Some could say that I beat the odds and 'made it to the top' of my field.
My mother is first-generation American, from Mexico; my father is also first-generation, with Spain ancestry. We were raised to speak English. After their divorce, my father was a single parent of 7 kids during the 70's. He must've been more cool than I thought at the time, but my fondest memory of him will always be with me. He would let us eat a double-decker ice cream cone while it was snowing at nighttime in Big Bear. Flake after different flake of snow falling on my head and ice cream. Cool.
I went to the Alternative Schoool at Granada Hills High, and had a special pass saying I could be off campus any time of the day. Even the LAPD recognized this pass.
I got kicked out of Catholic High School, but not before one of my best friends there had been shot in the head and was murdered. She reportedly had been 'thumbing' a ride and got picked up by someone on a motorcycle. Later, I got kicked out because Annajo gave me orange juice to drink, and eventually, she had me drink a fifth of vodka that it was spiked with. By the time we got to school for a 50's party, I was seeing double. Needless to say, I got kicked out of school. But that did not mean that my life would be a failure, nor that I would not learn from it. I did learn that authority meant authority, and that all rules were not meant to be broken.
I was pleased to go the Alternative School, where attending class was elective, and I think I received straight 'A's. Met some of the most memorable people there.
My first job was at McDonald's, when I was 16 years old. One of my best high school friends got shot in the head and I ran away from home every weekend. Finally, at 16, I ran away and married my boyfriend, who was 27. At 18, I got married. By 19 years old, I earned my Cosmetology and Real Estate Licenses. By 1985, I learned phlebotomy (drawing blood from someone's arm) while a freshman at Cal State University, Northridge. (Thanks, Scarlet, for taking me by the hand and having Rich not only add me on to the class, but employ me as a teacher after that.) And I graduated Cum Laud, going immediately to medical school.
I'll tell you about medical school later.
Eventually, I was Chief of the Department of Anesthesiology in Pennsylvania. I was at a Veteran's Hospital, which is where my love for medicine had begun while I was undergraduate. My Mentor on Life and Medicine was Lois, whose image I desired to emulate: tough on the outside, smart, and caring. Thought I would serve the Veteran's until retirement.
That changed. Then I got in the motor vehicle accident (MVA) and things really changed.
The Disabled do not seem to be noticed. When was the last time you smiled at someone in a wheelchair? I think that human nature and society teach us to find the disfigured and the Disabled as something to be avoided.
It's human nature: you look at me as you see me going in to the same door you are. You are walking fast to get ahead of me, and I am plodding behind you, slowly, and in a walker. One quick glance tells you I am disabled, so you put your eyes down to prevent my eye contact.
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