Stephanie Has Survived Multiple Traumatic Life Events. Most Significantly, Her Personal Experiences Include:
- Adapting to life with a rare vascular and lymphatic birth defect, Klippel-Trenaunay Syndrome (KTS), that caused her left leg and foot to be deformed, purple in color and causes daily chronic pain.
- Struggled with self-esteem and self-worth for decades as she endured the stares, heard the whispers, teasing and additionally feeling isolated as a result of her physical malformations. Stephanie was a senior in high school before she met another human being with her syndrome.
- Suffered with severe anxiety as a child, teen and young adult constantly imagining her loved ones dying or getting harmed. Her undiagnosed anxiety, which also caused insomnia led to academic challenges, even failed classes for Stephanie.
- Was hospitalized for three weeks at the young age of eight years old. Stephanie fell off her bike, fracturing her left elbow which put her in traction. The physical pain that she experienced to be put in traction not once, but twice was barbaric.
- At thirteen years old, Stephanie’s younger sister, Kristen was hit by a car and hospitalized for two nights. Thankfully Kristen fully recovered from that scary incident.
- Minutes after Kristen came home from the hospital, Stephanie and her family learned of the sudden death of her paternal grandmother and consequently, were forced to become survivors of suicide.
- Moved from Massachusetts to California for her Father’s job promotion her sophomore year in high school which caused severe clinical depression. This led Stephanie to the brink of suicide.
- Experienced grief and loss for over two years as she adjusted to leaving her childhood friends and her brother Jeff, who was in college, behind. In addition, the insecurities she felt with her physical deformities were enough to emotionally paralyze her.
- Her lack of self-confidence and self-worth led Stephanie to an emotionally and verbally abusive relationship through her high school years in California.
- Endured rejection from seventeen graduate programs in a two year span which ultimately led Stephanie to change her career goals.
- Grieved for two and a half years after being told by her local high risk OB-GYN that it was too risky to get pregnant, carry and deliver a baby.
- Dealt with the devastating experience of not having the picture perfect birth story; and, instead having to give her full term newborn son over to the Neonatal Intensive Care Team seconds after meeting her baby Brian. In less than twenty-four hours he was placed on life support.
- Was transported in a hospital bed to the NICU to say goodbye to her ten day old baby. Facing unexpected life threatening medical problems herself, Stephanie needed to be transferred by ambulance to a trauma hospital.
- Survived a forty-five minute cardiac arrest day twelve after the birth of her son followed up by an emergency four hour surgery to have a hysterectomy and her spleen removed.
- Received over a hundred and twenty five units of blood starting on day three following her C-section. She is indebted to over two hundred blood donors it took to save her life.
- Experienced prolonged emotional and physical agony during her seven week hospital stay while she recovered from her cardiac arrest, four surgeries and continued multiple life threatening health complications. All of this compounded the anguish of being separated from her newborn son.
- On her first Mother’s Day, finally getting to see Brian for the first time in a month, Stephanie experienced too much physical pain from her surgeries and soon to be diagnosed blood clot in her leg – to hold Brian. After a short visit, Stephanie had to get wheeled back to her hospital room from the courtyard, yet again, saying goodbye to her baby.
- Beyond frail from her hospitalization, Stephanie, her husband Duane and Baby Brian moved into her parents’ home for two months. Stephanie had to get the strength to go from a wheelchair, to a walker, to a cane as she learned how to walk on her own again. Brian was four months old before she had the upper body strength to change her son’s diaper. It was a full year before Stephanie returned to physically feeling back to baseline.
- Stephanie experienced symptoms of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) for a full year after Brian was born. Every night as she was about to fall asleep, she would startle and flash back to the moment of feeling chest compressions as she went into cardiac arrest.
- Stephanie and Duane went through two separate church “divorces”. If you’ve ever experienced one of those, you know how devastating that loss can be.
- When Brian was nine months old, during the Great Recession, Duane lost his job and he fell into clinical depression and started having panic attacks. Stephanie and Duane faced financial drought in spite of Stephanie working three jobs. Remembering their vows, they endured the emotional stress and tension that financial challenges puts on a marriage for five long years. This circumstance closed the door to the hope of adopting a child.
- When Brian was four years old, Stephanie had another surgery to repair five abdominal hernias. Petrified from the PTSD of her seven week hospitalization and near death experience, Stephanie prepared for her death. She prayed to God for a sign that she would live and that is when her connection to God through yellow butterflies started.
- Stephanie was Duane’s caregiver during his three bouts of separate life threatening cancers. Duane fought and persevered through immunotherapy, radiation, and five surgeries all in a short thirteen month span. Inquisitive beyond his years, Stephanie had to answer those hard questions that their then ten year old son asked about his Dad.
- During the COVID pandemic, then thirteen year old Brian was hospitalized for four days and after extensive testing was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease. Being a parent of a child who has a chronic disease can be heartbreaking at times.