|
The Perez FamilyCeleste, Eva & Juan
|
Celeste's Story
My name is Celeste; I'm 12 years old. When I was born, I was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder, in which I could bleed and bruise easily. Since then my parents were struggling going back and forth for an hours drive each way to Cooks Children’s hospital almost every week. This kept going until the doctors recommended doing a bone marrow transplant, which requires a lot of tests to make sure that everything was working well. The last thing was an echogram, which would show my heart function and health. The following week my parents received the results. The Doctor said everything was good except for one thing; I had an enlarged heart, in other words Cardiomyopathy. That was my parent’s worst fear, because we have had a history of Cardiomyopathy within my family on my dad’s side. My grandmother died at age 35, my aunt had a cardiac arrest two weeks before high school, my dad's two uncles and an aunt also died because of the cardiomyopathy problem. My dad also has the disease, but ten years ago in 2007 a miracle happened, he had a heart transplant and is doing well. In 2014 they did my bone marrow transplant, but it was a little difficult to adjust the transplant due to my heart. It's been a struggle for me living with cardiomyopathy and the blood disorder because there are so many things that I am unable do such as, sports because I will tire or bruise easily. Every night I pray that this will go away someday and make my life happier and easier. Every day I tell myself, everything is going to be all right and to never give up.
