mentioned issues with my hemoglobin and my heart. But after that second year, I was healthy for a long time.

I went to a Christian school from kindergarten to first grade, a Catholic school from second until fifth grade, and then a public school starting in sixth grade. Public school was crazy. I wasn’t used to that. But we had such a good time. I remember I went to summer camp from first grade until seventh grade. Growing up, my skin would get really really dark in the summertime. We thought I was just getting a very dark tan.

It wasn’t until I was 13 that issues with my health really began. And since then, it’s been a journey.

In 7th grade, I started getting sick with bad back pains. The first time I experienced those pains, my mom thought, “Oh, it’s just the food you ate, it’s making you sick.” The second time it happened, my mom thought I was going to have a bad period. But the pain got really, really bad, to the point that I started throwing up. I remember trying to go to school despite the pain, but when I came home, I lay down on the couch, and I ended up on that couch for two weeks. My grandma stayed with me for a week, and then my mom stayed with me, but eventually they both had to go back to work. 

I ended up going to my paternal grandmother’s house for another two weeks, sick as a dog. We didn’t know what was going on. I had fevers, I was throwing up, I wouldn’t eat. I remember one day, my grandma begged me to eat an orange. “Please Lexi, eat an orange.” I finally ate it. And when I came back home, my mom took me to Chestnut Hill hospital. The doctor there didn’t do a thorough evaluation; I think it was because of my insurance. But a nurse came in, and she told my mom about KidsFirst, which was associated with CHOP. She said, “Take her there.” So my mom made an emergency appointment. 

I remember my grandmother took me to the KidsFirst appointment, and they took blood work and a urine sample and sent me home. The next morning, we met with the woman who would become my pediatric doctor; her name was Dr. Ingersoll. And she said, “Something is wrong with Lexi’s kidneys.” She sent us to CHOP, where we were admitted. The chief of nephrology, Dr. Kaplan, who also became my doctor, was waiting for me. He said, “We’re going to do a kidney biopsy in the morning.” 

They did the biopsy, and I was diagnosed with lupus. 

I was 13, and my whole life changed in the blink of an eye.

When I was first diagnosed with lupus, I didn’t fully understand what it meant. My emotions weren’t intact the way they are now, so I basically went on with my life, thinking, “Ok, whatever.” But in 8th grade, my doctors took me off the medications I had been on, and I got sick again. There was a blood clot in my IVC - my inferior vena cava. I ended up in the hospital for 28 days. But again, it didn’t affect me in a deep way. The doctors would come in and ask if I was fine, and I would say, “I’m fine.” And my grandmothers would say, “No you’re not! You’re not fine!” But, you know, I was a kid. I didn’t really get what was going on. 

During those 28 days in the hospital, I was put on chemotherapy, which can be used to treat lupus. I did two rounds of Cytoxan, and when I came home, my grandmother took me to get my hair done. I remember when I got to the sink, my hair just started falling out. Falling out, falling out, falling out. And I was like, “Oh my God. I’ve got to go back to school, and I don’t have any hair...” So my cousin bought me some wraps to tie my hair, and that’s how I started wearing my hair, in my wraps.

I graduated 8th grade, and I got accepted into a magnet school: Science Leadership Academy. And I was fine for a while. I had a minor flare up in 9th grade, but after that, I was ok. High school was fun. Even though we had to do our work and everything, we just used to have so much fun. Even the teachers used to have fun with us.

I was thinking about attending Delaware State for college, but my doctor discouraged me from going away because of my lupus. He was like, “No, that’s too far. If something happened to you, we wouldn’t be able to get to you.” So I had to go to a community college. It’s a good school. But I had to drop out for a while, because I got sick again. I started going back to school in 2021. It’s not hard, but it’s different being older; now the kids in my class are so much younger than I am.

From 18 to 21 years old, my health overall was fine. I got my first job at Rita’s, and then I worked at Forever 21. 

