All I Wanted Was Some Gel

It was my senior year in high school when my mom told me that my cousin, Mayra, had given birth to a baby girl. However, child protective services decided that Mayra wasn’t adequate to take care of the child; due to her drug abuse. Child protective services from Mexico were trying to place the baby with close relatives. Sadly, there was only three choices, her grandma, my aunt Gloria, and myself. The choices were few and the family small.

Every time I look at this picture the very same day I seen this ultrasound plays in my head over and over again. So during the month of December my husband and I found out that we were expecting our first child. Although, we knew that we were young and this meant that some things would have to be put on hold we were very excited. I went to my second doctor's appointment on January 3rd, 2017 I found out that I miscarried my baby. This had to be the worst news I have ever received of all of my 18 years of living. I was distraught. I was stressing myself out day in and day out because I was thinking of ways that I could have prevented this from happening. Though there was nothing I could do. This was definitely a challenge for me because my mind

Most parents as they near the due date of their child are filled with excitement and happiness; however this could not have been further from the truth with my parents. My parents were informed by the doctors and that my lungs were collapsed because my intestines had pushed up into my thoracic cavity though a hole in my diaphragm. Then only option was to deliver me two weeks prematurely and perform immediate surgery. The outlook was bleak; through the lifesaving intervention a surgeon, I survived. This has impacted the choices I make in my everyday life throughout the years. I don't take opportunities or people for granted, and I realize everything I am able to experience is thanks to the skill of the surgeons in the operation room that night. This has

At 16 I experienced rural healthcare at its worst. My older brother and I were home alone when he started having severe stomach pain. I had never seen him cry in pain before and I was terrified. There isn’t a doctor in our hometown, so I drove him to the closest hospital, about 30 minutes away. Neither one of had a cell phone and the hospital staff wouldn’t allow me to use their phone to call my parents because they both had long-distance phone numbers. Hours after we arrived, someone in the waiting room let me use her cell phone to call my mom. When my parents got there, they took my brother to an exam room and then immediately back to surgery—his appendix had burst. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized this experience was not normal. It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized similar experiences often happen in rural communities because of the need for primary care physicians and quality health care facilities.

Florence, a 24-year-old Houston woman, suffers from a life-threatening genetic disease. She has been in and out of hospitals her entire life and has a pile of medical bills she can’t pay. Her partner left after she recently became pregnant, saying he couldn’t handle her constant illness. Then Florence, who did not want to be identified

On February 23, 2016, I was confronted with a scare that changed my life dramatically. My Mother Colleen Micele was admitted into Bayonne Hospital due to feeling ill, however, rapidly circumstances changed for the worst. My mother was rushed to the ICU unit and her time she had left us had been decreasing by the hour. My mother developed a condition called Pulmonary Edema which is when the lungs fill with fluid. This condition had caused my mother's lungs to then collapse which lead to my mother develop Atrial Fibrillation. Matters had become extremely severe and life threatening once my mother had become Septic. The uncertainty and living second to second not knowing if my mother would make it through her illness for 5 weeks emotionally destroyed

It was around 1931, we lived in the rural area outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma. We were on the brink of becoming homeless. The rent on our rather modest farm house had become three months overdue. We were unable to grow anything in the state the land had been in. I knew with my sister’s condition, we couldn't afford any further complications. My mother and the oldest of my younger brothers took their time to aid my sister with her asthma. My other younger brothers were twins and mainly just ran around playing, since they were too young to truly grasp the misfortune of our ordeal. My Aunt had recently moved in with us as well. She had become too depressed to genuinely help after the death of her husband, caused by an illness from the Dust Bowl. Our

On August 1, 2002, I, Kathryn Grace Bach, was born into this world. My parents arrived at Doylestown hospital at 8:30am. It was a hot, humid day in August. The temperature was already a staggering 82 degrees Fahrenheit. My mother came into the hospital wearing shorts and a T-shirt with her waving brown locks cascading down her shoulders. The doctors helped settle my mother in while I was quickly approaching. Unfortunately, my mother was unable to give birth to me naturally, so the doctors had to perform a C-section. After I was officially born at 9:30am, the doctors were unable to stop the bleeding from my mothers C-section cut. She has a low platelet level, which means her body couldn't form enough clots to stop the bleeding. They immediately

