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 My name is Mark, I'm 38 years
old, and I was born with Aperts. I was born on Jan. 17, 1954 I was born in a
small hospital, the doctor had never seen an Aperts child, so he referred my
parents to a pediatrician Dr. Bosley in a bigger town. Upon his retirement,
we were sent all the records he kept of me, my last time seeing him being in
1988. (He requested we continue to visit him to allow him to somewhat follow
my life) At birth, my fingers and thumbs were grown together, the bones
being fused at the knuckles, as were my toes, Dr. Bosley commented in his
notes "it was not necessary to create artificial sutures". He said I
appeared to be healthy, though he questioned ... doubted whether I'd ever
sit up on my own. In Oct '65 the first of two surgeries were done to my
right hand, separating the fingers and thumb. The second surgery was in
April '67, they deepened the webs between fingers and thumb. I have three
fingers and thumb on right hand. They took skin grafts from my right leg.
April 1966 the first of three surgeries was performed on my left hand, to
separate the fingers and thumb, skin grafts were taken from my left leg. A
month later, when dressing was changed, they found the grafts had not taken
very well, had developed "dry gangrene." At that point, they removed
the tips of two fingers, and deepened the webs of all of them slightly.
At that time, I had three fingers and a thumb on the left hand, one finger
having two bones at it's base. It was removed in January, 1969. They thought
1'd have better use of the hand as in grasping an object.They also wanted to remove the index finger of my right hand, but decided against it. Actually, I was asked my opinion... and I vetoed the idea. In '72 I had an extra bone that was protruding out the bottom of each foot removed, as it was causing discomfort when I was on my feet, and the area would turn raw when I went swimming ... due to the rough bottom of the swimming pool. My skull is a little taller than "normal", and I have a curved spine, I also have sleep apnea, and as a teen had bad acne, and many ear infections as a child. I was raised on a farm, Dad quit because of the economy in Feb. '02. My brother rented the farm from our landlord for one year, so we stayed on the farm, until I left for college. My parents moved to town in January the following year. I graduated high school in 1982, went to a two year college, failed a class that never was made up, so I'm just short of an associates degree in agriculture. At this time, I have no plans to make it up, as the economy is especially hard for the farmers, and I have a successful and happy career going - I am a janitor at a manufacturing plant, May of '03 will be my 15th anniversary there, However, quite unfortunately my employer has changed, the company I started with lost the contract to clean the plant... Six years ago I purchased a house, not long after I took in four cats, that manage to keep me amused .... am l at the store constantly buying cat food. I feel very lucky, as my health has been real good, except for a time or two having pneumonia, and once having chicken pox, I have never head a serious illness. ` I owe my success to a very loving family... whom have loved and supported me my whole life... and to my friends I've grown up with... who treated me "as one of the crowd." I asked my Mom once... if she was "disappointed" the day I was born... Her reply was a resounding NO... She said Dad and her got EXACTLY what they expected... A BABY TO LOVE... which will be mMY expectations if I ever marry and my wife has kids... I will expect to get a BABY TO LOVE... IF I have ONE regret in my 38 years... it is that no more than a ahndful of pictures exist of me before my 5th birthday... moral of the story people... TAKE MANY PICTURES OF YOUR KIDS WHEN THEY'RE BABIES!!!! Take Care, Love, Mark |
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This page was created February 3, 2003
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