Bridging the Gap: Helping People Get the Diabetes Care They Need | Eritrea Mussa
Welcome to My Hero 360! In this important interview, Kerri Fitzgerald talks with Eritrea Mussa who has lived with type 1 diabetes since she was 8 years old and had a subsequent frightening experience with diabetic macular edema (DME), a diabetes-related condition that impacts your eyesight. She feared she might lose her eyesight but with the help of her doctor and appropriate treatment, she was able to manage the condition. Eritrea is committed to educating others on living with diabetes and DME and connecting people to resources to help them manage their condition.
Key Highlights:
- Hear about how Eritrea Mussa participated in several clinical trials when she was younger.
- Learn about the impacts of type 1 diabetes and DME that Eritrea experienced.
- Hear how a treatment called Vabysmo® (faricimab-svoa) helped treat Eritrea’s DME.
- Be inspired by Eritrea’s commitment to shining a light on access and affordability challenges many people face and inspiring others to take control of their condition and their lives.
—
Transcript:
Kerri Fitzgerald:
Hello, and welcome to another installment of My Hero 360. My name is Kerri Fitzgerald. Today, we are highlighting the hero story of Eritrea Mussa. My Hero 360 seeks to amplify the stories of remarkable individuals who inspire others through their words and actions.
Your story does just that. Thank you for joining us today.
Eritrea Mussa:
Thank you so much for having me, Kerri. I’m excited for today.
Kerri Fitzgerald:
To start, can you introduce yourself and just provide some background for our audience?
Eritrea Mussa:
Absolutely. My name is Eritrea Mussa. I was born and raised here in Dallas, Texas, raised for the most part. I think we’re going to get into that a little bit today. Both of my parents are multicultural, so they’re from outside of the country. I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when I was 8 years old and was diagnosed with diabetic macular edema when I was older, in my late 20s. I’ve been living with diabetes for about 23 years now, and I am an advocate and work in the diabetes space as well.
Kerri Fitzgerald:
Excellent. Thank you for joining us. When you and I spoke before this interview, you had mentioned that… Like you said, you were diagnosed when you were 8. You also participated in clinical trials all over the world. Can you tell us a little bit about that experience and what that was like?
Eritrea Mussa:
Yeah. When I was first diagnosed, both my parents, their education comes from other countries and they were just like, “There has to be a way for us to find some type of a solution or cure for her diabetes.” Insulin is not a cure. It’s really just a support system for you to have treatment for your disease. The first thing that my mom did was call people in Mexico, because my mom is from Mexico, and she found a clinical trial that was only a few hours away from my grandmother’s house.
When I was 9… On my 9th birthday, we went to Mexico for me to spend a week in Mexico. My parents got me a dog and let me know that I would not be leaving Mexico. I would be staying with my grandmother, much to my surprise and horror. I would be staying with my grandmother and doing the 4th grade in Mexico while completing this clinical trial. That was my first clinical trial as a child, which was only about 3 to 5 months after my diagnosis. It was really quick. Right after diagnosis, not only did they start the clinical trial, but they also started with diabetes camps. Just really trying to get me as much education about diabetes as possible at my young age. Even when I was in Mexico for the trial, I had so many resources that my parents had already provided me with. That staying with my grandmother alone, even though she’s elderly and I was basically managing my new diabetes by myself, I wasn’t scared or anything. I knew what to do.
Kerri Fitzgerald:
You talked about going to Mexico and spending your 4th grade year there while you were working on the clinical trial. Were there any other lifestyle changes or impacts that you and your family had to navigate as it relates to your type 1 diabetes?
Eritrea Mussa:
At the time when I was living in Mexico with my grandma, I wasn’t… I am one of 4 siblings, so I wasn’t with my brothers. But when I did come home, I noticed that things were a little different. My mom made it a point that we all ate the same meal together. It didn’t matter that I had diabetes. The meal that she was making, she would make it work for diabetes, and everyone else had to make it work for them. Same thing for sports. If we went to school during the day, like if I was here for school, at the end of the day, we’d have dinner as soon as we got home from school so that she had enough time for my blood sugar to settle before we went to karate or gymnastics or whatever our next appointment was.
I think a lot of it was them normalizing the diabetes to everyone around me. It wasn’t like, “She can’t do this because she has diabetes.” It would be, “She can do this, but we need to be careful, and this is what you need to know.” I always felt really empowered by my parents and all of the changes and adaptations, the things that they made so that I could feel comfortable. My name wouldn’t even be Eritrea without my parents. I wouldn’t be anything without them, so I try to be as grateful as I can.