My job at Forever 21 ended in a funny way, actually. Believe it or not, I always used to win concert tickets on the radio. Like, all the time. One day, when they were giving concert tickets away, I thought, “I’m going to try to win.” And I did. And then I won again. And again. And again. I won so much, people would ask, “Can you win tickets for me?” I knew the right system. By the time the host says, “I’m looking for caller number 9,” they have their winner already. You have to call in way before that. Just keep calling, calling, calling… Anyway, one day, when I was working at Forever 21, the station was giving out Beyoncé tickets. And I love Beyoncé. I told my friend, “I’m going to take you if I win.” So I called in, and I was like, “Please please please please.” I even remember the song that was on. It was Nikki Minaj, Beez in the Trap. And the host picked up. She said, “Who am I talking to?” And I said, “Am I caller number 9?” And she said, “Yes, you are.” I started screaming, “Oh my God, we are going to see Beyoncé at Revel!” I gave her my information, and I didn’t call my friend; I wanted her to hear it on the radio. She said when she heard my voice, she also screamed. I told my employer at Forever 21 that I was going to the concert, and they approved it. Then, on the day of the show, my manager called me and asked, “Are you coming to work today?” And I said, “No, it was in the system already that I wasn’t supposed to work.” And he said, “So, you can’t come in?” And I said, “No.” And that was it; they didn’t give me any more days of work after that. 

After Forever 21, I was looking for a job for a while, and I finally got one at Macy’s. Then in 2013, I became a bank teller at PNC. I had just turned 21, I was working at PNC, and I was living life; it was so much fun. And then I started getting really sick.

In May of 2014, I had a really bad flare up in my joints because of my lupus. Then, I started getting really out of breath coming home from work. We have a hill that I would need to climb on my way home, and I would be gasping for air while walking. There were times when I had to call my mom and say, “Please come meet me, I’m out of breath.” We didn’t know what was going on - it just kept happening. In January of 2015, I was in and out of the hospital a lot for shortness of breath. I was no longer at CHOP at this point; my care had been transferred to UPenn. And the doctors kept saying, “Oh, it’s your lupus, it’s your lupus.” In February of 2015, we started going to Einstein. The first time I went to Einstein, my aunt came with me. They took us straight in the back, and the doctor told us, “She probably just has a viral infection.” They didn’t take any urine or anything. 

We had to walk home that day, because my PopPop was unavailable to drive us. It was so cold. I remember it was so cold. And I said, “Auntie, I’m so tired. I don’t feel good.” And she said, “We’re going to make it.” So, we took a slow walk. My neighbor across the street saw us and called my grandma and said, “Lexi doesn’t look good.” I ended up going right back to the hospital with my mom.

When we got to the hospital, they took us straight to the back and ordered an x-ray. I remember I was lying down for the x-ray and said, “I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!” They had to give me oxygen, and they took me up to the ICU. In the morning, they brought me breakfast. I still remember exactly what it was: eggs and sausage. To this day, I can’t eat eggs and sausage together. My mom had gone home overnight, because we live very close to the hospital, so when the doctor came in that morning, it was just me there. I remember the doctor sat down on my bed and said, “Well, Lexi, I think you have to start dialysis.” And I was like, “Dialysis? I don’t want to start dialysis.” I was crying. And she said, “Lexi…” She even looked like she wanted to cry. And she said, “You have time to think about it.” I called my mom crying and said, “Mommy, mommy, they said I have to start dialysis.” And she was like, “Don’t sign anything, I’m coming, I’m coming!” So she came to the hospital. The doctors came in, my cousin was there, and they all talked for a while. Ultimately, we decided to start dialysis. It was February 23rd, 2015. By 10:00 that night, I had my first dialysis treatment.

Immediately, my life changed. Last month marked 9 years on dialysis. I go on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. When I first started, it was really draining. Oh my goodness. Really draining. It doesn’t hurt, or anything like that. You go, and you just sit there for three and a half hours. That’s how long it takes for me. Some days I’m ok, and I have a lot of energy. And some days, I’m just so tired, and I need to rest. Most of the time these days, I’m ok. I’m ok. I’ve even advocated for other people to start dialysis. I tell them, “If you have to start dialysis, start it. Please.”

I was 21 when I first started, and I was really sad at that point. I was really depressed, and I cried a lot. I even had morbid thoughts, like, “Am I going to die?” But you know, God brought me through it. Here I am, 9 years later, still on dialysis. I’m older now, and these days, I’m more into my emotions. If I’m sad, if I’m angry, I let it out, you know? I let my emotions show. Some days I’m ok, and some days I have really bad anxiety. Some days I’m really, really sad… melancholy. Because, you know, it’s a lot on me. It’s a lot to deal with. But I try to take it day by day. One day at a time.

