Aimee's Story

Aimee with her family gathered for her sister's wedding

When I was still in my mother's womb she smoked and when I was born I was an early baby. I was born on August the thirtieth. I was supposed to be born on September twenty first, but I wasn't.

When I was a small baby I developed an ear infection, and I had to take some baby antibiotics and to clear up the infection in my ears. When I was five years of age I went to the Children's Hospital to get tubes put in my ears and that was my beginning.

When I was six years old I went to a picnic at a park, and my mother told me not to run around the building which I wasn't supposed to do and I did it any ways. While I was running another child in a big wheel was following me around. As I made it around the building the big wheel hit my foot, I flipped, and I landed on my head. I would have liked to have landed on my feet instead, but that didn’t happen.

That was my first brain concussion, I didn't know, and my mother didn't know, and my sister did not know what was going on at the time of this accident.

A guy at the park told us to get into the car and we went to every Doctor in town and we finally found this one Doctor and he said that I had a brain concussion. The Doctor said that I should go home. When I got home, I lay down on the sofa, and I slept for three hours and then I felt fine afterwards.

When I got a little bit older I was turning seven years of age, and I got my first two wheeled bicycle for my birthday. I like to ride it, but I fell off and I got another brain concussion. I did not go home after this accident. I went to a friend’s house, and I did not know what I was saying to my friend. I cursed at my friend, and then I finally went home. When I got home I took some Tylenol for my head.

That was two accidents and two brain concussions.

I had two more accidents on my bicycle. One happened when I was swerving my bike and fell off, and the tube in my ear fell out. I went back to the Doctor's and he told me that I needed to have the tube put back in my ear that was my right ear. Later I fell again on my bike and the tube in my left ear fell out. After that accident I had to have another surgery on my left ear to put the left tube back in my left ear. I haven't had any more brain concussions since that last accident.

The doctor told me that if I get another brain concussion I will no longer be on Earth at all. So I am being careful and doing really well now that I haven't gotten another one at all.

Now I want to talk to you about is my mastoid surgery's. When I was ten years of age, I had to have a surgery on the mastoid.

The Doctor had to open the back of my ear, the left one to clean it out. I had two surgeries at ten years of age.

Life went on, and I turned twelve years old. I had to get hearing aids in the inner ear and around the back of my ear. I wore those throughout my junior and senior years of high school. I was in special Ed.

When I graduated from school my mother and father paid for one more hearing aid, and I had to do some chores around the house to help pay the other hearing aid.

At the age of twenty-two I had my last surgery. My Doctor had to move a piece of bone down in my ear to vibrate. The doctor thought that this surgery would help my ear hear better.

I really don't know how he did it though, but after that surgery, I could hear out of my left and right ear really for a while. One day it stopped working, and I had to go back and wear the hearing aids again. I have to wear hearing aids for the rest of my life until the day that I die.

This is my story. I wanted to let people know about my life.

Today, Aimee enjoys creating art with Imagine!'s CORE/Labor Source program in Longmont, Colorado.

Aimee drafting an “Artist Statement” for an upcoming
July 17 exhibit at the DairyCenter in Boulder.