It was really tough for them. Coming to America, my dad was Natal Militia in Africa. My mom put herself through school in Mexico. Both of them, just opposite sides of the planet, and somehow were able to figure this out. There were clinical trials in Mexico, clinical trials in London, clinicals trials in Germany. Really, everything that I am is my parents. I’m so lucky.
Kerri Fitzgerald:
Wow. That’s incredible. That’s beautiful.
Eritrea Mussa:
I love being like, “Oh, don’t talk to me. Talk to Iman. Talk to my friend Muhammad in… Who’s a doctor who graduated in Gaza, now lives in London. Talk to Siti and Farhat, who’s in Lebanon and who did supplies for the Beirut blast. Talk to Nahur, who’s from Abu Dhabi. Talked to Zaira who works for Type One California.” I love being able to connect industry people like you to amazing advocates, people who are living with diabetes and who are incredible.
I wrote a book with my friend Zaira called Type Strong, and it highlights people living with diabetes who have done incredible things. Most of the people in that book are my friends. I can pick up my phone and call Gary Forbes, who’s 1 in 3 people to play back in the NBA with type 1. Or my other friend Lauren, who’s a number 3 draft pick out of Baylor, who’s in the WNBA and now plays in Australia, and be like, “Hey, what’s up, friend? Can you help me? Can you talk to Kerri? Can you talk to so-and-so? Because it’s going to help people with diabetes.”
They’re like, “You know what? Hell yeah, let’s do it.” I feel so lucky that I get to do all of that.
Kerri Fitzgerald:
I’m so glad that you had positive experiences with clinical trials, right? That you want to recommend that to other people, because there’s still fear or stigma or… Rightfully so. But it is an important part of getting new medications that are important or therapeutics that can hopefully help people. It’s great that you have that.
Eritrea Mussa:
The thing I tell folks all the time is I’m willing to be the first so that I can open the door for more people that trust me. I have a good trust with the African American community because I am African American. I have good trust with the Latino community because I am Latino. It’s like, I will go places. Like last year, I got this really great opportunity to go to something called Slipstream, which is hosted by a company called Connected in Motion. It’s an adult type 1 diabetes camp, but not a lot of people of color go. Why?
I went to the camp, and I was like, “Is this a safe place for people of color?” I found out that not only was it a safe place. When there were moments that I felt uncomfortable and I talked to staff, they were like, “Let’s fix this, and this is how we’re going to fix it.” I wanted to promote this to people and be like, “Go to this camp. It is safe there. Check it out.” I think more of my friends are going to these Slipstreams now because they’re like, “That is so cool. That’s so awesome. It’s great that you had a great experience, and now I can go try.”
I am a little bit more brave because my parents would just literally drop me in countries and then run away. I don’t really have a lot of fear about going places with people with diabetes. I am still willing to be that person to show up and be the first one so that I can open the door and be like, “More of us should come here and this is why.” That’s awesome.
Kerri Fitzgerald:
Yeah, that’s wonderful. That’s really great. A few years ago, you had an experience with diabetic macular edema, also known as DME. Can you share that story?
Eritrea Mussa:
Yeah. I love this story. It’s really funny, actually. I’ve always been a really impatient person. I am quick to have a temper. I had been out of town for a while, and my partner at the time, when I came home… I was coming back from a trip that was like Europe, Africa with my dad, like a long trip. I’d been gone for a month. I remember I got home and all the garbage from that month had not been taken out. I was so frustrated. Ladies, if you know.
Like, “Oh my goodness. How could you not do this while I was out of town?” I was so frustrated. It was around the holiday season. I remember us getting into the argument and me being so upset that I felt like I blew a vessel in my eye. That’s all I could think. I was like, “Oh my God.” Because suddenly, I had floaters in my eye while I was screaming at this gentleman. I was like, “Oh my God.” I remember touching my eye and being like, “I’m blind.” I cannot see out of my eye. The argument absolutely no longer being important and it just being like, “What is happening with my eye?” We went to CVS and we got an eye patch because I was like, “This is it. I’m blind now.” We tried our best to get me into an appointment. I have a…
My ophthalmologist has been the same eye doctor for my entire diabetes career. Since I was 9, I’ve had the same eye doctor, Dr. Kardatzke here in Dallas. He referred me to a friend who was like, “I’m going to get you in. Even though it’s the holidays, come see me in the office,” which is around the corner from my parents’ house. I went to go see him. He was like, “Yep, we’ve been keeping an eye on diabetic retinopathy for you for some time now and it’s advanced now to diabetic macular edema. This is not your fault. This is something that happens over time with having diabetes. I’m going to get you in to see my friend who’s a specialist, who’s going to see you the first week of January.”