In 2015, when I first got my access for dialysis, I had a graft, and it kept building up blood. I kept insisting, “Something’s not right, something’s not right.” So one day in September, my grandma and I went to the ER, and we waited for hours, hours, hours. They finally took us back, and they told me, “You need surgery. We need to take your graft out.” It was a long, long hospital stay. We were in the hospital for 25 days. 

They messed my arm up so badly. They put a fistula in, which usually takes 6-8 weeks to mature. So I said, “Aren’t you going to put a catheter in, because my fistula needs more time before we can use it?” And they went, “Oh no, no, no, it’s fine.” So I went to dialysis, and I ended up with a staph infection. They had to take that fistula out and put in a catheter like we had originally suggested. They messed my arm up so bad. I had to have surgery, that’s how bad it was. I was in so much pain. People told me, “You need to sue!” But we weren’t thinking about suing; we just wanted me to get better. My doctor came in one day, and he said, “We’re sorry we messed up your arm. We did, we messed up your arm.” My mom was heated, like, “You guys messed up her arm, you should have listened.” But I said, “It’s ok.” 2015 was just rough for us. But we got the hang of it. And 2016 was pretty good.

In addition to having lupus, I have a condition called neurofibromatosis (NF). I was diagnosed with it at St. Christopher’s as a little girl. My mom has it as well; she was diagnosed when she was 16. NF can cause tumors to form in the body anywhere along the nervous system. My mom has tumors that show. But growing up, I never really had any tumors. I had the cafe au lait spots associated with NF, but I never really had tumors. Then, in 2016, a lump developed on the back of my leg. I had an MRI, and they said it was a neurofibromatosis tumor. So I had to have surgery that year to take it out. Then I think I had a few removed in 2017, and then more in 2019. My tumors tend to develop deep in my body, and they become very painful. They’re right on my nerves.

In 2019, my mom, my grandpop, and I got into a car accident. It wasn’t that bad, but all of our heads jerked around a little bit. And I was on a blood thinner. That’s one of the medications I take because of the blood clot in my lVC. So when the EMTs came to the accident, they were like, “Do you want to go to the hospital?” And I was like, “Oh no, oh no, there’s no reason. I didn’t hit my head or anything.” And they asked me, “Are you sure?” And I said, “I’m sure.” That was July 19th. But I kept getting really bad headaches after that. Really, really, really bad headaches. Eventually, on August 27th, I decided to go to the hospital at UPenn. At 2:00 in the morning, I was like, “Mama, I need to go to the hospital.” So I went in, they took me back, I told them what was going on, they gave me a CAT scan, and they said that I had a brain bleed from the car accident. I was like, “A brain bleed? What are you going to do?” And they said, “We don’t know, but we know you have to stay in the hospital.” By that time, I was starting to go in and out of consciousness. I called my mom, I told her what was going on, and she was getting ready for work, but she said, “I’m coming.” And by the time my mom came, I was really more in and out, in and out, in and out. The doctor who was on call was one of my doctors, Dr. Zager. He’s a neurosurgeon, but he’s the one who takes care of my neurofibromatosis bumps. I remember he came in, and he said, “Alexia, we’re going to take care of you.” By then I was really going in and out, and I was like, “Ok.” So they gave me an IV, and they started giving me pain medicine. We ended up being in the hospital for 38 days that time.

I was admitted to the hospital on August 27th, and I got discharged on October 5th. I had two back-to-back brain surgeries on September 12th and September 13th. The bleed had been progressing, which is why I had been having the really bad headaches. I remember the first few days I was there, and then I really don’t remember much after that; I was so out of it. I woke up sometime in September. At one point, I remember feeling my head and saying, “Mom, what happened? What’s going on?” And she told me I had Bell’s Palsy. She said sometimes while I was out of it, the doctors would come in and ask me what year it was, and I would say, “1912.” When I woke up, my mom started trying to help me. We’d go over stuff. She’d ask, “Who’s that?” and I would say, “My dad.” “What’s your dad’s name? What’s my name? What’s your name?” She talked to me every day. I still have issues with my speech from my brain surgeries; I still struggle to say some words. But things improved a lot. Sometimes, I’d wake up and say, “I want to go home,” and she’d tell me, “We’re going to go home, Lexi.” That’s why she started trying to help me with her questions. “What’s your dad’s name? What’s your mom’s name?” I wasn’t eating, but I remember one day, I woke up at 3:00 and said, “Mom, can I have a lemon bar?” and she was like, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” So she got up and got me the lemon bar. 