On January 29, 2001 at around four o’clock in the afternoon, a beautiful little girl named Leslie Arreaga was born. It was the first time I was able to hold and see a baby so up close. When I saw her for the first time I didn’t know what to say. All I told my parents was “ I love her and she is perfect.” My parents laugh at me because I was only four years old when she was born. I just couldn’t believe that I was finally an older sister. I remember that every time a person would come in and try to hold her I would give them a look saying “ If you hurt her, I will hurt you.” Leslie was the most precious little baby I had ever seen in my little four year life. She was so chubby, with big brown eyes and a little heart shaped mouth. The day my

“I’m going to have 11 more” was my grandmother’s response to the doctor, after she almost died giving birth to her first child. The doctor recommended that she have no more children, but she refused to abandon her original wedding promise of raising 12 children. When my dad was born, he and his mother, my grandmother, almost died. If my grandmother originally listened to the doctor after giving birth to her first child, if she died giving birth to any of her other children, or if my father died at birth, I would not be here writing this today. My grandmother lived a remarkable life. Not only did she successfully give birth to 12 children, but she also held daycares and welcomed more children into her home. I feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to spend time with my grandmother when she came to live with us. She lived an extraordinary life and without her, I would not be alive today.

Gurneys carrying patients zoomed past us. As the ER doors swung open, my steps started to slow. I thought back to the day before. There was a semblance of a smile on her face when my family surrounded her bedside. What she did not see, however, was the nervousness, the sense of panic; we did not know if the surgery would be successful. The nurse led us to the blue curtains that divided the ER floor, shifting them aside to reveal my older sister. The one that had to live with my aunt in India because we could not afford the medical expenses here, the one with a condition that left her speechless and motionless, the one I always fail to mention when I get asked “how many siblings do you have” because I am too embarrassed to talk about her, but at that moment I was only filled with joy. She had lived through the surgery, she was going to be

Ann mother went through a problematic pregnancy with her because she had oligohydramnios, which is Low amniotic fluid. Her mother wasn’t developing enough fluids. She was informed by doctors that Ann might have some major disability problems, such as down- syndrome. She had to keep going to different doctors for checkups. When it was time for deliver, Ann mother had

July 28, 2016 an amazing miracle was welcomed in this world. Isisah Thomas McClain, 6 pounds and 14 ounces. About 7 months ago my lovely sister Ashely has been to doctor after doctor after doctor trying to get help. Every one of them had told her to abort him; they told her that aborting him would be the best choice, because he has Trisomy 13, which the life span is minutes after birth up to two years. His organs would be in the wrong places and his brain wouldn’t have any protection, he did not have a left eye, and so on. Ashley accepted Jesus Christ and prayed hard for Isisah, we all did. This was a difficult decision for her to make, but she put her faith in the Lord and decided to keep Isisah. When isisah was born he was born he served

My older sister with eleven kids could not help my parents. She’s busy with her small tribe that she doesn’t have the time to be there for them. So, when my sister visited our dad at the hospital, he was already transferred to the critical care unit (CCU). While she was visiting my parents, the doctor spoke to her about a simple yet an invasive procedure

At the age of seventy-eight, Mom developed Fibroids; non-cancerous tumors that grew in and around her womb, causing pelvic pain. Three months after undergoing a hysterectomy, on Mother’s Day morning, our mother suffered a stroke. Terrified, when I found her, at home alone, unable to speak to me, I was nervous and distraught, although Mom’s facial expression was peaceful and calm, as if she was consoling me, trying to tell me not to worry. While Vince and I followed the ambulance to the hospital, I phoned Ellen to notify her of Mom’s dire condition. She rushed home immediately and by nightfall, Evie had her two daughters by her bedside.