I was like, “Doctor, it is December 22nd.”
He’s like, “This is the best we can do.” I had to wait. I think that that waiting period was so excruciating because I would go outside and I would look at the sky, and I remember I would take mental pictures. What if this is the last time I could see the sky? Or I would take mental pictures of everything around me and just try to be so rooted in gratitude, so grateful I got to have eyesight for 28 years. Then when I finally went to go see the specialist, who I love him. Dr. Polaski, he’s so great. I can text him right now. We have a really good relationship. The first thing that happened was in that waiting room, every single person was elderly. I was like, “I’m not here with my peers. I’m here with people who are truly losing their eyesight,” which was terrifying.
Until I got in to see him and he was like, “Calm down. That’s not what’s going on. There’s a lot of stuff happening, so let’s talk through what’s going on with your eye. Then we can talk about solutions and what that looks like, and what the prognosis of this disease will be with you.” It was really great. I felt a lot better about it once I got in there and stopped freaking myself out, because that’s really what I was doing.
Kerri Fitzgerald:
Yeah. Were you scared or worried that the vision loss could be permanent?
Eritrea Mussa:
Yeah. I think I was like, my luck with diabetes has run out. When you’ve been living with diabetes for a long time, especially from a young age… Times have changed now in diabetes education. But back then, a lot of it was if you don’t do this, this will happen. If you don’t do this, this will happen. Being 28, 29, I was like, I’ve had diabetes for almost 20 years. Of course, it is happening to me now.
I was terrified that my luck had run out and I was out of it, and I was just going to completely lose my eyesight. But that was not the case at all.
Kerri Fitzgerald:
For people who aren’t aware, can you talk about the link between diabetes and then these eye conditions like diabetic retinopathy, as you mentioned, and DME?
Eritrea Mussa:
Yeah, absolutely. As you live with diabetes, you strain your eyes sometimes, and you can also strain other organs. There are a lot of diabetes complications that can arise from diabetes itself. Over time, the nerves in your eyes, they can start to bleed a bit. That’s what started to happen with my eye. My retinopathy went from just being a bit of retinopathy, so a little bleeding here and there, a little bleeding there to full-on a diabetic macular edema where there is so much blood there that is now impacting your eyesight and causing floaters or light spots. Or essentially if you think about a piece of fabric, like holes in it. From there, I was basically like, diabetes had already set me up this way. Also, your genetics has a lot to do with this. There are a lot of things that come into play with diabetes complications.
When I talked to my doctor, he was like, “This isn’t…” Because I kept thinking it was something I did, and that I had caused this and it was my fault. He was like, “This is not your fault. This is just the causation of having diabetes for as long as you’ve had it.” From there, I learned that essentially, what my eye was doing was bleeding from the inside. When I went to go see the specialist for DME, he said, “If your eye was a house, the basement is flooded. What we need to do is get all that water out of there with treatment. Once we get all that water out of there, maybe we can rebuild the floorboards.”
I loved how he explained it to me because it really gave me the ability to wrap my mind around what that looks like, because that doesn’t sound like scorched earth. It doesn’t sound like we have to blow the house up and get rid of it, and give you a false eye. It’s just, “You’re going to need some treatment. We’re going to see how you respond to it, and we’re going to figure out what the next best thing for you is.”
Kerri Fitzgerald:
Yeah, I love that metaphor about the house. It’s incredible because sometimes, there’s so much medical jargon thrown at you. Or as a patient, you may be overwhelmed by a doctor’s appointment and you’re not even really comprehending. I love that your doctor really gave it to you in words that, really, anyone can understand. That’s really incredible.
Eritrea Mussa:
I was able to not just wrap my mind around it, but then the next appointment, I was like, “How’s the basement? Is it still flooded? Can we rebuild floorboards now?” Because I learned that that treatment even in itself… He was basically priming me. The basement is flooded, means you’re going to need a shot in your eye. We’re ready to build floorboards means maybe we’re going to do a laser this time. Now, I’m in such a great place where it’s treatment as needed because I go every 3 months without fail. I make sure I check in. We look at my eye and we make a decision as a team.
When I first met my doctor, one of the things that I told him because I am a professional patient is what I tell people, “This is my job to keep myself healthy. That I had eye health goals and I want to be able to see when I’m 65. Can you make that happen?”
