I often joke about having an unlimited number of lives, especially with my mom, who seems to understand the most. While my mom will never truly understand my struggles, at least she’s always been there for me. She’s never left my side, figuratively and literally. Sometimes, I get annoyed by her constant presence, especially when I just want some time to myself, and have fought with her over it. But, I could never say I’ve ever been forgotten or neglected.

Even when my mom can’t be by my side, I’m still never left alone. When I’m sick, my mom will leave me in the company of other friends and family when she has work to do or needs a well-deserved break from the constant struggles that I go through. When my mom isn’t basically my Siamese twin during those hard times, my dad is. And when my dad has work at the same time as my mom, I always have grandparents to lean on. And if they’re busy, I have my mom’s friends, many of whom I’ve known my whole life.

A disturbing number of parents just drop off and leave their sick kids in the hospital, hardly ever coming by to visit them. My mom often tells me stories about how she used to have incredible urges to cradle crying babies and young toddlers in the hospital that were left alone in their cribs, with no parents or friends to comfort them. She even cried herself to sleep some nights because of those kids. Thank God I was never one of them.

When I was born, I was what doctors called a Blue Baby. I was not breathing, and even when doctors finally did get me to start screaming my lungs out after several tense minutes, I still had a greyish tint to my skin. It turns out, I had a severe genetic heart condition called Pulmonary Atresia. Basically, my heart was deformed on the inside. A heart valve called the Pulmonary valve was deformed, which meant it didn’t open and close in sync with the other valves within my heart, and heavily restricted my blood from flowing into my lungs. This was a major, life-threatening problem. If my blood couldn’t flow into my lungs as strongly as it should, my body would be deprived of oxygen, resulting in Hypoxia, which could then cause severe brain and liver damage within minutes if not treated correctly.

Doctors immediately strapped an oxygen mask to my face while I squirmed and screamed in my mom’s arms. Barely five minutes later, doctors whisked me away on a stretcher, with my dad right beside me. They had to transfer me to another hospital, because the hospital in Littleton, Colorado, did not have cardiology specialists who could treat me. I ended up going to a hospital in Denver by ambulance, with my dad sitting right next to my stretcher, and my grandpa racing in his car just behind us. My grandma stayed in Littleton to comfort my mom. My mom couldn’t come right away, because she had a C-section, and needed to recover for a minimum of three days in the Littleton hospital. She didn’t know if she would see me alive ever again.

While I struggled at the new hospital, my grandpa Lyle was watching over me while my dad slept. He laid his hands over my heart and felt it beating in erratic, quick beats. There was no rhythm to it, and the longer my grandpa kept his hands over my chest, the worse my heart beat. My grandpa, with tears in his eyes, begged God for healing. 

"Do not let this child die." my grandpa whispered, "If you need another soul in heaven, take me, Lord, take me. But please, heal my granddaughter."

Immediately, my heart began to beat more regularly. It stopped skipping beats and slowed down considerably. While my heartbeat was still irregular, my grandpa knew my heart was being healed right then and there. In fact, he almost thought I didn't need an open heart surgery to correct the issue. However, doctors later checked on my heart and, while they acknowledged it was definitely beating a little better than before, I still needed open heart surgery to fully correct the issue, although that correction would only be temporary.

Three days after I was born, I ended up under bright surgical lights surrounded by some of the most experienced cardiology surgeons in the world. My heart was about the size of my tiny newborn fist, which required near-impossible skill and concentration to work on. The surgeons were tasked with removing the deformed valve, and then replacing it with a tiny rubber replica, as well as a shunt, which is like a tiny plastic straw, to direct some of the blood away from the rubber valve, as to not stress it out too much. In order to get to my heart, my ribcage had to be sawn in half, and then pushed off to the side like a pair of automatic sliding doors. I also had to be hooked up to a machine through various tubes and wires, which acted as my artificial heart, because my real heart would have to be completely stopped during the surgery. I was technically dead for nearly five hours.

As you probably guessed, the surgery went well, and my mom was one of the first people to greet me in the recovery room. Of course, as soon as I woke up, I started screaming, and I didn’t stop for months. I’d occasionally exhaust myself into a deep, silent sleep, but as soon as I woke up, I’d scream my little lungs out again and wouldn’t stop until I fell asleep again, or became distracted by something. Even when I was born, on May 15th, 2001, doctors still debated about whether or not newborn babies felt pain like adults do. Because of this, I was denied all forms of painkillers, except for the smallest dose of Tylenol.

My parents and grandparents did their best to keep me calm and distracted. My parents would constantly take me out of my crib and hold me. At the time, I was still hooked up to various tubes and wires, which made holding me difficult, but nothing could stop my parents or grandparents from intensely loving me. My parents and grandparents would occasionally take me outside, carefully pulling my stand with IV bags and machinery along with us. I loved nature, even then, and would become quiet and filled with wonder whenever my family showed me the trees and the flowers in the hospital’s garden.

For the whole month I was in the hospital, I was never alone in the room. My parents, grandparents, and friends would take shifts watching over me. Even when doctors wanted to talk to them, they’d always have their conversation right at my cribside. Doctors had them believe that I had only months, weeks, or even days to live, and sometimes offered to turn off my machines because my survival seemed impossible. But my family refused to let me go like that.

This picture was taken shortly after my heart surgery. Behind my dad is my life support pole, and you can also see the bandages protecting my fresh scars on my chest. Also, behind my head is an IV, which was actually inserted into the top of my head, because that was the only place doctors could find a vein.