Faith has had many health problems and is my miracle child. She was born with a heart problem that necessitated surgery at the age of 12 months. At age 9 she was diagnosed with APML, an adult form of leukemia. After a year of the strongest doses of chemo available at that time, and another 8 months of remission off treatment, she relapsed and had an autologous bone-marrow transplant at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore(1987). She was given 25% odds of long term survival (5 years). At present it has been 8 yrs. since the transplant, and she is a college student. There have been repercussions from all of the chemo. Her hair did not come back and she has suffered permanent ovarian failure, loss of hearing in one ear and partial loss in the other, as well as other organ damage.
Faith has a generous and honest nature; I admire this in her. She has FIERCE determination when she wants to do something which has driven me nuts at times, but which has allowed her to survive.

Forward 9 years. It is Jan 2004. Faith graduated from the University at Buffalo in 1998 with a degree in Psychology and Health and H uman Services. She decided to take an extra year of ungergraduate work to get in the Masters Degree program in Audiology. During this year she went into toxic shock and almost died. The treatment was being blown up with water weight (60 Lbs) on her 110 lb. frame and being put into a drup induced coma for two weeks and being put on complete life support. She was told she would have to stay in the hospital for awhile after she woke up and then go to occupational therapy. She was out in 3 days and had no need of occupational therapy. Again the FIERCE determination.
A couple of weeks later, when she went back for a checkup, she was informed she had hepatitus C probably from all the blood transfusions when she had leukemia. She had to be on another year of strong chemotherapy, which she took by self injections, and which made her sick, while she finished the undergraduate year and started her graduate studies. She graduated with a Masters Degree in Audiology in 2001, and got a job in Allentown, Pa. She liked the job okay, but she was very lonely there and would often visit some college friends in New York City driving by herself in Manhattan.
She visited a boyfriend, Conrad Clark, she met on the internet in England at Christmas of 2002. He had visited her in Allentown the previous summer. In Feb. she discovered a lump in her breast which of course turned out to be breast cancer. She had a mastectomy in March 2003. Conrad came from England and tried to take care of her while she started her treatments in Allentown. He was on a visitors pass and could only stay 3 months. The treatments were too hard on her and she was missing too much work. She was fired from her job and came home which was better becaause she could rest and go to doctors and hospitals that we were more familiar with. During the course of this newest health episode, she found out she was carrying the BRCA2 gene, which of course came from. me and my mother, etc. In Nov 2003, she had the other breast removed and both breasts reconstructed. She got a massive infection after the surgery and spent twice as long as normal in the hospital. She then took IV antibiotics at home for several weeks. She is still trying to heal from this reconstructive surgery. Her immune system is not normal after all she has been through, and she is prone to slow healing and other infections. At present she still has that FIERCE determination, but it is getting worn down. CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS?