disorder and there was nothing that could be done for me, there was no cure.
According to these doctors, I would be dead within a year, just great news to hear all
at one time, pregnant and less than a year to live. The doctors in the emergency room
on one of my many visits had decided to admit me to the hospital and do further
tests, but Dana’s father said no, I was going home. We did not have health insurance
at that time, and we did not have the money to pay hospital and doctor bills.
Dana’s father and I had to set up a payment plan with the obstetricians who were
now caring for me. When I was discharged from the hospital after Dana was born, we
had to go to the billing office on our way out of the hospital and the staff who worked
in that department informed us we could not leave the hospital without paying our
bill in full because we had no insurance. I was being held hostage by the billing
department. After much back and forth, they had us sign a contract agreeing to pay
on a monthly installment plan, it felt like going to Wal-Mart, and putting your
Christmas presents on lay-away. I thought, “If we miss a payment, what do they do?
Make us return him?” Dana was causing me problems and costing us plenty before he
was even born.
Dana was born three weeks after my projected due date, weighed six pounds,
nine ounces, and was nineteen inches long. He was thin with peeling skin from being
overdue. He was not a pretty baby when he was born, but skinny and scraggly looking.
Dana wasn’t one of those babies with the chubby thighs but instead with skinny, little
chicken legs. For all the difficulties I had during the pregnancy, however, he was born
healthy and without any problems. In truth, he was always a healthy child. When he
was four years old, he was sick with a stomach bug and I brought him to an emergency
room, where they picked up something wrong with his heart. By age nine, the doctors
felt the problem had resolved itself.
I stayed in the hospital for five days after Dana was born. One afternoon I asked
the nurse who had brought Dana in to me if he slept as well in the nursery as he did
when he was with me in my room. He was always sleeping. She gave me a quirky side
look as if the look should have answered the question and then informed me he was
the baby you could hear screaming all night in the nursery. From his earliest days, he