Michelle finally had surgery to remove that arteriovenous malformation (vascular growth) from her right kidney – 7 years after it was first noted on some routine imaging for a totally unrelated medical issue and almost a year after I was made aware that it existed. It was a slow process, but it was a successful surgery. We had to report to the hospital by 6:00 am on March 31st. Since…
Michelle enjoys traveling with us, but she had never been on a cruise. Floyd and I took a cruise back in February, 2020, and we loved it, so we wanted to take Michelle on a cruise. Of course, boat rides can cause problems for some people, and we didn’t know how Michelle would respond to it, so we booked us a little 5-day cruise to the Bahamas. It was just…
Although Michelle is 38 years old, she is still thinking on probably an 8 or 9 year old level. With Williams syndrome, she talks very intelligently. So it’s easy to miss her learning disability and not realize that she doesn’t always understand what she’s saying. However, one thing she’s adamant about is that she absolutely, positively does not want to have children. Now Michelle has never been sexually active, but…
In order to do a proper followup on my last blog, I had to wait almost a month to get Michelle in with the UC vascular surgeon and nuclear medicine surgeon for consultations. By the time I had the information to do the followup, the holidays were upon us. So here’s an update. Michelle saw a doctor in Nuclear Medicine. They did a kidney function test which showed that her…
Heart problems and vascular issues are very much a part of Williams syndrome. If left untreated, most children with Williams syndrome will never live to adulthood. Back in the early 1960s, they started doing autopsies on every seemingly healthy child that died without any apparent cause. A medical examiner by the name of Williams saw a connection between these children and their cause of death. Most children with Williams syndrome…
Michelle likes money. She likes where it will take her – ballgames…concerts…Nashville, Tennessee…her favorite restaurants. She likes what it will buy her – CDs…tickets to movies, concerts, ballgames, Reds activities…food…coffee…new clothes and shoes. She likes what it can do for her. (Don’t we all?) Even though she usually has money left at the end of the month, she feels like she needs more. So she figured out a way to…
One of the major physical challenges that people with Williams syndrome tend to deal with are heart and blood vessel issues, often requiring surgery. Michelle was very blessed to have escaped the heart problems and has not had to have any type of heart or vascular surgery. However, on a routine visit to her primary care doctor, her doctor noticed in her records that she’d had a CT scan weeks…
Medical issues are very much a part of Williams syndrome, and Michelle has been incredibly blessed not to have the heart and blood vessel problems that have been so characteristic of the syndrome. She is now 37 years old, and medical issues have been popping up in her life right and left, so I shall address them. When Michelle moved home on January 8, 2021, she seemed to be having…
In Michelle’s biography, I talk about how therapy sessions were always counterproductive for Michelle. So I avoided getting her in with that particular service. But Michelle was in group homes and with agencies for several years. The longer she was with them, the more medications they put her on. And the more medications she was on, the more she dealt with growing anxiety, anxiety attacks, and severe behavior problems. So…
One of the characteristics of Williams syndrome is that they tend to be gifted in music. Michelle is a big country music fan. Currently, her favorite country singer is Cole Swindell. Her lifelong dream is to go to Nashville and “get a record deal.” Never mind that she can’t sing. She thinks she sings just fine. She loves to write her own “songs.” It’s not really a song without the…