I came home on October 5th. And I was really really sad for a long time. I was really depressed. I kept thinking, “Why did this happen to me?” My head was shaved off on one side. And one day I just cut my hair and started wearing it short. My hair dresser did my hair really nicely. And eventually, I came through it. My mom said she heard me laughing one day and it made her feel so good. I remember that even at dialysis, one of my techs said, “You look so much better, I can tell you got your happiness back. I could tell that you were depressed for a long time.” And then 2020 came, and COVID hit.

2020 was weird, because everything shut down. Usually, my mom comes with me to all of my doctor appointments, but when the pandemic started, she couldn’t come with me anymore; I had to go myself. Even if I got admitted to the hospital, I was there by myself. And I’m so used to my mom being there. In September of 2021, they still weren’t allowing people to come in with me. And I was in the hospital in really bad pain, so they gave me Percocets to take every 4 hours. And I just had a breakdown. At the time, I didn’t know what was going on, but I was having an anxiety attack. I called my mom crying. She said, “Lexi, what’s wrong?” And I said, “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.” I went back to my room, and my nurse was really concerned. She said, “I gave some of my other patients to the other nurses, because I really want to be here with you. I’m concerned.” She called a psychiatrist, and she told me, “I don’t know if they're going to come tonight, but if they don't come tonight, they’re going to come in the morning.” She calmed me down, and I was able to take a shower. The psychiatrist came the next morning, and she talked to me and asked me a lot of questions. She diagnosed me with anxiety and said, “I don’t think you need to be on medicine right now, but you do have anxiety. I don’t think it’s anything else.” So, I was diagnosed with anxiety in September of 2021. After that, 2022 was a good year. Fast forward to 2023; July of 2023 was when I really started going through issues with my fluid.

With dialysis, you can’t have a lot of fluid intake. So I already don’t drink a lot. But I kept getting edema in my legs. I was like, “Where is this coming from?” My legs were so big. So, so big. Finally, in November of 2023, they figured out something was going on with my fistula. When you do dialysis, your blood is supposed to go back to your heart in 5 minutes. Mine was taking 20 seconds. They said I could have had a heart attack, so I was like, “Oh my God.” I ended up in the hospital again for 28 days. I had to have surgery to get my fistula ligated. And during that stay, the doctors were pretty good on the floor I was on. But the nurses and the techs were horrible. Horrible. I had a few nurses who I really, really liked, but in general, they were horrible. I don’t know if they were upset that my mom was there everyday or what, but that’s my mom. And she was up there every day; she would stay until closing time. Many of the nurses on that floor had an attitude, and you could tell there were little cliques…So it was just a journey. It was just a journey.

I came home on Thanksgiving, I was home for a day, and then my cousin and my mom had to send me right back to the hospital. My sugar had dropped low. And when my sugar drops low, I can have nightmares. My mom said I was lying on the couch screaming, “Don’t, don’t let me go, don’t take me back, I don’t want to go back.” So she was really scared, and she called my cousin, and my cousin came over and they were like, “Lexi, go to the hospital.” And I was like, “No no no no no.” So my mom finally said, “I’ll go with you.” I was so out of it. I was moaning, I was in so much pain. My sugar had dropped low, but my blood pressure was really high. So they had to admit me to the ICU for a few days. When I was ready to leave the ICU, they planned to move me to the floor I had recently been on. And I said, “Please, please, can I stay here? I don’t want to go back to that floor.” But they were like, “Lexi, you’re better, we can’t keep you here.” So I was on that floor for two days, but I kept my composure, and then I got to go home.

