Andrea Schneider-Taylor Andrea's Fight for Life

I an no stranger in fighting battles because I've been doing it most of my  life. I developed my first ulcer at eight years old, looking back maybe it was a clue of what was to become of me.  At fifteen I started down a very bad spiral and found myself  starving, cutting, and purging on  a regular basis. It took me years of being in and out of the hospital to be force fed and hydrated, or spending my time in treatment centers talking about how we wanted to get better until the leader leaves the room and it is right back where it started. I was a ticking time bomb, and when I finally reached the point that I knew I had to either accept the help I was being offered or I could die.  AS I was beginning that long road to recovery things became miserable fast. I was getting violently ill every time I ate, my stomach was distended, and  would just curl up and cry in pain.  At that point my doc scheduled me for an emptying study and sure enough the diagnosis of gastroparesis was right there. I ended up in the surgeon's  office for another j tube to be placed since I couldn't be  fed orally.  He said he would put the tube in but wanted to do a procedure called a sleeve gastrectomy...he basically left me with a sliver of a stomach that was suppose to help with emptying. It made my life even worse, I couldn't take  even a sip of anything without running to the bathroom.  Shortly after that I started having motility problems in my intestines that put me on TPN. I have been on tube feeds, TPN, IV hydration,  had major abdominal surgery, spent weeks in hospital beds, fifteen run ins with sepsis, three of which became full blown septic shock. Now we are raising money to move away from the hospital here that is going to kill me and probably settle by Barnes until  we get the call that we have to go to Indiana for transplant stuff. Through all of this I managed to find a husband and have the most beautiful little boy that the docs  said we would never come out of this delivery...we did because we are fighters, we are Taylors, and Taylors don't give up! God Bless