After 105 days of the sterile smell of the hospital, I could finally go home.  Although I would endure many surgeries and doctor’s visits to come, I could finally go home.  This accident still affects my life today.  Leaving scars on 35% of my body that will stay forever, making people always stare and question, making it hard to fit in, resulting in bullying, and making it hard to meet new people.  I don’t go very long without hearing, “What happened to your head?” or “What happened to your legs?”  Then I go on and tell the story of why my family calls me their miracle child. 

March 3, 2003, a standard day for most, remains a day that will forever be in my memory.  My dad was working at the business he owned; my brothers were running around playing, and my mom was cooking the thin, golden spaghetti for dinner.  When my mom abandoned the kitchen to do some laundry or some other unimportant house chore, I decided that I wanted to help.  At only three, I was quite small, so I scooted a heavy chair from the dining room table.  Placing it next to the stove, I climbed.  With the water boiling, I gripped onto the handle of the pot of boiling water; the chair began to wobble when I suddenly fell.  The scalding water splashed all over the wooden kitchen floor, and my mom must have heard the thud because she rushed into the kitchen.  I’m sure it sounded like an avalanche.  I stood in front of the stove with my red skin melting off.  I cried, “It hurts, Mommy.  It hurts!” 
Swiftly, but carefully, she raced me to the bathroom and drew an ice cold bath.  Gently setting me in the bathtub, she called my father, explaining to him the news in a panicked voice, scared of what might happen.  My mom came to the realization that the bath was not helping and was only making it worse.  She dialed 911, and my father sped home as quickly as he could.  When the ambulance arrived, with its lights flashing red, white, and blue, the sirens blared so loudly the whole world could hear. They backed into my front yard as close to my house as they could get.  My brother sheltered himself under the kitchen table, scared of the swarm of medics and police, not knowing what happened.

The medics, whose faces are all I remember, loaded me into the back.  Following quickly behind, my mom sat close to me as we drove to the hospital.  Quickly, they raced to the local hospital, where I only remained for a few minutes because they knew they couldn’t do anything to help.  I was then life flighted, where I slept in the night sky with my dad beside me, to the hospital called St. Vincent’s about an hour away by car.  My cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents, arrived to see what had happened.  March 3, 2003, happened to fall on one of my aunt’s birthdays.  While just she, a nurse, and I sat in the room, I began to sing her “Happy Birthday,” making them shed tears.  When my parents arrived back into the room, they thought I had died.  Once my aunt had informed them what really happened, they cracked some shy smiles.  Little did they know, more was to come.  They were going to endure long nights at the hospital, wondering if I was going to be okay.

I spent five days at this hospital.  The doctors, constantly giving me new medicines, tried to help. My three-year old body weighed sixty pounds because of all of the fluids they were administering.  From a lack of oxygen, my kidneys weren’t functioning properly.  The rest of my organs were starting to shut down. I had holes in my lungs because doctors put me on a ventilator, and all the air could go into my lungs; however, it could not go out.  I was also put on constant dialysis to try to rid my body of all the bad toxins.  My body was a sewage drain.

After the five days, the doctors at this hospital said they could do no more to help as well.  I continued to crash, and they announced, “There is nothing more we can do.” They suggested sending me to a hospital up in Michigan.  I spent 100 days in this hospital.  The doctors constantly worked, day and night, to get me to survive.  I was placed into a coma so that I did not feel anymore of the pain.   I also had to remain still in the same position or else I would start to crash.  The doctors said the holes in my lungs would never completely heal, and they said I might not be able to talk again. Losing hope, my parents never knew if the next time they saw me would be the last.  “Why does this have to happen to us?” they thought aloud.

With a feeding tube down my throat, my “Jesus Light” glowing ruby on my finger that would track my heartbeat, and a “trach” tube in my throat, that would leave an indentation on my neck, I slowly began to walk and talk.  After those 100 days in the hospital, the holes in my lungs somehow healed, and my organs were almost back to normal.  Towards the end of my stay the first words I spoke again were to my dad on the phone: “Daddy, I have my voice,” I rasped.  Everyone in the room cheered with joy.  I was finally getting better.