When did Suzie start Fighting?

When did Suzie start Fighting?

I just thought some of you might be interested in the fact that I have had to fight to live since the moment I was born. Please allow me to explain:

My mom has the RH- blood factor. I was born in 1952, back then very little was understood about this factor and its effects during pregnancy. Here is what they now know. If the mother and unborn child have different blood types there is the potential for real danger. Inside the umbilical cord there is a “filter” that keeps the mothers blood and the baby’s blood from mixing. Well in these mothers sometime in the last 6 weeks of the pregnancy the filter breaks. This allows the two types of blood to mix. The mother’s blood reacts to the baby’s blood the way it would to an infection and works on killing it, and if not detected soon enough the mother’s blood wins and the baby is born dead.

Since 1952 the medical world has learned to check the umbilical fluid during the last 6 weeks of pregnancy. In 1964 they did this with Mom and her last child, they found that he was in trouble and did an emergency C-Section, gave him an exchange transfusion of blood and this year he will be 48 years old.

They did not know this in 1952, so when I was born my skin was the color of an orange, right I said orange. After two weeks, giving me blood and trying other things the doctor decided that I could go home from the hospital. Here is what Dr. Downy told my folks. “I don’t know if it is something I did, or something I did not do, your daughter is alive because God wants her here.”

So you see I started life fighting.  I know plan to go out of life fighting. 

I also plan to enjoy each day that I have left. I hope to spend a lot of time with family and friends. We don’t have to do anything special just do little things together. For those of you who do not live very close to me and travel to visit would be hard or just not possible relax. I will and do enjoy the messages you post on facebook, emails you send, old fashion cards all these things will bring me joy and give me cause to smile.

For those of you who do live close enough to stop by first let me say that I am now retired!