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Empowered by Hope
You want the best possible quality of life for your child regardless of diagnosis or prognosis. Raising a child with medical complexities is often lonely, scary and overwhelming. Join two parents of amazing children with rare medical complexities, Emily K. Whiting and Ashlyn Thompson, to get help and grow with them into empowered advocates for our kids. Here you’ll find a community of support, encouragement, education and resources, equipping you to navigate your child’s medical complexities with hope. To get more personal support, connect with us directly at www.ParentEmpowermentNetwork.org.
Empowered by Hope
"Keep Your Head Up": Dr. Tasha Faruqui on Anticipatory Grief, Joy, and a Mother’s Fierce Hope
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How do you hold on to hope when you know your child is dying—and there’s no diagnosis, no cure, and no roadmap forward?
Co-hosts, Ashlyn Thompson & Ashley Milbourne are joined by Dr. Tasha Faruqui—award-winning pediatrician, rare disease parent, and now debut author—who invites us into the heart of her story, which inspired her forthcoming memoir: Keep Your Head Up: A Mother’s Story of Chasing Joy in the Face of Grief, releasing September 16, 2025.
Dr. Faruqui's second daughter, Soraya, was born with a rare, undiagnosed condition that remains a mystery more than thirteen years later. Though trained in medicine, Tasha found herself unprepared for the emotional and existential weight of parenting a child with a limited life expectancy. What she searched for—but couldn’t find—was guidance through anticipatory grief: the complex, quiet mourning that begins long before loss. So, she wrote the book she needed—one that shines a compassionate and unflinching light on this often-overlooked experience faced by so many families.
Keep Your Head Up is not only a memoir—it’s a love letter to parents navigating the unthinkable. With honesty, warmth, and hard-earned wisdom, Dr. Faruqui offers a blueprint for how to keep living, loving, and even laughing in the midst of prolonged uncertainty. Through this conversation, she opens up about how she balances motherhood with medicine, why self-care is not selfish, and how her definition of hope shifted from curing her daughter to cherishing her—one beautiful, present moment at a time.
✨ Keep Your Head Up is available September 16, 2025. Pre-orders are available now on Amazon.
✨ 100% of proceeds will benefit organizations close to the Faruqui family’s heart.
This isn’t just a conversation—it’s a glimpse into the soul of a book that will change the way we think about parenting, medicine, and what it means to keep showing up with love. If you’ve ever faced the unknown, this is the episode—and the story—you didn’t know you needed.
Join her Instagram community (@thefaruqui5) for real-time insights, resilience, and inspiration!
We kindly ask that you share this podcast with other families who might benefit from our insights and support. Additionally, please take a brief moment to leave a review on your preferred podcast platform, which helps us to reach as many families as possible who are navigating this challenging journey, so they can find our support circle and access the assistance they rightfully deserve. No one should walk this journey alone.
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Join the Parent Empowerment Network Community of Hope
Get your copy of She is Charlotte: A Mother’s Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Journey with Her Child with Medical Complexities by Emily K Whiting on Amazon
Whether you've just been blindsided by your child's diagnosis or you've been in the trenches of their complex medical needs for a while, Empowered by Hope, is here for you, Though we wish you didn't know this heartache. We're so glad you found us so together we can walk this journey in hope.
Speaker 1:Welcome everyone to Empowered by Hope podcast. It's your co-host, ashley, and Ashlyn Still fun to say, isn't it? And we are here today to bring you a. We say every interview is special because I mean they truly are.
Speaker 1:It is always an honor to meet somebody in their story, on their journey and allow them to share things that are so personal with us, because that's one of the ways that we find connection. That's one of the ways that we find our circle right. We talk so much about our support circle on Parent Empowerment Network, how essential it is to surround yourself with people who can meet you at that heart-to-heart level and who, even if their circumstances aren't the same as yours from a soul level, they can relate to yours. And when you have that connection with people, it's unbelievable the power that comes from that relationship, that the knowledge that you can gain from those people. And so part of our podcast is always keeping an eye out for those people who are shining light into the world, so that we can one help them share their light, help them shine brighter, but also shine their light on you. And I just realized I'm going right along with this whole star shining power theme, unintentionally, but it's obviously on my mind, and it's very fitting because today we have the honor of introducing you to I think they call it a star seed in astrology and whatnot Somebody who is here to truly make a difference in the world. And they do nothing but shine goodness and positivity and teach us through the good, the bad, the ugly and the unimaginable.
Speaker 1:And I am so excited to introduce you all to Dr Tasha Faruqi. I am so excited to introduce you all to Dr Tasha Faruqi. She is not only a pediatrician which check, that's perfect for our listeners, right but you are a powerhouse mom. You are an incredible wife, an amazing, talented speaker. And, to top it off, let's just go ahead and officially add author to the top of your resume in big, bold, flashing bright letters saying come check her out as quickly as possible because you have a story to be told and it needs to be heard by everyone possible. So I'm just going to go ahead and tell you all right now that this is one you're going to want to hit save and then you're going to want to hit share. So with that, dr Tasha, welcome to Empowered by Hope. How are you today?
