Well, since y'all decided to stop by and find out about me, I guess I might as well start talkin huh? :oD Hmmm.... lets see... where do I start? Aha! hehe the beginning is always a good place (or so my Mom always used to say hehehe) Don't worry hehe I am not gonna put ya through the whole long boring story hehe just the highlights. *giggle* Ok... I was born and raised in Upstate N.Y., in 1966. My Dad was the District Attorney for Greene County, so I kinda grew up in his law office. That has it advantages (nobody can pull the legal wool over my eyes) and its disadvantages (no boy wanted to come within 50 feet of me cause they were scared of my dad LOL). I really enjoyed being brought up in a really small town. Kinda reminds me of the theme song for Cheers... everybody knows your name. It was kinda like a giant family.
My parents were a bit on the older side when I came along... Mom was 39 and Dad was 46 when I was born, and this made for an interesting childhood. They were also both Alchoholics. Lots and lots of fighting... mostly when they thought I was asleep, when in fact I was hiding under the bed holding on to my springer spaniel for dear life, praying that they wouldn't come into my room. Don't get me wrong... I loved my Parents dearly, as they did me. I was just terrified that Mom would miss dad, and hit me instead. (Just for general information, it isn't always the man who does all the beating) I went to Al-Anon meetings, behind mom and dad's back mainly because they denied vehemently that they were Alcoholics, and therefore denied that I needed anyone to talk to about it. It was a problem that just didn't exist. As time wore on, and I got older, I became more and more independant. I could cook a full meal at the age of 9, and was driving my parents home from the Country Club at the age of 12. I was more like 12 going on 20. Alot of responsibility at a very young age. I swore at that point that when I had kids that I was going to allow them to be kids and enjoy being a child, since I never had the chance. When I was 17 and a senior in high school, came the worst time in my life. I had way too much to deal with, and it just didn't seem to be getting any better. The day before my 17th birthday, my friend Andy committed suicide because his girlfriend broke up with him. I had known him since kindergarten and this was not an easy thing to accept. Two days after Andy died, one of my friends was killed by a truck. I had talked to him on the bus that afternoon. I couldn't quite get it through my head that he was gone. About a month after I had tried to make sense out of my best friends deaths, my mother suffered a stroke. She couldn't talk, and was more belligerent than ever. She decided after a week in the hospital that she was going to go home. She could barely walk, had no feeling in her right side at all, and could only say three words, but she wanted to go home. So she pulled out her IV, got dressed and left. Her doctor wouldn't let he go, so she stopped the elevator in between floors until she was allowed to leave. Yes.. I am serious! She was more stubborn than any mule alive. What she wanted she got or trust me... she made your life MISERABLE until you gave it to her. It was on that day that I went from being a teenager to being an adult. Mom couldn't read anymore, she couldn't write, and she couldn't speak. She refused professional help, so it was up to me to teach her all over again. It wasn't easy... my aunts took shifts staying with her while I was in school, and when I got home, I had to teach her and get my homework done. We had to start back with the basics... I mean pre-kindergarten stuff. we started with the alphabet and worked on words like cat and dog. I had to teach her how to hold the pen and sign her name. I discovered that because of the stroke, she had developed dyslexia, a condition in which everything you see is the reverse of what it should be. Instead of reading left to right, she saw things right to left. Ie: the word cat looked to her like tac. That made my job all the more difficult, but eventually Mom was able to speak in sentences and was able to read the paper again. Four months after mom's stroke, I went for a bike ride. That was the last time I ever sat on a bicycle. I was hit by a dumptruck that was loaded with 5 tons of gravel, and was travelling at 75 miles per hour on impact. I was throwm 500 feet and skidded across the pavement for about another 25 feet before I came to rest at the side of the road. I remember waking up feeling very cold and losing my contact lens and thinking that my dad was gonna kill me for losing it. Then I remember wathcing my body lying on the ground and seeing the "light". I was watching the EMT's putting the oxygen mask on me and saying that I was dead. They continued to work on me, and then I heard this voice that said "Don't worry... your time on Earth is not through. You have much work to do." And then I woke to the sound of the EMT calling me into the hospital as D.O.A. (Dead On Arrival). I said "I AM NOT" and the EMT fell off the chair. It was determined that I had a shattered hip, 2 fractured vertabrae and a bruised kidney all due to a part of the truck that entered my body and left a trail of destruction. I also suffered a dislocated hip, 9 broken ribs, a severe concussion and had lost 70% of my blood volume due to a severe case of road rash that covered 60% of my body, and the huge laceration that the truck had given me. That laceration alone took over 300 inside stitches and 200 outside stitches and staples to repair. (And yes it did leave one heck of a scar :o) The prognosis was that I would not survive the night... And when I did, the prognosis was the I would never walk or be able to have children. I spent 1 month in the hospital, 3 weeks of that in traction wondering whether or not I was going to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair. I decided that that was NOT going to happen, and spent the next 6 weeks on crutches trying to prove all the specialists wrong. And I did. The day after I got off my crutches, my father suffered a stroke so severe he was not expected to live through the night. He was completely paralyzed, and unable to speak. I was still translating for my mother, and now I had to do the same for my father. Dad was transferred to Albany Medical Center, where they basically said that there was no hope for his recovery, so he just sat in that chair waiting to die. I spoke to our family doctor, and Dad was transferred back to our small town hospital. Within 24 hours of being back at our hospital, Dad was up and walking with the help of a special walker. So much for the specialists huh? Dad eventually came home just in time for my Graduation, which they didn't think I was going to live to see 4 months earlier. I walked to get my diploma, with my dad looking on so proudly. Our family had been tested and tried, but we were all still alive and kicking. Dad was playing golf again a little more than 6 months after his stroke, and I began my life in college. My mom began professional therapy and life began to return to normal again.