He was like, “I love that. Yes, we can make that happen, and this is how we’re going to do that.” I think also that part was really important was me advocating for myself and being like, “In the long run, this is the result I expect. Can we even get there so that I can manage my expectations?”
Kerri Fitzgerald:
That’s incredible. I think that’s a great piece of information for people to hear and really think about advocating for yourself and thinking of health goals. That’s really great.
Can you tell us a little bit more about how the DME was treated? How did you and your doctor go about addressing that?
Eritrea Mussa:
The first time I came in, we decided to do a laser. He started with the laser and a shot in the same appointment. I was so scared because someone said… As a diabetic with lots of needles all the time, I’m not scared of them. But in my eye? I was like, “What do you mean? My eye is so small.” I’m so scared.
He’s like, “I promise this is not going to hurt.”
I was like, “I’ve heard this song before. I’ve seen this film before. I don’t know if I like the ending.” I had to have a lot of trust with him, and we did treat it that day and I immediately saw results. It was instantaneous that those floaters were just gone. I was like, “Oh, okay. I’m cured.” Then I had to learn the hard way that, no, you’re not. Come back after 3 months. Stick to your appointments because if you don’t, the floaters can come back. It’s like if you get all the flooding out of the basement and you just leave it alone, no, it’s going to re-flood because you haven’t followed up.
In that original appointment, that’s how we started. Then after that, it’s been mostly laser the entire time. I think I’ve gotten a shot in my eye about 3 times max, and since then we’ve done laser. I haven’t needed a shot or a laser in about 6 to 8 months now. We’re doing good. We’re doing well.
Kerri Fitzgerald:
Wow. A shot in your eye.
Eritrea Mussa:
The way it starts off is you come into the appointment and the first thing that they do is a little eye test. You start with 1 assistant. Then they take you to another room and they have you remove your contacts or your glasses or whatever, and then they give you an IV in your hand or dye, like eye dye, because they’re looking for where the edema is, where the bleeding is really happening in your eye. Then they’ll have you sit up to a screen where they’re taking pictures of the actual eye from the front and from the back, all over. You can’t really see anything at this point because your eyes are dilated and you have dye in them. They even tell you you might taste something funny or feel something warm. That’s kind of what happens.
Then from there, the doctor takes me into his office, then I see him. He looks at my eyes some more. We talk through what he sees, what he doesn’t see. We decide what kind of treatment he’s going to do.
I’ve had an experience with him before where my insurance didn’t cover the treatment. It was Vabysmo. He decided that… I don’t think my insurance was covering it or something like that. He was like, “I have some samples.” My doctor helped me out and got me a sample of the treatment that he wanted to do, and I responded really well to that treatment so we continued to do that after he wrote a letter of medical necessity to my insurance to make sure that it would be covered moving forward, and why it needed to be covered and all of that.
Overall for me, the experience has been really positive, even though I was really scared.
Kerri Fitzgerald:
It just shows, again, your doctor really being a partner to you in this and advocating for your needs and walking you through a very scary situation. I’m glad you had that experience.
You said, when we initially talked, that you chose a career path that didn’t necessarily relate to medicine or diabetes. You’ve also become a content creator, really sharing your personal experience with diabetes and navigating the healthcare system.
Eritrea Mussa:
I remember the first post I made about diabetes. It was… I used to carry this big bag because I used to work for the school district here in Dallas. I used to help build apps and teach teachers how to use these applications in their classrooms, so a lot of my job required me to leave my home, drive 40 minutes downtown. When you have type 1 diabetes, you have to always be prepared. I carry this big plastic bag of stuff. Extra sensor, extra syringe, extra cartridge, extra insulin, extra glucagon, all this stuff. Someone at work once asked me, “Why do you have such a big purse all the time, dude? Are you good?”
I was like, “Dude, I have to carry this big old thing around. I don’t want to bring it, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.” I don’t want to have to leave work to just change a site for my insulin pump. I’d rather just take a minute, go to the bathroom, change it, and continue about my day and be a normal person. I was like, “Wow, this is an invisible disease. People see me and they don’t realize I’m dealing with all of this stuff. Maybe, other people with diabetes are also dealing with this stuff. I’m going to take a picture of my stuff.” I put the stuff on the floor in my cubicle and I was like, okay, picture. Then, I tagged it and stuff.
A bunch of people saw the post and were like, “Oh my God, we didn’t even know you had diabetes. This isn’t something I knew you were dealing with.”
