Melanee

I was born at Sheppard Air Force Base in 1973 and within hours of birth I was diagnosed with Transposition and medivac'd on a feather pillow in a box to Texas Children's Hospital where I had open heart surgery by Dr. Cooley to repair my TGV. I had the Mustard or Blalock-Hanlon procedure. Basically what this means is my heart is still backwards and an artificial patch was made to redirect the blood flow.

This surgery corrected the blue baby issue, but left me "tired" all the time. When I was two, I got my first pacemaker, followed by a second one at nine years old, which I still have in my belly. At 14 they finally put one in my chest and I have had that one replaced 3 times.... I expect a new one in a couple years. Not bad for someone who wasn't supposed to live past 2, then 5, no wait, 13, maybe 20, ok, ok, 30. Well, I am closer to 40 at this point than 30 and still have sick sinus syndrome, a pin-point leak and get tired a lot. I had a great childhood which I owe to my parents and the doctor who told them that if they treated me differently or like a disabled child, then that is what they would end up with. I was never treated differently then my sister and aside from not getting to play contact sports, did everything else my friends did.

I get the extreme pleasure of not having to go through metal detectors at the airport and have to get the pat down every time... Dad was in the military, we traveled a lot.... You can imagine how much fun that was.

I worked in retail for 14 years and the physical aspect finally at 35 got to me and I realized I needed to slow it down, so I've been back in school for the past semester, and can't wait to finish so I can teach High School history in a DoDDS School.

I would love to hear from other people and am willing to answer any questions you might have. I am sure my mom would as well