I met my husband when I was 20, and were were married a year later. My first daughter was born in 1988, 4 years after I was told that I would never be able to have children. I am not saying that it was easy, because it wasn't. She had settled on the hip that I broke, and I was in constant pain and on crutches for the last three weeks of my pregnancy. It was a struggle, but one that I was more than blessed to be a part of.
In late 1991, life had changed for the worse again. In December just before Christmas, my mother fell and broke her hip. I moved in with my husband and two children to take care of her. I was 3 months pregnant. In January of '92, my dad fell ill, and went into a coma. At 72 years old, he was not expected to live. Dad stayed in the coma for 2 weeks. Mom was busy planning his funeral while I was sorting out his finances and paying bills. The more tests they did on dad, the more they found wrong. They had given up on him. I hadn't. I knew my dad would pull through. I spent every night sitting at his bedside talking to him. One morning I got a phone call from the hospital, and I expected the worst. But instead, They told me that my dad wanted to talk to me. I literally fell off the chair. Dad came out of the coma in really good shape. He didn't really suffer any major side effects and it was so wonderful to see him sitting up and talking again. Two days after dad came out of the coma, their house caught fire. Most of my kids clothes and baby stuff was in it, and was lost due to smoke and water damage. I had to go into the house and get all the valuables out so they weren't stolen. I know that this wasn't a good thing to do being 6 months pregnant, but I had no choice. I did what I felt I had to do. Valkyrie came along July 10, 1992 and was a very tiny, very sick little baby. She was only 5 pounds 4 ounces and couldn't regulate her body temperature. It wasn't until later that I realized that she was also born blue. It was at this time that my life was no longer my own. Valkyrie had her own fight for life, which is told here Dad went downhill while Valkyrie was having her problems. Dad re-entered the hospital in October and lost his fight on December 1, 1992. We were told in January of '93 that we had a choice to make. Either move south with the kids and leave all those that we loved behind or bury Valkyrie next to her grandfather before her first birthday. We moved to South Carolina in one heck of a hurry, leaving Ron's mother and my mother behind. It was a really bad time for us, but we managed. In June, I recieved a phone call that my mother had passed away. I packed up my kids and went back home to bury my mother next to my dad. I was numb. I don't recall much about that time. I guess my subconscience has blocked most of it out. Since then, we have moved to Georgia and then to Florida in an attempt to find a climate that would give Valkyrie the chance to grow and to flourish. Georgia didn't help. In 4 years, Valkyrie had been hospitalized 14 times with varying stages on pneumonia and bronchitis, and fought for her life many times. I tried so desperatly to hide the fear and the pain that I felt, and apparently did a pretty good job. I thank God for giving me the strength to deal with all of this, and for giving me Ron to hold on to, for without him, I would have fallen apart long ago. They say that God only gives you what you can handle, and there have been many times that I have truly wondered about that, but my Mother also used to say that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And my dad told me that I was his rock of Gibralter, so I guess that they are both right. Life isn't always easy, but it is what you make of it. I am very happy to have mine, and even happier to have everything that I do. I have a wonderful husband to whom I have been married for 10 years, and three wonderful children. Thank you dear Lord for deeming me worthy to be blessed with all of this. Without your love, I would have nothing.
Just a quick side note... I was just told by my Orthopedic Surgeon that my hip and back have deteriorated. My L2 disk is virtually non existant and my pelvic bone is disintegrating. And I guess the hardest thing to deal with is the fact that there is nothing they can do to fix it. There isn't enough good bone in my pelvic area to do a graft, and they won't touch my spine because of the danger of destroying the fragile state of my hip bone which is currently turning to powder. I guess those doctors all those years ago were right... I will spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair. But not yet. I'm not done fighting yet. As long as I have the good Lord beside me I will be just fine. He will give me the strength I need to deal with this, and also to accept the wheelchair when the time comes.
News from October 4th, 1998 :o)
Well it appears that my hip has gotten to the point to where they HAVE to operate. The last x-ray shows that the hip bone has fallen apart, and now the bones that were broken 14 years ago are free floating bodies. What this means is that they are no longer attached to anything, and are moving within my back. One has managed to get stuck in one of my muscles and the other larger piece is heading for my spine, so they have no choice but to remove them and replace my hip completely. The x-ray report also said something about necrosis, but i'm not exactly sure where or what is affected. Getting answers is almost impossible at this point, so we need yet another opinion from a trauma specialist either in Tampa or Orlando. To be honest i'm not sure how much longer I can handle being in this much pain so they had better hurry up and do something. The talk now is of either a total hip replacement or a hip fusion... i'm not sure which is gonna help more or hurt worse. All I do know is that it will be about 6-8 weeks of bed rest and wheelchairs before I can get back to "normal". They really won't tell me if this will allow me to walk again so that wheelchair may be the ultimate last step. And to be honest.. I'm scared.
February 22, 1999:
Well it seems that the Docs don't know everything. Granted teh Avascular Necrosis is here and making life a bit more difficult, and the fact that L2 and L3 disk spacing is no longer, I am still walking and enjoying life. Just goes to show that the doctors don't know everything *grin* I can't find an ortho or a neurologist who will touch me yet, but at least the ER department is still keeping me in my supply of decent pain killers. Stupid family Doc gave me Ultram thinking that it would actually help. When will these doctors realize that sometimes in order to make thier patients comfortable they have to prescribe narcotics? Not all of us need them but by God there are those of us who do and until these doctors realize that we are NOT going to go and abuse them, we will never be able to be free of pain. Ah well. maybe someday these doctors will hurt as bad a we do and THEN they'll be the ones begging for Loracet and Percocet and no one will give it to them either.
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