Speaker 3:I am great. Thank you so much for that amazing, incredible introduction. You're so welcome.
Speaker 1:Ashley, do you want to tell everybody why we have been fangirling so hard over Tasha the last few weeks since we learned that we would have the honor of having her on here?
Speaker 4:Yes, you know, we actually found Dr Tasha on Instagram and shared it with me and, of course, I'm like sobbing in the first, like you know, few Instagram posts that I watched. But so Dr Tasha's daughter, soraya, is sick, and you but then to be able to see your perspective and your daughter's perspective, it is just literally I have chills. It's been just inspirational to watch it, honestly, and I'm so excited that others will get to you know that haven't found you already on social media, on Instagram or wherever else.
Speaker 4:I'm excited that they'll have the opportunity now, because it really is just, it is special to hear you guys speak. It really is.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:I want to share that we actually were very fortunate to have a direct referral to Tasha from Make-A-Wish. And yeah, I don't think I may not have even shared that with you, Ashley, Cause once I get excited I just go yeah. So Ashley is the one for details. I am the one for design set and bright lights, like big picture. But yeah.
Speaker 1:So I learned about you through a Make-A-Wish contact who we had been talking to, actually about the Cody Dorman family in Kentucky, and when I was talking to them about that, I asked, I said, do you have any parents who you feel like would appreciate the opportunity to come on a podcast whose story they'd like to share that we could support? And she did not have to think for two seconds. She immediately got excited and said let me reach out to this amazing mom, but I promise you're going to want to have her on your podcast. And she was so right. And the reason well, there's lots of reasons that we have you on here today, but we're going to hand it over to you in just a moment, because that's who everybody is really here to listen to Is that you are getting ready to release your first book as an author.
Speaker 1:Like I said and I love the name it's Keep your Head Up. Name it's Keep your Head Up. And I just want to go ahead. And, Dr Tasha, would you please just go ahead and dive into who you are and how you have become an author. What has really led to this incredible feat of yours to write a book, because that is no small thing on top of the incredibly intense day-to-day life that you are living?
Speaker 3:Yes, so who am I Now? That is the question, and I do feel like, with the experiences that I've had and many medical parents have had, is I am still figuring it out. I don't think that I ever was growing up thinking, oh, I want to write a book. That was never part of the plan and I think that is part of the story. Is, what is our plan? And when those plans don't happen, the way that we imagine them, how do we let those dreams crumble? How do we grieve them, how do we rebuild them and how do we really embrace the life that's in front of us? And I think, to be completely honest, I'm still figuring it out.
Speaker 3:I think I wear a lot of hats, like many parents do. I'm a physician and as a pediatrician. I really had put so much of my identity in my career and in my mind that would be the hardest feat that I would ever have. I've always wanted to be a mother, but, like many people, I just imagined my story to be very different. And as far as adding the author, that came a lot later and it was something that I actually resisted, but something that I was pulled towards. What I realized is, in the journey of having a child with complex needs and honestly, I really feel like it relates to having a child with any unexpected diagnosis you know it's not severity, it's not prognosis, it's anything that you didn't imagine or plan for. It feels really isolating and I think what dawned on me was when I had Soraya, I was already a physician, I had gone through training, I had gone through training of what it's like to care for families that have complex needs, or so I thought. And when I was in that space I realized that I knew nothing, that I didn't really get the exposure or did I hang on to those experiences that I really should have. And when I was in that space I felt so alone and I also felt like I should also be the most equipped person on this planet of community to find somebody else that was in a space. And I think it was really tricky because I wore this medical hat and so you know I could go towards my colleagues, but they were my colleagues. And then there's this whole thing with HIPAA, right. So if I ask my physicians, do you know any other families that even have anything similar? There are all these barriers to that. And then if you are working in your community.
Speaker 3:As a professional, it's very hard to approach families that I know of, to then be a part of the community. There is just. I tried so hard to keep everything divided. I tried so hard to be multiple identities, and it hasn't been until, honestly, within the past year that I've let everything just merge. I don't know who I am, but I'm all of it. I'm not one or the other, I'm not just a wife, I'm not just a mother, I'm not just a doctor, you're all of it.
Speaker 3:And I think that's been a really big realization for me that I'm just starting to be comfortable, feeling uncomfortable. I think that, while I have my Instagram account, I haven't had that for very long. I just started it like a year ago, from November. So many of my patients had no idea that I even had a child with complex needs and many of the families that had found my account I'd been caring for their families for 10 years and they just had no idea. And to build these separate yet professional, yet personal relationships and then have that part of me not be open was challenging and I didn't know how to navigate it. So, going back to the book, I was really trying to find somebody to connect with and I was really struggling. When you go to online I would find blogs, I'd find parenting blogs, and I will say that many of them I felt like I didn't fit in and it was the part of maybe the medicine aspect or the doctor that missed something. And then I would feel like, ooh, but that fits too close to home, because that could be me, I could have missed something. And you know, I just kept searching and then once I like was had my like footing into multiple, like parent groups, I could I could kind of get my fix. But what had really shifted is when Soraya went from having a you know she has an undiagnosed disease, and so I think there is there's acceptance in one, knowing that your child will have complex needs that will never be cured, and then two, having the acceptance that we may never have a name. But then I've had reassurance that she was still meeting milestones, we're still like making progress. And then when it hit me that she is dying, that her body is weakening, that there is no cure at this point, that doesn't mean you lose hope, but the reality of the evidence that's in front of me is this is happening.
