I know I wasn't your normal, everyday, run of the mill child and having a VSD (Ventricular Septal Defect…yeah, it’s a heart thing. I’ll wait while you look that up). …Okay, all up to speed? Being a child with a VSD was a lot of fun, with multiple doctors’ appointments per year, with several echocardiograms and electrocardiograms. I was there so often the cardiologist started handing me the equipment to test myself (BTW if you need an EKG or an EEG I can help). Alright, so to continue, I'm sure that diagnosis made my mom a little more anxious. I mean, a young, first time mother of a sick new born with virtually no support system? Yeah, maybe a little anxious. Sooo, how sick was I as a baby? By the time I was 6 weeks old I was hospitalized with a severe respiratory infection. I was so sick, you can’t really blame my parents for wondering if I might be possessed. Watching their newborn slowly turn her head toward them, roll her eyes back, then violently vomit across the room…kind of an Exorcist moment. So, yeah, you can’t really blame them if they took a bit longer to get me to the hospital. I mean it’s normal for new parents to argue over who is going to pick up their possessed baby and put her in her car seat, right? Anyway, once they got me to the hospital and the exorcism of my infection was complete, things seemed to progress in a fairly normal manner…until I was 3. Then I decided I would be "Wonder Woman" jump off a water meter and cut my leg open. They probably should have stitched me up, but it was a USAF hospital after all *giggle*. I still have the scar to prove it. And there we go with scar number one, right leg.
Oh by the way, I did forget to mention I had many run ins with chairs and tables which would account for many of the scars on my forehead. Those cuts on the forehead were nothing compared to the black widow spider bite that I received when I was only 7 years old. Talk about pain, I remember telling my mom it felt like somebody hit me with a baseball bat. Yep, I’m allergic to black widow spider bites. My arm turned black and doubled in size. Now, those of you who know me may be surprised by my reaction to the spider bite. According to my mother, my concern was for my baby brother. I know, that surprised me too, but according to Mom, my exact words were, "At least it was me and not my baby brother, Ryan!" Oh, don’t worry, I had other deliciously evil plans in store for him later in life, but we'll get there…oh, yes, we’ll get there.
I think that brings me to 3rd grade. This is when I learned I was also allergic to bees and when I first realized I would probably never learn life’s lessons in an easy way. So, let me give you a little knowledge here, knowledge I learned the hard way. The faster you get the stinger out, the less venom gets in your system. What happened to me? I stepped on a wasp, or a hornet, or a bumble bee, whichever one is the most painful, because, hey, this is my story. Anyway, I was too big of a baby to pull the stinger myself. Yeah, it just kept pumping and pumping that mean bee venom into that tender, littled 3rd grader foot, while I waited, crying and screaming inconsolably, until said screams brought my dad frantically out of the house to pull the tiny stinger from my bare foot. I remember the embarrassment of not being able to wear a shoe to school because my foot was so swollen.
Ah here we are, 5th grade. You remember 5th grade. That gangly awkwardness, not to mention the miserable self-consciousness and desperate desire to fit in? Or, is that just me. Well, anyway, it was 5th grade when a huge cyst magically appeared on my cheek. Another visit to the doctor. At this point, Mom should have her own parking spot there. Obviously, the cyst needs to be removed. The look of dread on my mother's face, when the doctor told her the size of the scar it would leave behind…it was anguish I'm sure only a mother could feel. I mean I can only imagine, since I was only 11 years old. What did I know about a mother's pain at that age? Lol But seriously, my parents did not hesitate one second (to my knowledge) to find the best plastic surgeon to remove the cyst. To this day, you would never know it had been there (Damn, now I wonder how many days they pondered paying for that plastic surgery 🤔). I know you're wondering...and yes, I did get to keep my stitches!
