Key Verse:
“You whom I have upheld since your birth, and have carried since you were born… I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.”
— Isaiah 46:3b–4 (NIV)

After the Hospital

After a relatively short stay at Oakland Children’s Hospital, my parents brought me home—without much of a plan, but with a whole lot of courage. I was just an infant, and my bladder was exposed outside my body. My mother, only 24 years old, suddenly found herself caring for a medically fragile baby with a rare and alarming condition.

She often says I was a “good baby,” rarely crying—unless there was a reason. And there were reasons. My exposed bladder was extremely sensitive. Any contact with urine or fecal matter sent me into overwhelming pain and inconsolable screams. She once described it as looking like a peeled tomato on my lower abdomen—raw, tender, and exposed to the world.

But my mother was nothing if not inventive. She took an old Clorox bottle, cut it where the side met the base, and shaped it into a dome. She gently placed it over my tiny bladder, creating a barrier between it and the roughness of my diapers. It was a makeshift solution, but it gave me some comfort and gave her some peace. There wasn’t a long-term plan yet—just survival, instinct, and fierce maternal love.

A Marriage Under Pressure

Like many young couples, my parents had already faced their share of challenges—long before I arrived. I don’t feel it’s my place to tell their whole story, but I will say this: it is nothing short of a miracle that my birth didn’t break their marriage entirely.

It was 1966. Divorce was rare and stigmatized, and life demanded perseverance. They needed each other—practically, financially, and for the sake of their children. My mom needed the time and space to care for both me and my older brother. My dad’s secure job, decent pay, and reliable benefits made that possible. Their relationship may not have been the emotionally supportive kind we picture in movies, but there was a bond forged out of necessity—a kind of enduring love built on shared responsibility.

I imagine their minds were flooded with questions they couldn’t even begin to answer:

• Why us?
• Did we do something to cause this?
• Will we make it through—and how?
• Will our daughter be okay?
• How can we treat her like every other child when we know she isn’t like every other child?
• How do we protect her from shame, dependency, or a self-image that feels broken?

They wrestled with these questions while still making meals, changing diapers, going to work, and trying to keep the household running. There wasn’t time or space for therapy or emotional processing—only grit, hope, and an unspoken agreement to keep going.

A Radical Procedure

After about 18 months of careful home care, doctors performed a radical surgical procedure. My bladder was removed entirely. I had been born without a functioning urethra, so traditional reconstruction wasn’t possible. Instead, they rerouted both of my ureters into my large intestine—a procedure called ureterosigmoidostomy.

This meant all of my urine would now drain into my colon and be expelled along with stool, through the anus. It was seen at the time as a practical way to provide continence without the need for an external urostomy bag.

But it came with serious risks:

• Recurring infections, especially urinary tract and kidney infections
• Metabolic imbalances, since the colon would absorb minerals from the urine
• Unpredictable incontinence, particularly at night
• Long-term cancer risk, due to prolonged exposure of intestinal tissue to urine

And of course, there was the emotional toll—something far less understood in that era. The body adapts, but the soul also remembers.

The Start of Many

This wasn’t the last surgery. It was just the beginning.

I would go on to have many more. I would spend more time in hospitals than on playgrounds. And yet, to the outside world, I looked like a quiet, well-behaved little girl.

No one talked about post-traumatic stress in children, especially not in kids recovering from surgery. If I didn’t complain, they assumed I was coping. But inside, my nervous system was storing everything: every needle, every incision, every time I was separated from my parents, every moment my body felt out of my control.

It would take me decades to understand that what I experienced wasn’t just medical—it was traumatic.

I had developed survival strategies that looked like “being good.” I dissociated. I became compliant. I avoided drawing attention to my needs. I didn’t know I had complex PTSD (C-PTSD) until many years later, when the emotional and physical weight finally became too heavy to ignore.

Looking Back with Compassion

Today, I look back at that little girl with new eyes.

She wasn’t just quiet—she was adapting.
She wasn’t just sweet—she was surviving.
She wasn’t broken—she was brave.

And while my parents didn’t always have the tools to name or address the deeper layers of what was happening, I now believe they did their best under overwhelming circumstances.

And I believe that even then—especially then—God was carrying me.

Isaiah 46 reminds me that I have been upheld since birth. Even when life didn’t make sense, even when no one had answers, He was there. And He still is.

What began as a fragile beginning has become a testimony to a faithful God.
Not one moment was wasted.
Not one tear unseen.
Not one scream unheard.

If you’ve ever been through something that felt too big for words, too private to explain, or too early to remember—you are not alone. Whether or not anyone else recognized your trauma, God saw it. And He still carries you.