Autobiography

            Being born with a rare heart condition was something which my family would have never considered possible. They have never even heard of an Epstein’s Anomaly before let alone had the knowledge of what something like this entails and the pain and suffering it was going to cause my family. The first day of my birth everything was fine there was no indication that there was any problem with any part of my body. Through the night my mom began to notice that I was not eating and having a problem latching on to her she let the nurses know and they came in and took me into the nursery where a cardiologist listened to my heart hearing a murmur she then orders a echo cardiogram . After the results my world turned into a painful ongoing world of doctors and hospitals. Within the hour of the results of the echo cardiogram I was on a helicopter on my way to St. Joe’s Medical center where I was going to spend the next five months of my life.

Once I got to St. Joe’s I was then taken to NICU where I was then introduced to many of the nurses and doctors that were going to be a huge part of my life for the next couple of months. It was a very overwhelming experience for a one day old child to have to experience alone because they would not allow my mother or father to be transported with me on the helicopter. My mother checked herself out of the hospital and walked into the NICU with my father not long after my arrival to the hospital but they were not allowed to stay for very long because of the confinement and all the other incubator’s there.

Over the next couple months all we were able to do was wait because it was inevitable that the only thing that was going to help me was to have an operation which would repair my valves and allow my heart to function properly. While in the hospital though there seemed to be a never ending cycle of complications. Finally the doctors and my parents decided that they would go forward with the operation. In November I finally went through the six hour surgery. There was always the possibility that I would not survive the operation because I was so tiny and all the complications that I faced. I pulled through just fine and was on my way to recovery. In December they felt that I was well enough to go home and join my family. I was able to spend Christmas with my family but I was also having other complications and my body just could not handle all that the world had to offer.