Let's fast forward a second or two (but like a year or two in real life, so about 6th/7th grade). I remember running track and having pain in my knees. The pain was so bad, my mom yup, you guessed it, took me to the doctor again. I know, a real plot twist, huh? Only to be diagnosed with Osgood-Schlatter disease. The most ridiculous word I thought I'd ever heard at that point, as a kid. So basically, it’s an injury that causes a painful lump below the kneecap. Well for a kid that loves to run, dance, climb trees, and just jump around it’s a crushing blow…or it could be a crushing blow. If you know me at all, you know that didn’t slow me down a bit. Nothing ever stopped me from being a kid and doing all the fun kid activities I wanted to do. Pain never has stopped me. I was going to continue being a kid and going to the emergency room, doctor’s, specialist’s, etc. That’s just what I did/do…you get it.
OK where were we? Oh yeah emergency rooms, doctor's appointment, specialist, yadiyada. So we'll accelerate a few years, mostly unscathed, until about 17-18 years old. I want you all to sit down because this might come as a shock to you, but........I'm bipolar! I know it still comes to a shock to my entire family, that there was a bipolar teanager loose in the house without any casualties.
I don't know what you know about bipolar, but battling bipolar on its own is a whole different beast. So compound that with being a young mother made it much harder to control. There's a lot that goes into being bipolar. Managing medications, trying new medications, adding, subtracting medications, it's a vicious cycle. Maybe all that work makes a bipolar person bipolar.
So as you just read I am now a young mother at 18-19 years old right out of high school. Only coming up with this conclusion at 43, I would assume that in a teenage bipolar brain, I didn't make the best decisions. I met a boy who said he loved me and, you guys know the rest. Boom a baby is born 9 months later. I guess you can save the only complication I had was gaining a whole bunch of weight rapidly. But I had an amazing healthy baby boy 7lbs 4ozs. It only took me 3 pushes, Yes, you heard that right, 3 pushes. My friends thought they had enough time to run to the store and come to the hospital but he was already born.
This is the part I've been dreading. I was in several very unhealthy relationships. I don't really want to touch on this too much or go into too much detail, but I can understand and tell you that I was in a few domestic violent relationships. Almost everything else I can poke fun at and make a joke about, but this is a little hard to make light of. I can say that 2/3 of my children's fathers decided they didn't want to be fathers by the time my children were about one.
So here I am 19-20 years old with a one year old. I was working two jobs as a single mother. I was on my feet a lot. I had pain and both of my feet went to the doctor to find out I needed bunion correction surgery on both feet. (I posted a blurb about the surgery on this site) Obviously I had to do one at a time. But let me tell you the obstacles of raising a toddler, with bipolar, on crutches, in a 2 story house equals a circus without a ring leader.
As you can see the challenges of having bipolar, a toddler, being a single mom, and I'm still battling my body. I'm now about 21ish and having a lot of ovarian problems. And if you're a woman, you know the fun that goes on with the checking of all your womanly areas. Makes you feel sexy doesn't it? Lol. On that note, I'd say half of the doctors in New Mexico have seen my lady parts at some point in their career. And if you are one of those doctors or nurses reading this right now, I am sorry. I'm sure things at that point weren't, let's just say, tidy! 😂
Okay so we're gonna spend a lot of time here in the next 20 years. I had many issues with ovarian cysts. One being really bad, to the point it started to rupture inside my ovary. I'm pretty sure I was about 23 at that time at UNM hospital, and I'm sure my mom remembers the white cockroach that walked over her foot. Talk about traumatic! The cockroach, not the cyst. Lol just kidding. I remember not being able to eat or drink for 3 days and my mom doing glycerin pops or water sponges on my tongue. I know everyone likes a visual (darn I know I have a picture here somewhere), well anyway it looked like a golf ball that started to rupture. It looked so cool! For me anyway! So, this happened two or three more times, if memory serves me right. But with how many times I was in and out of the hospital, it's hard to remember.
