I was born with Tetralogy of Fallot. At first the doctor just diagnosed me with a minor heart murmur but when I was 7 months old I stopped breathing and my nanny at the time performed CPR. My parents were told that I needed immediate heart surgery. So at 14 months old I had my first of six open heart surgeries. Dr. Robert Allen at Le Bonheur Children's Hospital here in Memphis did the operation. He put the first of my two Blalock-Taussig shunts. I had my second operation when I was 7 years old. Back then, II was told various times I was not supposed to even be alive. That is because a year and a half before that operation I was in a severe car accident. My entire left leg and pelvic bone broke. My left arm, crushed lungs, broken ribs and severe head trauma. They drained three blood clots from my head and I have a plastic knee cap on my left leg. I was supposed to wear a body cast but because of my heart they only put it up to my waist. I had to learn to walk all over again. The head trauma only gave me severe headaches at the time but otherwise I believe to still be sane (I have a natural sense of humor).

I had my second operation at age 7 and there were complications. I had internal bleeding and the shunt was not working properly so they opened me twice. My parents were told after my second operation I would be like all the other children and be able to play any kind of sport without any limits but that did not happen because of the complications during and after the operation. A year after that operation I got Hepatitis B from the blood transfusion. I led a pretty normal life. I did much of what I wanted to do. I love to ride my bike everywhere and swimming was a passion of mine. I also, every now and then, played soccer with my dad and brother, but only when my dad let me which was not often. My family and I moved around a lot but in 1987 my father passed away from his second heart attack when we where living in Gilbert, AZ. My mom, brother and I moved to Argentina, were my parents are from. Our family is down there so we went to live with them. I was in excellent health from what I can remember. I walked about 20 blocks a day and I lost about 80 pounds. I was a hefty 185 lbs before I left the States. The only problem I recall having was polycytemia. I had several phlebotomies, of which caused me to become severely anemic.

We left Argentina in 1991 and came back to Memphis. I was 21 at the time. I started going to Dr. Thomas DiSessa and he had told me that there was an operation to repair TOF. Since I had already been to the Mayo Clinic several times for heart caths and angioplasties, I felt comfortable going back there for my four operations. I was going into right heart failure at the time and I became overweight again and my outlook was dim to say the least. So finally in 1993 I had the first of the four life saving operations. But in 1996, six months after my last operation I started having those old feeling again. Fatigue, shortness of breath, all of them. I was diagnosed with secondary pulmonary hypertension. I never begged for an operation before in my life until they told me I had this. Little did I know there is no operation for this. I was doing fairly well with it until last year (2002), in July I went to the Mayo Clinic and the pressures were so high they put me on meds. So, right now cardiac-wise I am 100% which is something I never thought would happen for me but at the same time growing up I never really thought I had a heart condition. I thought the people around me were strange.

I was fortunate enough to have parents raise me as if I was "normal". I grew up thinking every one else was strange but that I was normal. I did get into fights of course when a kid would make fun of me because I was blue, but I always considered that to be just who I was at the time. I guess you can say I embraced it, in my own way. Always live life without regrets, happy to be alive, and remember, we are each unique in our own ways and that makes all of us special.