Speaker 3:It was a whole different push. That push was how do you live when you know that your child is dying? What is the space that we're in between here and her death? When you're a wife, when you're a doctor, when you're a mother to two neurotypical children that also need you, how do you do that? How do I go from a hospice meeting to swim practice? These are the questions that I had from my medical team and I was like, no really, how do people do this? And nobody could give me that answer. I then was like do you have books? Do you have websites? Can you connect me to families? And I just got a lot of like blank looks.
Speaker 3:I went to the hemlock department to look for, you know, maybe there were patients that have cancer and there are books about that journey, and if they knew that there's not a cure, and I just couldn't find anything that I could really relate to. There were a lot of books about after a child passes and the grief that a parent feels, but I couldn't find anything. And in this time I talked to my friends about how do I do this, how do I find this? I started going on these little mental retreats with my friends and my family, where it was like I would disconnect, I would meditate, I would do some self-care, and my husband and I kind of did this separate from each other. But we knew that these are the things that we needed to do to kind of like recalibrate, and in those spaces I would make some really big changes. And one of the things that I had done was meet with a grief counselor and I had signed up for this.
Speaker 3:And the grief counselor is thinking that I have lost somebody. And they're like okay, let's have a one-on-one session, tell me who you've lost. I'm like I haven't lost her yet, but I'm grieving now. I want you to help me. How do I prepare? What do I do?
Speaker 3:And as I'm sharing my story and the things that I've been doing, this grief counselor is crying and I'm like I don't know. Does she cry with every client? Like I'm not sure? And she was like you know you could write the book right. And I was like no, I don't know what I'm doing, I need you to help me. And I was like I don't have time to write a book, like I can't write a book. And she's like you could teach the class. And I'm like no, like I'm coming to you, I am actually paying you, you need to help me and I'm like I've actually always have wanted to like go viral, right. So I was like maybe I can have like a tick tock and like going into like I'm not writing a book. I'm not writing a book, I'm not a good writer I don't.
Speaker 3:And so I had dinner with my friends and my family that went with me on this weekend and I was telling them about my experience and I was like, yeah, I think I'm going to skip the book and I'm going to do TikTok. And my friends are like you're not going to be able to handle the comments, you aren't going to be able to handle the negativity, like you're already like mama bear, like if somebody says something you will snap. And they're like we really think you should do the book. And I was like, oh my gosh, really Like oh, I don't know, and all the doubt. And I felt like I was given this gift of time and space to make a difference, to come back, recharge that I almost owed it to myself, to do something scary, to do something big. And it was that trip that I was like, okay, I'm going to do this.
Speaker 3:I'm very risk averse in general, but when I came home I had told my husband I'm investing in this, I am going to set aside time every week and I am going to work on a book and I'm going to write a book. And I will tell you I have no experience in marketing, publishing, writing, don't know anything about how to write a book and I went for it and I honestly am glad that it was somewhat uncalculated, somewhat not researched, because I think I would have gotten in my own head and I would have seen how hard it is to find an agent, to get published or to do self-publishing or hybrid publishing. There's so many things about book writing that I think the details in itself can be really discouraging, but it was the message. The other part of that was really having permission from Soraya and my girls, because that's a really big thing. It's not my story, it's our story and I really have an incredible family that was completely supportive. We're all at different levels of how much we feel comfortable sharing, but the one person is Soraya and she wants this to be her legacy. She was ecstatic when I started the Instagram account and that was really to create a space for anticipatory grief and again, I never found that circle that you guys talk about.
Speaker 3:Who is in your circle? I have amazing friends and family that do their best to understand, but I don't have anybody in it with me. This community of strangers has been incredible as I wrote it for others has really helped myself and my family as I process all the things that you know we've gone through, that I had. When you, when you go back and you and you look back at all that you have gone through and where you're at, it just really helps reevaluate things and give you perspective on on how to put that one foot in front of the other. And while I've been looking for how to live my life, it's already always been there. It's just a matter of uncovering it, giving it time, giving it love, giving it permission and having everybody on board, and so that was really I mean, it's it's a long story on what, what drove me, but it had to take all of that and a whole lot of fear and a whole lot of risk to just do it.
Speaker 1:Well, okay, I'm just going to put this out there into the universe. First off, thank you for I'm my thoughts are actually very focused. Usually my mind is like running a million directions because I get excited with questions and and I still feel that. But you just pulled me in so deep that I feel like we just just felt like a really sacred space that you just shared with us. So thank you for that, and I'm also going to just put it out there into the universe that within the next few years, only because of production time, I cannot imagine this not turning into some type of Netflix docuseries or something like that, because what you just shared is that powerful, is that important, and I can already tell you that you know, I as somebody I'm honored to be in the position I am with Parent Empowerment Network and we're very intentionally non-diagnosis and non-prognosis specific.