Wait Laticia! You almost forgot. Soon after moving to Vegas, you kept having strep throat! Or did you completely overlook that? I did. Well, I had a lot of other pressing matters at hand. Anyway, at 26 (I don't recommend removing them that late in life) I had my tonsils removed. Ugh, horrible pain for what seemed to be years. More like weeks but my throat disagreed. Lived on mashed potatoes and ice cream. Lol does a body good! Just kidding!
It's about 2004 now. I have had a serious boyfriend (at the time) of six years. Oh not my son's biological father by the way! Can you believe it? A bipolar woman, with a child, clearly some health problems and this guy sticks around? Ok well logically, let's have a baby! Doesn't take long, and bam pregnant. Everything seems fine I feel fine (other than the occasional morning sickness of course). I remember planning the baby shower with my mom and getting ready to head back to Albuquerque. Oh I forgot to tell you, my boyfriend, son, and I moved to Las Vegas after that nasty white cockroach incident at the hospital. Joking of course! But really, we moved because my boyfriend was offered a very good job. Anyway back to being pregnant. Everything was going well until it wasn't. It was the beginning of November, 2004 I started having a lot of pain in my abdominal area. Not a good sign especially when pregnant. Went to the emergency room (are you as use to it as I am yet?). I remember the ER doctor coming into my room, like it was yesterday, and very callously saying, "Well it looks like you're having a miscarriage. We need to do an ultrasound to be sure." Wait! Hold on! What? We had planned this pregnancy. I was about to go to Albuquerque for the baby shower. I couldn't process exactly what he was saying. That was until I was in ultrasound. My technician was so kind and nurturing. My only question to her was, "Can you find the heartbeat?" I remember her shaking her head "no" and handing me a tissue. How do you process that? It didn't take long for the return of the same empathetic compassion doctor to return with his warm response. Well, that's the type of doctor I was hoping would return anyway. No, same doctor with the terrible bed-side manner returned. "This is a miscarriage, but the problem is you're too far along for a D&C because the fetus has bones. So we are going to admit you and give you medications to induce labor." I know a lot of information at once, right? Let alone the empathetic nature the doctor had. That only leaves me to one action...calling mommy. Yes, she lived in Albuquerque and I was in Las Vegas. But damn, she hit the road in about 3 minutes after our call and arrived, to me, what seemed to be an hour later (well they did give me medications for sedation). I don't know if you know this but you go to labor and delivery. Finally my mom is there and my boyfriend's parents arrived too. It was time to push and deliver my sweet lifeless baby. He was born November 4th, 2004. We named him Tegan Joshua. Everyone took a turn to hold him, except me. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. It was almost as if I didn't hold him it wasn't true. The nurses took him to find out why he didn't survive. They do genetic testing when thing like this happen. Come to find out he had a genetic medical condition called Turner's Syndrome. There's going to be a lot of these terms I had not heard in my lifetime.
I'm not sure if you know, but a lot of relationships are pushed together or apart during a tragedy. Ours grew apart, we were both heartbroken over his loss.
So now I don't know if it's heart break, indigestion, or chest pain but somethings not right. My heart is starting to do weird things. Arrhythmia's, tachycardia, bradycardia, (I had to look up the terms too) back to the hospital. Here we are are with another cardiologist with a procedure he wants to do to check my heart. Did you guess? A transthoracic echocardiogram! Did you guess right? Neither did I! Well, to explain it mildly.....IT WAS A TORTURE DEVICE! Not really...but really it was! So basically a transesophageal echocardiogram is done by inserting a probe with a transducer (main torture device) down the esophagus (Yes down the esophagus, you read that right). This provides a clearer image of the heart because the sound waves do not have to pass through skin, muscle, or bone tissue. Oh I forgot to mention this too, WHILE YOU'RE AWAKE! Yes, they give you "Drug-induced amnesia" medications. Umm those did NOT work for me. This story is for the short horror film I'm writing. Let's get back to the medical stuff. So, had to have that fun procure done, just to find out I get to have another. Angiogram here I come! Again you'll usually be awake, but you're given general anaesthetic. A small cut was made in the skin in the arterie at my groin. I have to say, that was one of the easier procedures I went through. My heart was looking ok except for my small dimple in my heart from my VSD I was born with. I'll just have a murmur my whole life. That's nothing compared to what my body still had in store for me.
