That's not what I'd call it...

It's the 12th of the month, and you know what that means! Okay, you probably don't actually, so allow me to explain...
My birthday is on the 12th of the month I was born in (April) so in an effort to make this blog more personal, I am going to give you a fun, or unusual fact about myself...sometimes more than one, on the anniversary of my birth. Today, is January 12, so it will be my first attempt to reveal something unbeknownst to you. Here ' goes...
I was born a "blue baby". No, I did not have some sort of unusual skin condition, nor was I the illegitimate child of Papa Smurf, but when I was born, I was blue. The doctors knew that there was something wrong with me, but they were having trouble putting their fingers on exactly what it was. You see, they had never seen a baby born before with my exact combination of "ailments". Finally, they reached a virtual cornucopia of diagnoses which included the following: Tetrology of Fallot (Pronounced Full Oh) with a Corrected transposition and dextrocardia.
To say the least, my life has been filled with an entourage of doctors, surgeons, and specialists in all departments, to treat me. All of my children had to be pre-screened, to assure they were not as blessed as I was, prior to birth. Luckily, nobody else inherited my mutant genes, and while I had to be treated with a little extra TLC during certain portions of my life, I have been able to live an amazing and full life. I get a little thrill (and a fair amount of hesitation) whenever I must go to a physician who I have never seen before. When we moved to our current home (Texas) I went to meet my now favorite cardiologist, and after confusing the echo tech to no end, my doctor came in. I recited the memorized diagnosis that I had been programmed to be able to recall at a moments notice since I was 9 years old, and she looked at the screen, cocked her head, and said: "That's not what I'd call it". Here it was over 25 years since my original diagnosis, and she was questioning it's validity. WHAT?! Who am I then?! I asked her if she had a better term for what I have, and she furrowed her brow. "Well...you have this...and this...but you have this too, so it's not really that...I guess we can just go with the previous diagnosis, for lack of a better term."
So, there you have it. I'm "lack of a better term" girl. I have had 2 or 3 open heart surgeries, depending on which ones you count as surgeries, and countless other procedures. I HATE being the center of attention as far as my condition goes, so the fact I have a "zipper", the telltale sign that you have a broken heart, makes me very self conscious. I tend to keep the conversation focused away from the fact I'm not "normal", and will most likely not refer to it very often on here, because it really isn't a crippling, end of the world kinda thing. If you have found this post while looking up information about the ailments your child has, please feel free to contact me. I would love to talk more in depth with someone who already knows all the medical gobbledy gook.
Tune in next month for a few things that I LOVE in honor of Valentine's day...

*Clarification: Just to let you know, since I'm an airhead, and forgot to put it in the post...I am not still blue. My first surgery fixed the problem THANK GOODNESS! Sorry to leave you hangin' MiMi!