Speaker 1:We share that in all of our literature because we never want to exclude. But thank you so much for really like shining a light on the reality that it surprises me that there is not a more carved out space for that anticipatory grief. And you know Ashley is our secretary on our board, so Ashley had just helped me remember, just to put a little bit of you know, to make sure that we've got a note on that, that we reevaluate our strategy after our gala in May, that this is something that we need to address and intentionally spend time looking into. And, dr Tasha, I'm just going to put it out there now that I would be so honored to be able to use you as a reference and be able to share your book as a resource for that. But I'm just blown away. Like I said, as somebody who's lost several people in their life, I am so impressed and proud of you and want to point out how much courage and humility it takes to reach out and get that help Granted.
Speaker 1:I don't know that the experience with the grief counselor was what you expected it to be. It sounds like it was not. Hopefully it did turn out for the better. But that is such a huge gift, truthfully, that we, as parents and caregivers, deserve, and our children deserve, for us to seek that support and gain that support.
Speaker 1:I would love for you to talk a little bit more Tasha about. You know you said you were telling yourself I don't have time to do this, I don't know how to do this. Like you know very much excluding yourself from being able to do this, and I think a ton of parents, myself included there have been times where I've known I've needed to do something or wanted to do something I've known would be good for me, whatever it would be, but have told myself, let that voice, I don't have time to do that, or if I have the time to do that, I should be spending it on something else, something that's for my family, for my child or sometimes, honestly, even other families who are looking for help. How did you work through that? And I'd love for you to share any words of encouragement or advice with any parent or caregiver who is struggling to take that step of doing something for themselves.
Speaker 3:I think that anything that I do in order for me to get out and actually do it has to stem from looking at how it impacts my family, and so I'm going to say that for any parents that are having a hard time doing this quote, unquote self-care I look at it as this will only help my family, that taking time away and having me recharged will make me a better mother. The joke in my house is I am a better human with coffee, right, so like this is yes. So this is literally just on a bigger scale, like if you were to take away my coffee, I couldn't function, and so on a much broader, bigger scale. This book, while it has helped me, was never for me. While it has helped me, was never for me. It is something that I did and the byproduct has been helping me, but that impact impacts my entire family. And now the message is even larger than that.
Speaker 3:And the other part is I always imagine how do you want your kids to be and what do you want them to see. And that gets me where it's like even if it's something like a date night with my husband, and I'm like, oh, that's like time away from the family. It's like well, when my girls grow up and they have a partner in their life, how would I want them to be treated and how would I want them to take care of themselves if they were in this situation. And whether that's like like tricking my mind, I don't know, but I have that same, that guilt, you know, like it's this mom guilt of like taking time for yourself. But if you run yourself ragged, there's nothing left. There's nothing left to give, there's it really could negatively impact your family.
Speaker 3:As far as the book, one of the unexpected things that came of it is me working on it every week gave me something to look forward to. It was my hope, it was my dream, it was my pain into purpose, where, in those moments where I'm like, why is this happening? I can't do this. This day is so hard that that little carved out time for the book was something that I looked forward to and it helped me. You know, over like the year and a half that I had worked on it, I really think that it anchored me and like led me to keep going in a way that I don't. I don't know what else would have if I, if I didn't do that, and so, while that wasn't the intention, that was really what had happened.
Speaker 4:Wow, that's beautiful. What an encouraging message for all of us. Because the mom guilt is so intense and and you know, like when you think with your brain, you know like that it's wrong and that you shouldn't feel that way and it is better if you take that time so that you can be a better parent. But it's hard to it's hard to like keep telling yourself that and make you like follow through with it right before you talk yourself out of it and you're like no, but I need to do this other stuff instead, or I need to like you know, whatever it is. I loved hearing you say that because I I like crave those reminders like regularly, that like we have to do that. You know, and it doesn't matter how severe or unsevere your situation is like it's so important as a mom or as a dad or whoever to get that time because you're right Like you, it makes you better. I really do believe that when I'm not feeling the mom guilt, Exactly I mean it is.
Speaker 3:It's truly all about quality too, right Like it's like if you're taking that time away, you're going to appreciate the time that you have with your, with your children and and your family, knowing that you have time away. And so I think that it really helps put things in perspective. And you know secretly or not so secretly the things that I've been doing in practice is I have conversations with all my parents and I know it's not very customary or typical, but I'll ask parents what they're doing to care for themselves and I'll give parents permission. I never was trained that way. We've never talked about this in medicine, at least when I was training like, oh, make sure the parents are taking time for themselves. And so I don't know what my families think that, why I'm talking about these things, but I will go there, I'll be like you know, have you guys gone on a date? Do you have time to like sleep? What are you doing that's fun for you? Like what are you binge watching? And I think these are little ways that we can give people permission, because there is just so much internal pressure, societal pressure, and just so much weight that falls onto parents and specifically mothers and what we're supposed to accomplish.