When I first did my interview for this project in February 2024, I felt like I was doing pretty well. I hadn’t been in the hospital for a couple months. But, two days later, I had a small heart attack. I had been having chest pain for a little while, but with lupus, you can get chest pain sometimes. This didn’t feel like the normal chest pain though. I remember saying, “Mom, this time it feels a little different.” But it went away, so I didn’t think anything of it. I ended up going to the hospital because I was feeling nauseous and tired and my blood pressure was sky high. They looked at my bloodwork, and they told me I had had a small heart attack. I ended up staying in the hospital for two weeks. I was in pain, and they had me on dilaudid. I had a left heart catheterization, and the doctor informed me that it didn’t seem like the heart attack had caused any damage. I had to have two blood transfusions because my hemoglobin was so low, but that’s not unusual for me; I have anemia with my lupus. They had to ligate my fistula, so now I have my catheter. I will get my new fistula soon. I already have an appointment set up with the doctor who is going to do it, which means another surgery. But I feel better now. I feel a lot better.

I don’t let dialysis stop me from living. I mean, there are some things I can’t do; I really can’t go out of the country… well, I can, but it will only be for a weekend if I wanted to. But I can go to other states because they have dialysis there. My aunt and I recently went to Kansas City to see Beyoncé. I saw her three times for the Renaissance tour. I saw her in July here in Philly, then my aunt got tickets for my cousin and me to see her in East Rutherford, NJ. And then one day in September, my aunt called me and said, “I need help with my computer. Can I come over?” And I was like, “Yeah, I’ll try to help you.” So she was setting everything up, and she said, “Come here, look.” And I looked at her computer and was so surprised. I said, “Auntie, you got us tickets to see Beyoncé again?” That was when we went to Kansas City. So, I went to dialysis, I came home, and we ran to the airport. I was so excited to fly; I hadn’t been on a plane since I was 13. And I said, “I want a window seat, Auntie.” And then we hit turbulence, and I was freaking out. My anxiety was getting bad; even my aunt was scared. So, I took an anxiety pill, and I calmed down. I got really tired, and my aunt was like, “You ok?” And I said, “It’s my anxiety medicine.” But after that, we had so much fun. The food was so good. The barbeque? Amazing. And we saw Beyoncé. So, I do stuff. I go to concerts, I like to swim. I go shopping, you know? I don’t let dialysis stop me from anything. If I’m able to do it, I will do it.

To get off of dialysis, I need a kidney transplant. So far, I’ve tried to get on the waitlist for a kidney at Lankenau, Temple, and Penn. At Temple, they put me on a transplant list, and I thought, “Oh my God, I’m going to get a kidney soon!” I had my phone out so I could hear it ring if the call came in… And then they sent me a letter saying, “Oh, we took you off the waitlist because of your neurofibromatosis (NF).” And we were like, “We told you ahead of time that I have NF! So what’s the issue?” But they took me off. Then we tried Lankenau. Lankenau said, “We are going to put you on a list, we don’t care about your NF.” So, we were doing tests and everything, always going back and forth in an Uber because my mom’s car was down. And then one day they said, “We’re not going to work with you anymore; we don’t feel like you’re a good candidate.” And I’m like, “Why? You guys worked me up this much, so…” But that didn’t work out either. So now, we’re at Einstein. It’s like a 360, because that’s where I started. And I think they’re all rooting for me. The next step is that I have to get my heart checked. I already have a heart doctor at Einstein, and they say he has to clear me. And I know he’s going to clear me, because he’s been rooting for me forever. So I’m still waiting to get a kidney, still waiting to get listed. But they say when I get listed, I could be getting calls right away. I’ve been doing dialysis for almost 9 years, which is a really long time, so I’d be up at the top. Hopefully we’ll be there soon.

As an adult, I’ve had some great medical experiences with doctors and some bad experiences. But the good outweighs the bad. When I was a child, CHOP was great. They always had stuff for us to do. It was just a great medical experience at CHOP. But then, when you go to the adult side, there’s such a difference. When you’re in the hospital, you’re just sitting there. They don’t have anything for you to do. That’s something I want to advocate for - things to do in adult hospitals. We’re still people, you know? We still like to do things. 

