An Eventful Quarter Century

Just before her 18th birthday, my mother got married to my father. A young couple, in love and happy. He was in the military and they somehow ended up in Atlantic City. This is when I come into the picture, conceived on a fateful night in 1982. Nine months later I arrived on the scene, ready to take on the world. Eighteen months later, my younger sister Heather made her first appearance in this world.

Now, some of memories are just what I have heard, because who can remember those really early days. I was a baby beauty queen, Baby Ventura County, or something along those lines. I won a few of them, what can I say, I was a charmer. And I could belt out Whitney Houston's "Greatest Love Of All" like a pro. The other big thing that happened to me as a small child was when I fell out of the car. It was around Christmas time, we were coming back from a party. I know this because I was all dressed up and had on my Christmas Tree tights. We were living in Huntington Beach California, and I saw some Christmas lights up in a window. I got so excited, I somehow managed to open the car door as my mother was in the middle of a U-turn. I tumbled out of the car, face first into the asphalt on the middle of the intersection. There was honking, my nose was broken and bleeding, and (brace yourself, its bad) my tights had holes in them. I KNOW! Also, my two front teeth ended up being permanently bruised. Thank goodness they were my baby teeth!

My mother and father divorced right before Heather was born, and she started dating this guy named Sergio. We called him "Slime Ball", now that I'm an adult, I question my mother's taste in men if she was dating someone with an nickname like that. Perhaps we referred to him as "Slime Ball" after they broke up. He kidnapped Heather and me, planned to take us back to Guatemala with him. No, really. And if I understand it correctly, that is a big part of the reason that we now live here in Oklahoma.

After moving, my mom met her second husband, and had my baby sister Jennifer. He had a son, who lived with us for a few years, but then moved back with his mother. Jennifer was a gorgeous baby, dark hair, deep blue eyes. She also was epileptic, having her first seizure as just about a week old. It was very scary, and me being six years old, I didn't really understand what exactly was going on. She would have seizures when she was upset, throwing a temper tantrum. So she was spoiled, we did everything to keep her happy, to try to avoid her having a seizure. She had one when I was holding her once, and I can tell you it was one of the scariest moments in my life. I was young and helpless, I just had to keep holding her and wait for it to end. That was the last time that I held her. She has grown out of them now, but inside I still worry that she will have another one.

The next few years didn't have any major events take place, just the usual stuff, winning the geography bee in 5th grade, playing Eve in my church program, starting middle school, my first dance with a boy, starting my period.. The same stuff every girl goes through.

When I was in 9th grade, my mom got divorced and decided that we were going to move to Mustang Oklahoma. A whole nother town. It was so far that it might as well have been another country. In reality, it was only about half an hour away. It was the beginning of summer, and I was only 15, so I couldn't drive. I didn't talk to my mom for weeks after she forced me to move away from all of my friends. She didn't know that I wasn't talking to her, but I did. I was so shy back then, it was brutal starting a new high school, with people who had known each other their whole lives. I didn't make any friends until right before Christmas. That's a long time of eating lunch alone, and walking to and from school by myself. I did finally make some friends, and they are still some of my very best friends.

My senior year of high school was a rough one for me, my migraines were really getting bad and I was very sick. An MRI showed that I had a cyst that took up the entire Sphenoid Sinus Cavity. I had surgery in December of 2000 to remove it, they went up my nose and pulled it out I guess. I woke up with my nose stuff with teflon coated gauze. They sent me home, and that night I threw up blood and bled from my eyes (this is my friend Angela's favorite story to tell about me.. "Have you met Sharon? I've seen her bleed from her eyes!"). We all freaked out, but it turns out that was normal since my nose was all packed, but they didn't tell us that. I spent 3 days in the hospital because I was so sick.

I'd been throwing up a lot for months, but after still being so sick weeks after surgery, the doctors couldn't figure out why I was still throwing up all the time. My eyes were dark and sunken in, my legs had dwindled to tooth picks, I couldn't keep anything down, and I was exhausted all the time. I wore super baggy clothes, so no one could tell that I looked like I was 28 months pregnant, and the doctors thought I was, I took pregnancy tests, even though I was a virgin, and was pretty sure I wasn't carrying the next Messiah, or an alien baby.

They finally did a CT scan on my abdomen. We got the phone call on a day where both my mother and I were home sick. They told her that I had a mass in my stomach and it was bigger than a football. One trip to the surgeon later, I was scheduled for another surgery in January of 2001. After waking up with all kinds of tubes in my nose and mouth and chest, I learned what was wrong with me. I had a 46 pound ovarian cyst attached to my left ovary. They had to remove the ovary and fallopian tube. I had a 5 pound ovarian cyst attached to my right ovary, they did a removed the cyst and a piece of that ovary. All of my organs had been pressed up against my back, which was why I was throwing up all the time. They cut through all of my abdominal muscles, they had to drain half of it, and call for help to left the other half out. I have never experienced pain like that pain, I hope I never have to ever again. I couldn't sit up, or lay down, or stand up with out excruciating pain. I spent 3 days with a morphine drip, which helped but didn't take the pain fully away. Ten days total in the hospital, a month or so more out of school, and a 8-10 inch scar forever. And I worked my ass off at school to make sure I got caught up and graduated on time.

After high school, I got a job in a little placed call hell. But I did meet my best friend while working there, so I will always be thankful. I had crappy boyfriends and non-boyfriends. Made mistakes. Grew up. I learned a lot about myself, and I think that all my struggles helped me turn into the person that I am now. In September of 2006 I met my husband, and on that day I knew that my life had changed. I always thought when they said "You'll just know when it happens for real" that they were full of nonsense. But they weren't, because I just knew. I was cautious going into the relationship, but it wasn't long before we were inseparable. On our two year anniversary we got married. He makes me so happy, and makes me feel like the most beautiful person in the world. He showed me how it feels to love and be loved.

So that is my life story, its been kind of eventful, and parts of it have sucked, but I don't think I'd change any of it, because it molded my character and led me to the life I have now, and I wouldn't trade lives with anyone!

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