Speaker 3:The other thing that I have been guilty of, that I'm really trying to help combat in teaching residents and teaching med students, is the biases that we have with mothers. Like here we are, we're talking about being a medical mom, but who are you? Who were you before? That Like, I just feel like people just expect you to be stay at home mom, like that you never had any dreams or aspirations on your own that this is what you have been wanting to do your whole life. And so here it is and I oftentimes will ask what were you doing before you had this child? What were you doing before you were a full-time caregiver?
Speaker 3:There are elements of all of us that just get pushed to the side and, just like writing this book, there are. There's got to. I know everybody has it. It's like these, like internal, like nudges or these feelings, and that we just constantly suppress it, like I don't have time for this, like keep going. But it's like almost like nourish that. Like if you get a nudge and you get a feeling and you're like, ooh, I don't know if that's possible, like take a minute to hear that, and I'm sure there was something similar for you guys to create this organization that you have where there's gotta be a part of you that are like, oh, like, how will we do this? Like any good big idea has to come with something scary and with a risk, but it's like tuning into that a little bit more.
Speaker 4:Oh my gosh, I love you talking about two things that you're talking to parents about, taking a minute. I can just say, as a mom that is game changing for those parents, and I know you know that's now too, because you're living it. But I'll never forget. We were in the um, I was in the PICU with Maren and this was like probably like month five of hospital for me, consecutive almost and there was the sweetest older doctor and I literally like not left her side, like at all, and he pulled me aside after rounds Like you know, we did rounds at like six every morning and he was like you have not left here, get out, like.
Speaker 4:Like the nurse can take care of Maren, she will be sleeping for some of it. Get out of here, please, like. He was like the nurse can take care of Maren, she will be sleeping for some of it. Get out of here, please, like. And he was so sweet about it, but he was I like started bawling and I was like I can't leave her. He was like, yes, you can Like. You cannot do this for this long at this rate and I will never forget him. So thank you for doing that for other parents, because that like I'm going to cry. That was life changing for me and it and I do think about him, like when I don't want to leave or don't want to take a break now like I think about him telling me to get out I needed, I needed permission and it wasn't.
Speaker 4:I think I left for like 10 minutes.
Speaker 4:I took a shower but I needed someone to tell me it was okay, and so thank you for doing that for other parents, because I do think that's like huge. Um. And one more thing I want to comment on before I forget, because I think this is big. I feel like and maybe, ashlyn, you feel the same Like I always kind of tell people like I went to mom at school because they're like how do you know how to do this stuff with Marin, or how did you do this?
Speaker 4:And I'm like, well, I didn't go to med school but I feel like I had a crash course, Right, and but I always thought like what if I had cause?
Speaker 4:That was one thing I thought about doing when I was younger and I was like God, maybe I could have been a better mom. But for you to say that you felt you did that and you still felt like unequipped, almost like that just was a little like I hate that you felt that way, but it was a little. It made me feel a little bit better. Like you know, I could, like I would have felt the same way had I gone to med school and I did the best I could anyways. And so thank you for sharing that too, because that was surprising to me that you felt that way, I think. Thank you for sharing that too, because that was surprising to me that you felt that way, I think. But just, I don't know, it was cool to hear that take on it too, Like I might not have been able to do anything better or different for Maren than what I already did.
Speaker 3:I 1000% believe that, thousand percent believe that and I truly, when I teach residents I say parents know more about their child and what they need than any subspecialist, than any physician, and I truly believe that. I think I'm disappointed that I didn't know more. So if that validates how you're feeling, ashley, I'm really glad, but I am really sad that I do this for a living and these are the aspects that I'm struggling with that I feel like are the most important and that's really tough, I also feel. And that's really tough I also feel. I mean I don't want to like self-deprecate myself about my pediatrician skills, but I do feel like the things that make me the best physician are all things because I'm Soraya's mother. They have very little to do what I learned in organic chemistry or anatomy and have so much more with navigating the system and knowing what treatments could be helpful and what therapies are worth it and how to take a break and where to find the best babysitters for medically complex kids. I feel like those are the things that I am most helpful for, or these are the secret things.
Speaker 3:You get to the appointment. You have done everything you can to get your kid. Get them on time. The first thing I do when I walk into a room I'll say do you need to use the restroom? I got your kid and I have my residents being like, what are you doing? Like they don't know about SRI. They're like why would you ask that? I'm like you have no idea the work it takes to get to an appointment. Like it was like studying for an exam the night before. You have to prep everything by the door, you have your questions, so they're ready to go, and then you have to like hurry up and wait, because you just plan on being there the whole day that you forget to eat, you forget to pee, so like I always do that.
Speaker 3:Or if a child's resting after the appointment, I'm like there's no rush to get out, you just stay in here as long as you need. Or if you need to do a tube feed, or if you need to do a diaper change or if you need to do whatever. We've got a sink, we've got a restroom. These are the things that I make such a great intention to do, but I know that I didn't learn this. I didn't learn this in med school.