Having a compassionate medical provider also makes such a difference. I just recently had an experience with a nurse named Peter. I was upset, because they had me in the ER all day. Then I finally came up at 6:00, and my emotions were just haywire. I was crying, and Peter calmed me down. He told me, “Calm down, calm down, you’re going to be ok.” He was a good nurse. He was such a good nurse. And then my heart doctor, Dr. Hasni, came in. I was still crying, and he told me, “You have such a beautiful spirit. I love your smile. We are going to take care of you. I just wanted to come by and say hi.” So, he’s a very, very good doctor.

The quote I picked is by Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes. I used this same quote once in 7th grade and then when I graduated in 12th grade. “Dreams are hopeless aspirations in hopes of coming true, believe in yourself, the rest is up to me and you.” She’s saying that dreams are hopeless on their own. But if you believe in yourself, you can make them happen. I’ve always loved that quote. I have so many dreams, and I’m approaching them; I’m hoping I get them. And I will get them, because it’s up to me.

I want to become a sign language interpreter. I also want to be a teacher. My dream is to teach at CHOP or to be able to interpret at CHOP. I want to help kids who are deaf or parents who are deaf. If everything looks good, I believe I’ll graduate from community college next year. I also love to cook. One of my dreams is to go on one of those shows. I’m not a pro, but if they have an amateur cooking show, I would love to go on it. I have so many places I want to go, like Bali and Thailand and Africa. Once I get my kidney, those are my dreams.

So that’s my story. It’s really been a journey for me with my health. That’s been my life- my health.

My mom is my number one supporter. She’s never left my side. I love her love her love her to death. She got diagnosed with breast cancer in 2022. She kept having pains, and I told her, “Mom, mom, get your mammogram.” So she got her mammogram, and I remember the night they called her and told her she had breast cancer. I cried so much. Like, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.” But they told her it wasn’t even in a stage yet. That’s how early they caught it. She had surgery in April of 2022 to remove the cancer, and then she had to do 19 rounds of radiation. By July of 2022, she was breast cancer free. So, we’ve been through everything together. She’s my number one supporter. She’s my backbone. She’s my advocate when I can’t speak. She’s a great great great great mom. And I’m just so lucky to have her. I’m so blessed to have her. 

My name is Tarita. I’m Lexi’s mom. 

God blessed me with a wonderful daughter. It’s a joy being Alexia’s mother. Has the journey been challenging? Absolutely. It’s been overwhelming. Lexi has been in and out of the hospital since the start of life. But this is just a part of her life. I’m here; I’m all the way in. That’s my girl. 

It has definitely been a rollercoaster ride. Up and down. But through the journey, through the process, we have met some fabulous people. We really truly have. All relationships, whether they are for a season, a reason, or a lifetime, matter to us. Some of these people we’ll never see again, but we’ll remember them. Developing relationships with doctors matters to us. We’ve met some good people and unfortunately some not-so-good souls. You have to humble yourself to find a way to continue to pray for people like that. Even though you might want to react and respond like they did to you, we always have to stay humble. Our goal is to get a kidney, to get healthy, and to be aligned in our mind, body, soul, and spirit. So, sometimes it’s worth it to just be quiet, take it, and build your muscles up. I tell Lexi that all the time. You have to be humble.

Sometimes you feel like you’re at the bottom of the pit, but because I’m spiritual, I believe in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. And he said, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” Through it all, God has been really good to Lexi. She’s a great person.

I don’t like comparing myself to other people, so I don’t. I know what people mean when they say, “Oh, remember, someone else is always going through worse,” but I’m like, “Really? That doesn’t make me feel any better!” So it gives me an opportunity to pray even more, to get in tune with God even more. The sun is shining today, so I appreciate it. You know, we’ve been going through other challenges, not just health-related, and I pray for balance and alignment. And through the course of the journey, I appreciate meeting good people. God knows that.

It’s a pleasure being Lexi’s mom. I love her beyond the moon, a gazillion times over. She's just amazing, and she continues to inspire me. I am so grateful that she shared her experience with The Quote Project with me. 

My nephew’s father calls Lexi his “no limits soldier.” I say she’s my real earth angel. Like a real live butterfly. She has a lot of phases. She always floats back, I say. She’s a great person. May God bless her always with peace, love, joy, light, hope, and so much more.