I was just like, “Oh my god, this is wild.” Then I found that online type 1 diabetes community. I started posting more content and making little Get Ready With Me videos while I changed my Dexcom, or Get Ready With Me while I changed my insulin pump. Just little things that were already a part of my day to day, but they were bringing other people joy. Even if it wasn’t, it was bringing me joy to be able to talk about this instead of just holding it all inside. There’s a Maya Angelou quote that, “There is no story harder to tell than the one that goes untold.” I just felt like I had so much to say and I just, “Why not say it?”
Then 2020 happened and I was like, what a great opportunity to continue to create content when people are consuming so much of it. That’s how I started to create my own little place in the diabetes world.
Kerri Fitzgerald:
I want to go back to one thing you said about invisible illness, and that’s something I’ve heard in other heroes that I’ve interviewed about kind of navigating that—you don’t look sick, right? How have you handled that aspect of diabetes?
Eritrea Mussa:
I think that the world is growing because I remember being small and looking for diabetes advocates, people who looked like me that had diabetes. The only people I could think of were like B.B. King and Wilford Brimley. No offense to either one of those gentlemen, so talented, so great, don’t look like either one of you. I just could not relate. It wasn’t me. I think that if you want someone to read a book and nobody’s written it yet, write it yourself. I was like, “Maybe, I can be that person for someone.” I can’t speak to everyone’s diabetes experience. It’s very much not a monolith. It’s not a sweater. It doesn’t just fit all.
But I can talk about my experience and what I’m going through, and maybe that could help someone that also looks like me and is struggling with similar things, because it is really hard to live with diabetes and to have no one.
Kerri Fitzgerald:
Yeah. I love that you said, “If you see a story that hasn’t been written, write it.” That’s a great phrase. I like that a lot.
You’ve also used your platform to discuss advocacy-related issues surrounding healthcare and diabetes topics such as cost, affordability, accessibility, [and] barriers to care. Why was it important for you to cover these topics?
Eritrea Mussa:
I am very lucky that my parents are my parents. I always said that I am a product of both of them and I wouldn’t be half of the person that I am without them. I remember when I was graduating from high school and going to college, my mom’s a teacher and my dad’s an entrepreneur, always trying to figure it out. Insurance was a problem. It wasn’t something that I could just hop onto my mom’s insurance because I have 3 brothers, and insurance to the school district was half of her paycheck. She looked at me and she was like, “We need to be able to figure this out together. There has to be systems or opportunities available.” We figured out through how local healthcare, through the Parkland Healthcare Plus system, I would be able to prove my income, which as a student was like nothing, and get my insulin and my appointments and endocrinology essentially for free.
I grew up a Medicaid kid on the system, relying on the government to get me what I needed. I was like, “Okay, I’m still a person who doesn’t have an income trying to get through college. How do I do this?” If my mom wouldn’t [have] said, “Let’s sit down. Let’s look it up. Let’s go to a local church. Let’s go to the local hospital. Let’s see what options are available to you.” If I didn’t have my mom, I wouldn’t have been able to figure that out. How can I help explain this to people who were not raised by Edna Mussa? To, like, “Hey, there are resources available for you. Don’t be scared. You just have to look around and find them.” I try to be a place where people can ask questions or send someone. Or even if I have extra supplies, send them out.
Because we’re a community of people that are all dealing with the same condition, even if it’s a different degree of it. We try to help each other out as much as possible, and I try to do that as much as I can.
Kerri Fitzgerald:
Just one last point on social media, finding that community and also being a voice for that community, how has that experience been for you?
Eritrea Mussa:
Sometimes it’s beautiful and sometimes it’s heartbreaking because there are limitations to what we are able to do as people living with diabetes. There have been really inspiring moments. There was a drive of supplies that I did for people living in Egypt who needed help with diabetes, and I was able to raise $3,000. People sent so many things that I had to bring 2 extra suitcases with me to Egypt. Then I connected with a girl in Egypt that I didn’t even know. I met her on the internet, and now she’s one of my best friends. Shout out to Iman. I love her. Her sister, who also has type 1, and her parents are doctors. These are people who, if you’re thinking in that situation, should have the ultimate access to healthcare. But I brought them their first CGMs because they didn’t have access to them.
When you meet other people, you build that connection with them, and diabetes really is the bridge for you. That’s where you guys meet. You can really build a lifelong support network, not just for yourself but also for them. Because now, we’re still doing work in Egypt, especially with how many displaced people are there now after everything that’s happening in Gaza. There are so many people with diabetes in that region of the world who need help, and somehow people here in the United States were able to help them. That’s beautiful.