Speaker 3:So yes, for all the parents out there, you are your child's best advocate. You are your child's best caregiver. The only thing that I will say that the medical degree helps you with is a little bit more of the advocacy, which is just like sad that you have to kind of be in the system to know how to work the system and the things that you guys have learned. You've had to work a little harder or have things go maybe not the way you expect it before you become a little bit more assertive to get what you need, because you know those are the types of ways that you have to get them, absolutely Wow.
Speaker 4:Well, I don't think that's self-deprecating on your pediatrician skills. I think you're the most well-rounded pediatrician probably in the world, because I mean, you obviously have both right, like you've got the med school and you're great at what you do, I'm sure because you're doing it still, and so I don't know. I just think I think that makes you an incredible physician and your patients are lucky to have you for sure, cause those are all things that no one else would think about the bathroom break, like that's crazy, and also I, I, I really feel the need to say like there is no self-deprecation and I would almost challenge you to reconsider your thinking about, like you know, a sense of any sense of disappointment you would have about.
Speaker 1:You know how you practice originally and what you've learned. I mean your meds. You know your degree allowed you to be able to become a pediatrician. Right, that was step one, but life is, you have allowed life to evolve you and that, to me, is the greatest lesson that you know. I would hope that other pediatricians that you know residents are picking up from you is allowing themselves to be. And I've watched this, I've watched it several times and his scene about you know, the whole idea of stay curious.
Speaker 1:stay curious in life. What a game changer that is. And, honestly, like staying curious was a game changer for me as an advocate Asking questions, asking why somebody is saying the things they say, and asking doctors why are you saying this, or what is making you feel that, or why are you choosing this route over this, or why do you feel negatively about something and not saying it in a combative way? I think one of the greatest things that we can do on the parent side when we're working with our children's medical team is put ourselves at the table with them. We want to sit down at the table and we deserve the head seat at the table. I do firmly believe that, but it's not a seat of power so much as we're the ones who know our children better than anybody, because we're with them the most. We know. You know, we're seeing the side effects, we're seeing the signs, we're seeing the things that we know how to read about our children that, frankly, nobody else on this planet can, because you're just not. That's the beautiful connection of being a parent, is that there's this internal language that you share with your children that nobody else is meant to, and that's okay. But working with our medical team and with the alignment of a shared goal of helping our child reach the greatest quality of life that is available, that's where I personally have experienced the most magic and and I would say you know we have. We are very fortunate in our story that we have had miracles occur and it took us to another country for that to happen. And I bet you just you're blowing me away.
Speaker 1:I want to move on to your. I want to make sure that we leave time to really dive into your book. Keep your head up, really talk about like this conversation is just. I love letting these conversations go where they need to. I firmly believe that that. That is what happens. The one thing I just feel really compelled to say after listening to the both of you talking about mom guilt or parent guilt. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:I started just visualizing the Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio. Then I don't know if anybody's seen Pinocchio. Jiminy Cricket is supposed to serve as kind of the conscience, right? I think so often we confuse guilt with our conscience. We believe that that voice that is speaking guilt to us is the guiding voice, the right verse, wrong, and what we want you to know through Parent Empowerment Network is guilt is your paranoid best friend. It is a voice that is all emotion and it is just looking out for you, but it is a hypochondriac. Everything is very extreme and it is a great guide to help you be aware of what's most important to you or what are you most worried about. But add that layer of staying curious.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm feeling guilty about this, but, like you said, ashley, you're able to use your your when you tap into your reasoning brain. Right, you can. You can become logical and realize okay, leaving the house for 50 minutes to 90 minutes is not going to make my child feel deserted and I know for a fact, like my house, my children have now been asking when do we get a babysitter again, like what you know, like that's been an experience. But, like I said, you can allow guilt to talk to you about the things that you're concerned, you know concerned about, and you can take measures to kind of help alleviate those concerns. But don't confuse it with your conscience of that is your right or wrong. That is your true north for your compass. Your true north and your compass, it's those gut feelings, those gut feelings, that, that, what those nudges.
Speaker 1:You know that you were talking about, and I think those nudges are the things that start to say I really need some me time, but I don't want to admit it, or man, I don't really remember the last time I felt like I was married. I'm pretty like, cause we've been living like roommates who are nurses, you know like that's it. And those are the nudges to listen to, and if you're struggling with that, just rewind and please listen to everything that Tasha and Ashley said, because it was fantastic. So I just wanted to put a period on that because I felt, like you two, just it was a really, really powerful conversation and you two both brought up some really excellent points that we all any parent needs reminders of. So thank you for that.
Speaker 1:And now I would love, love, love, let's. Let's use our remaining 15 minutes or so to dive into. Keep your Head Up. You gave us a great kind of overview of the purpose of the book, but what is most important to you? If you had to pick the one thing that you want a reader to get from your book after they've read it from start to finish and they put it down, what is your hope for those, for your readers experiences and, granted, each reader will be coming from a different background. I understand that, but what does your heart hope happens with your book?
