Jeanne, a very important person in my life!

Jeanne was a nurse at Loma Vista Hospital. We kept in touch and stayed friends over the years until she died in 2003. She told me that when I was born, I had a tracheotomy to help me breath. I was the first baby at Loma Vista to have this done. Jeanne sometimes would take me home with her. When Jeanne would take me home she would have to clean the fluid out of the tube. After several surgeries, they decided to remove it to see if I could breath on my own. I could, but because of the tracheotomy it changed my voice. Sometimes people ask me why I talk so deep. Instead of going into detail, I just say it was the way I was born.

I was born with a congenital diseases of the nervous system called Neurofibromatosa.

When I was still a baby, Jeanne would take me home for the holidays so I wouldn’t have to be alone in the hospital. I would stay with her and her family. She told me a story years later that when we went to the mall, I would always go up to the manikins and talk to them. I would ask Jeanne why they wouldn’t answer. She always got a kick out of that.