There’s been some beautiful experiences like those, and then other not-so-great ones where you meet people that you’re like, “Gosh, I wish I would’ve met you 15 years ago because you needed me and I just didn’t. I wasn’t there.” It’s kind of both. It’s 2 edges of a really, sometimes, sharp sword.
Kerri Fitzgerald:
Yeah. Well, it’s really important. Thank you for doing what you do and the resources you’re connecting people with.
[At] My Hero [360], we like to recognize people who have embraced challenges and turned them into something powerful and hopeful for others. Can you just share some ways that you have not let your own obstacles define you and your life?
Eritrea Mussa:
I’m trying to think. I feel like I don’t do a very good job of explaining that because I just am like, “Go, go, go, go,” all the time. I try not to sit and think all the time. But what I would say is small impact makes a big impact. There are small clinical trials that could use a person. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from, what your economic ability is, but there are trials available that you can participate in that could really help the world as a whole. Those are one of the big things that I’m always advocating for is just more representation in our clinical trials because that way, it creates accessibility, more conversation around time in range for everybody living with diabetes.
It’s a crazy fact to me that most people with diabetes in our country, in the United States, do not have access to a constant glucose monitor, especially people with type 2. This is life-saving technology. If you’re someone who doesn’t have access to that and you think, “Oh, it’s not for me. I don’t need it.” Please talk to your doctor and look for resources in your area that will help you get that technology funded, because we do have programs in our country that help people get them. You just have to ask and look for them. Don’t let your own sadness, your own hurt stop you from saving yourself. You don’t just have to advocate for everyone else, but you are the most important person in your life, and you have to look out for you the best way that you can.
That’s what I would say about not letting myself be my own… Like, overcoming the obstacle. Because diabetes doesn’t just impact how you feel physically. It can cause depression based off of your blood sugars fluctuating all the time. It can cause anxiety, it can cause pain, it can cause all kinds of things. You have to stick up for you and say, “Listen, I want to be there for future me because I want to be here in the future. What can I do to make that happen?”
Kerri Fitzgerald:
Yeah, that’s really important. We like to conclude our interviews by asking what would you tell your younger self, knowing what you know now?
Eritrea Mussa:
I’ve been asked this question before and I always say the same thing, and it sounds silly. But when you’re small, because I was really small, I didn’t think I was going to be here when I was after 25.
Kerri Fitzgerald:
Really? Wow.
Eritrea Mussa:
Yeah. I remember my parents didn’t either. When I was in high school dating someone, it was my first boyfriend or anything, my mom was telling me a few years ago. She was like, “I remember how sweet it seemed like young love.” She said that she cried herself to sleep the first time I went on a date because she was like, “She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know that this is maybe all she’ll get to experience. Maybe, she won’t get a full life of love and…” Like, the way you see it in the movies. My mom was heartbroken that that was what she had been taught was going to be my experience. I remember her thinking to herself, “The little boy who likes my daughter, he doesn’t know either. He just thinks she’s a normal girl.” Fast-forward to now, it’s 2024. It’s sad to say, but he passed away about 10 years ago. My mom is like, “Life is so interesting because you never know what’s going to happen.” You just try to tell yourself, but you don’t know.
The number 1 thing that I would’ve told myself and my parents is, “It’s going to be okay. Regardless of what happens, life is short and it’s long at the same time. It is all going to be okay. It’s going to work out. Life is happening for you, not to you. The things that you guys are doing to make her a strong person are really…”
The payoff has been incredible. It’s like, live myself and to see my parents be so proud of me. I wish I could have hugged little me and really hugged my mom because I know how hard it was for her and been like, “It’s going to be okay, mom. It’s going to be okay.”
Kerri Fitzgerald:
You have an incredible family. You are just… It’s so incredible to hear you speak about this, and so positive and so authentic in your story. Thank you so much for sharing with us, Eritrea. Thank you for partnering with us on My Hero 360 today.
Eritrea Mussa:
Thank you for having me. I hope if this helps, even one person, this would’ve been completely, totally worth the time. I’m glad that we got to do it.
Kerri Fitzgerald:
Yeah, I think it’s going to help more than one. Thank you again. I appreciate it so much.
—
About My Hero 360:
At My Hero 360, we honor, celebrate, and connect heroes worldwide. By sharing their stories, we aim to inspire and provide hope for humanity. Follow us to hear more incredible stories of unsung heroes who make a difference in the world.
Follow Us:
- Instagram: @myhero.360
- TikTok: @myhero.360