Speaker 3:I do think that there's been a lot of life that has been lived after I have written the book, meaning that there's so many more lessons that I have learned after completing the book. With this book, what I wasn't expecting by the time that I had finished it was it's a memoir. So it's a journey of, not the aspect of being a parent, but it goes into who I was, what I wanted and that evolving, and so what will be taken away, I hope, is that permission to evolve and grow, because early Tasha was not about that and it really is more of a universal theme than I had anticipated. I had written it for parents of any children with any unexpected diagnosis, as well as clinicians, to help them realize the stories that are carried with the families that they treat. Many times, way before they meet the families Like again, who were these people?
Speaker 3:So it's a memoir of you know, of me, my life, our family, and then it gets into our journey. But it's not just a sequence of events. It's really about that impact and that journey and that evolving. So I do hope that it will help physicians create even more impact with their families. I do hope that it will help any parent that has a child with any diagnosis feel less alone and honestly, I think it would relate with any parent in general, of any type of children, just wanting to have the best for their child, regardless of any diagnosis, whether they're neurotypical or not. And overall, there are some overarching themes of grief in the idea of losing the dream, the dream that you had had, and I think that there's an element of that for everybody and I think that everybody on earth, if they haven't experienced grief, they will, and maybe not in the same way that I have or I will.
Speaker 4:But I think there's a lot more universal themes than I had initially expected and anticipated when I wrote the book.
Speaker 1:It sounds like we all need to be reading this book.
Speaker 3:When is Keep your Head Up expected to be released?
Speaker 1:It'll be released September 16th and pre-orders will be out this summer. Okay, which we will be sharing, and.
Speaker 1:I want to take a moment to let people know that when you hear an author, anybody talking about pre-ordering the book and you think, why would I pre-order the book? I'll just wait and order it. Pre-order the book. One, so you don't forget. Two, it helps the author and it helps the book do well. So don't wait.
Speaker 1:It is really important to pre-order your books anytime you're excited about it. Just think of it as a way to support the author that you know you're excited to read their story. So we will be. We would be honored to be sharing that announcement this summer. As those, those updates roll out, I wanted to ask you, as far as themes Thank you for explaining that, say, one of the themes has to do with the almost breaking down our that, that natural inclination to, to put our identity into these very defined boxes and and realizing, like you said, like you are a mother and a wife and a physician and you know somebody who is grieving but also, like you know, celebrating things at the same time, that all of those things do coexist.
Speaker 1:It's not nice and neat and orderly, it's not. There's this time for this and there's this time for that, that really giving you know, that grace to ourselves, to realize that we're not, you know, a planner book. Our identities aren't meant to live so separately. Is that part of what comes out of this book? I just want to see if I'm understanding it correctly.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I mean there is. I think when you say we are not a planner book, I think that's how I saw life. I saw life as a planner book. So, as much as I am here to you know, shout from the rooftops that that's not it. I'm also first to admit that that's who I was.
Speaker 3:I really thought that med school would be the hardest thing that I would ever have to encounter. I truly believed in these fallacies that if something hard happens to you, that you won't have anything else hard happen at all, like you get a limit. And I also believe that bad things don't happen to good people. And I just realized the surrender right, the surrender of the control that I never had in the first place. And so, yes, the book is about that. But it also just shows how strict I was with my thinking, unflexible, and how I was pushed and pushed to be flexible, permeable and ready to transform. And it had to do with having the hardest thing that I could ever imagine be the most beautiful thing that I could have ever. I didn't even know to dream for this, I didn't know it existed. Right, you talk about nice and neat and I'm still learning how to coexist. Coexist with all of it. It's not even grieving period. It is living with grief. It is not feeling guilty for having fun knowing that she's dying. It's all of that.
Speaker 1:Wow your strength. Is All of that, wow I, your strength, yeah, is I would put I can only think of the word immeasurable, the strength that you have developed, and you know I'll, it's not uncommon. We talked to a lot of families, a lot of parents, who are in what I would describe as the early stages of you know, of starting their journey, and it's really our goal to try to meet them as soon as we can to, you know, bolster them and shine a light so that they know that they're not alone and that they can do whatever comes in front of them. You talked about how the book you know having it to one look forward to and you described it as your hope. I would love for you to share with people who you know.
Speaker 1:When you hear your story it's, it would be so easy to think how could she have hope about anything? She's literally talking about living with her child who is dying, who is in hospice, and it's not, it's not fair, it's wrong, it's. You know all of these things and it's very easy to get locked up in those feelings for people, and we never tell anybody that shouldn't feel that way. But it is important to learn to move with those feelings and I'm curious can you explain what is that process been like for you? From acknowledging that you have like the anger and the devastation and the why us, why our daughter?
