I'm Susie, 23. I've been married 3 years to Matt, 25. We have Oceana who is 2 1/2 and Joshua who was born 7 Jan 2008. Joshua had an encephalocele - a neural tube defect - that has left a hole in his skull. His brain grew out through the back of the skull into a membrane-covered sack. We thought it was repairable by surgery after birth, but at 36 weeks we were informed that he'd die soon after...
I am 58 and grew up in the 50's before eating lead paint was a bad thing. We also used to break glass thermomoters to play with that cool mercury inside. Who knew? I had about every disease available except polio. like measles, mumps (real bad) Reumatic fever, etc. At sevral points I was put in cold water or ice to control a 106 temperature. I had an appendectomy at age 5 in 1956, and they tell...
I was born on August 8th 1991. Two or more weeks premature. I spent the first three and a half years of my life in a Romanian orphanage, on the third year one of the caretakers attempted to kill me by throwing me down the stairs for complaining that she was stealing food. I suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury with skull fracture. I remember waking up in the hospital. Because of the premature birth...
Three months after my first child was born, I was diagnosed with sarcoidosis, an autoimmune disease. Although sarcoidosis spontaneously remits in many cases, I developed a chronic form of the disease in multiple organs-- my brain, heart, lungs, liver, cranial nerves, lymph nodes, and bones. Becoming chronically ill at the same time that I am learning the ropes of motherhood has been like...
Darden Hanson Burns lives on Bainbridge Island in a beautiful spot overlooking Puget Sound and Mt. Rainier where she and her husband Michael built their home and raised their daughters Caitlin(24) and Amelia(21).
A musician by training, Darden teaches piano lessons to young people and directs the concert series "First Sundays at the Commons". (www.firstsundaysconcerts.org)....
