Tedy’s Team Rookie to run Boston Marathon in honor of her two-year-old son

Back row, L-R; Tedy Bruschi, Jon Mazzone, Liam, Heidi Bruschi. Front row: Nicole Mazzone & Wyatt.

Today, my family and I are celebrating our son, Liam’s, 2^nd birthday! And, in 3 days, I will be running the Boston Marathon in Liam’s honor as my stroke hero.

In February of 2022, we took Liam to urgent care for what we now know to have been infantile spasms. We were sent away with a benign diagnosis, but we knew something wasn’t right. We followed up with his PCP, and a couple of weeks later, on March 4th, we were admitted to the hospital.

Shortly after our admission it was confirmed that Liam was having seizures and he started a gnarly treatment of ACTH (a steroid injection therapy that was administered both in the hospital and at home for about a month).

Concurrent with starting treatment, we insisted on turning to action to determine what may have caused these seizures and just 4 days later, on March 8th, we learned that Liam was a stroke survivor – most likely before he was even born. We now know, after several outpatient/at home EEGs, blood testing, and neurology follow ups, that the spasms were likely caused by a perinatal stroke, but we will never know exactly when it happened, or exactly what caused it.

We are grateful to Liam’s teachers and team of doctors – pediatricians, neurologists, cardiologists, hematologists, genetic counselors, child life services, rehab specialists, nurses – that have worked together to advocate for Liam and to get him to where he is today; a happy, active toddler who idolizes his older brother, Wyatt, and is meeting all of his developmental milestones.

We still have a lot to learn about stroke – never in a million years did I think strokes could happen to kids, especially in utero. I feel that it is my responsibility as his mother to do everything that I can to raise more awareness, and to let other moms who have young babies going through this know that they are not alone.

In October of 2022, I was accepted onto Tedy’s Team for the 2023 Boston Marathon. Over the last 6 months I have not only been training for the marathon, but I have been working hard to raise more awareness of stroke and life-saving funds to help other kids like Liam and families like ours.

While I have run the Boston Marathon before, this time is different. Stroke messed with my buddy and so again, we turn to action. This time, each step is a step of gratitude that Liam is happy and healthy, and each mile is dedicated to the other survivors still working on their comeback.

Even though it is still difficult, we share Liam’s story as a story of hope. Every single day Liam reminds us what resilience is, that we all deserve a little grace, and what it means to be a complete badass.