Speaker 1:I remember asking what am I doing wrong, that God keeps needing to teach me these lessons, that I am I not learning correctly, because these hits keep coming and I'm I am not enjoying the process of telling people my story and then going, oh my gosh, it's been that, that, that, that, that all these different things, this whole life buffet of experiences that I never dreamed of, I never thought I would pick for myself. But here I am and through all of them I can tell you today I like the version of the person I am now so much better than the person who had not gone through those things. But I know that that can be in a like that can feel very I don't know what the word people see Like. Have you ever experienced that where people it's almost like it's feels combative to them to tell you like no, I'm, I see the good too that comes from this awful, and so I'll hand it over to you. I just I can't think of a better person to speak on this frankly.
Speaker 3:I think a couple of things and I and I don't think that the way that I do things may be what will necessarily help every person, because I think that we all do things differently and we all process. Our experience shapes our lens and how we look at things. But I think for me my kind of like breaking point is realizing that Soraya is dying and she's in hospice, because here I've had this journey of putting every bit of energy into every doctor's appointment, every therapy, and I had created a new dream that she is going to live a long life and to have that tore down again. I had almost like two options at that time where I could crumble and I could hide under a rock and not come out and move very inward hide under a rock and not come out and move very inward. And I think that with COVID and everything else, that actually sounded like the right move for me.
Speaker 3:I was just like I'm going to, just like I'm not going to tell anybody about what's happening. It's too sad. I just I'm going to live my doctor life. Nobody has to know what's going on. And things that kind of pushed me were having Sariah's sisters and knowing that they're watching how I'm responding, knowing that I can't keep it a secret, and what's happening with Soraya and how I respond, how I react, will teach them how to live and whether I crumble. I don't want them to crumble. And so for me, in order to prepare them, I started sharing, and it was sharing out of protection, not sharing to inspire, and I felt like, as I shared, I found more people that could either relate or like run the other way, and that's okay. And I realized that there was power in sharing, and so I think you know where you're talking about that hope it's.
Speaker 3:I didn't realize my sharing could help people, and then I looked at it as a superpower, like if I am feeling this alone and somebody's not searching online like how I was, but if I am just shouting as loud as I can and sharing my story with so many people to have that one person and it doesn't have to be a parent. Maybe it's somebody who has a parent that has Alzheimer's and they're going through that anticipatory grief. Whatever it may be, I can help somebody else and there's this bigger picture. There's this bigger picture that it's not Soraya and what's happening to her body. It is not my lesson, but it's a lesson that I can share. That that is the hope. Share that, that is the hope that the hope is. If I can show people how I live, it gives other people an idea that it can be done.
Speaker 3:I don't think everybody should be sharing everything. I don't think that's empowering for everybody. For me it is, and I think that that gives me hope. The other aspect that has really helped in finding hope for us is realizing that when you have everything that's so scary happen to you, it's almost like you have nothing left to fear and those moments of joy are so amplified that we feel so much more happiness than I ever would because we feel the deepest, hardest things, that we find beauty in that and I think that we all recognize it, we all talk about it and I think that helps, like my nuclear family, realize that we feel differently.
Speaker 3:So what's hope to somebody else may be less amplified or more amplified, but when you experience such hard things, I think it only helps. You experience so much more joy and you shift. What does joy mean to you? And unfortunately, or fortunately, I have hope. Sure, let's look for a cure. Let's look for her to get better, but we need something right now. I need something right now and today. If that's a spa day, sponge bath, then I'm going to breathe my daughter in and I am going to soak in that moment and I'm going to look at her face and I'm going to touch her skin and I'm going to soak in that moment and I'm going to look at her face and I'm going to touch her skin and I'm going to be grateful that I could make her smile and and to me, that's what it is today. But I will tell you, 24 year old me would have never thought that that was joy and that that was hope.
Speaker 4:Right, wow, oh, that was beautifully said.
Speaker 1:It really was, tasha. I thank you for that remarkable insight and I am touched at a level that not very many people can always get to and I just, I guess, guess that was uh. Thank you so much. This world is a whole lot better with with the farooqui five in it, and no matter what transpires, I think what you just hit home is that this does not end when ever Soraya's life. When it does end, her impact is not we're not done.
Speaker 3:I always tell her we're not done, she's not done, we're not done.
Speaker 1:And, uh, what a gift that you've shared so many guests with us today. It is truly an honor to to have been in this conversation with you and hear your heart and your soul, your humility, I mean just. I could go on and on, but that's not why people got on here to listen. So I will follow up with you and just send more, more praises. Thank you, to make a wish for this incredible recommendation. Thank you, katie. I'm so glad that you set this, this connection, up. And, tasha, we are thrilled to support you on your journey and we know that your book Keep your Head Up is going to be a massive success. And we know that your book Keep your Head Up is going to be a massive success and we would love to do our part in helping as many people know about it as possible, and we will be sure to share updates and let everybody know when they can pre-order.
Speaker 2:You are capable, you are equipped and you are not alone. Together, we can do hard things for our children. If this episode connected with you and you want to hear more, be sure to hit the subscribe button. We would also love to learn about your personal journey and how we can support you. And, last but not least, if you know of someone who could benefit from this podcast, please share this podcast. Please share.