Alright here we are, a semiclean book of health. Meet another guy, get pregnant with another beautiful baby boy. Move back to Albuquerque and he fairy tale ends! Ha ha, of couse not!
The baby was great! The me was not! I ended getting a kidney stone while pregnant. Have you ever had a kidney stone? Have you been pregnant? Mash those together and see how it feels! I remember the nurses asking me, "On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the worst pain you've ever felt. What would you rate your pain?" I'm not sure any of you have seen Alien Resurrection? Neither have I. But I heard the way Ripley dies...it felt like that I'm sure. So to answer your question nurse, probably an 11 in pain. Holy moly I remember there was a lot pain and (cover your ears and eyes) blood, a lot of blood! Oh man, most of that pregnancy was in a hospital bed. But my mom stayed there with me every bed/bucket change. I, she, we, were still so traumatized by the loss of Tegan, that doctors wanted me to take pain medication. I wouldn't in fear of hurting this baby I had to protect. Finally, the head of the neonatal unit brought me into his office with another specialist on the phone. They both explained to me that the trauma my body was experiencing from all the pain was causing the baby distress. So me not taking the medication was causing more stress on his heart. Just taking the medication would help his suffering as well. So, I was finally convinced to get connected to an IV pain drip. But that's not all. No that's not all. Next came the nephro-ureterostomy catheter. It's as painful as it sounds. (Is it me or do doctors have torture devices? I'm sure most doctors are a little sadomasochistic 😈). It's placed if the blockage in your urinary system can be bypassed. It passes through your skin and into the renal pelvis. It is guided across the area of blockage down to your bladder. One end of the catheter will be in the bladder. Now I see why the doctors were pushing the pain medication now. Wow that procedure was painful and while 6 months pregnant might I add. (I just got nauseous just typing that part.) By the way, my mom still hasn't left. She probably should have, that could be the reason she's now having tremors in the hand I use to squeeze from all the pain she and I endured. Sorry mom. The worst part, now being a mom myself, was seeing my mom's heart break from my physical pain. You could see how badly she wanted to take my pain, when a single tear dropped from my eye and she lost it. She said, "I'm so sorry, you're going through it, but I wish I could take it from you." Gotta make a funny now because everyone going to get their tissues. My brother called him baby Stewie. And he must have taken a piece of his hair and lassoed it around my kidney. Makes sense. It did seem like he was definitely trying to destroy me from the inside. But look at him now, a teenage angel that knows everything about the world, life, and definitely more than I'll ever know ^insert sarcasm here! Here I am with a stint in my ureter, pregnant, with a kidney stone. Oh and by the way, I could not have the stint removed until after I gave birth. So you can you can only imagine how lovely that pregnancy was. Clearly I was able to push through, and give birth early to a healthy baby boy. I wasted no time after his birth to have that stint removed. Finally the bolder that was ripping through my body had passed. I was definitely convinced that I had inner organ damage after passing the kidney stone.By the way, I'd rather give birth to a baby, than passing a kidney stone any day. Soon after his birth I was able to remove the stint. Babies are more gentle. I know that sounds crazy. Even though my pregnancy was basically hell, he was a really good baby.
But just like clock work, probably postpartum, and bipolar I was a single mom of 2 little boys. Oh by the way! I was just laid off from AOL, I was broke, and I didn't have a car. Luckily I have really good friends and family. So it didn't take long for me to get a car and a job at T-Mobile. And not too soon later another relationship. Does that go with the bipolar? Not too soon after I started T-Mobile I have a lot of knee issues. Get your head out of the gutter. I was really good at my job!
I have had a lot of knee issues. I think I lost count between 7 and 9 knee surgeries.
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