Hello! My name is Wilbur Jon St. Clair. I live with my family in Palo Alto, California. We did live in Pasadena originally, but the air was too hard on our youngest child, so we had no choice but to move.
I am married to Barthe, one of the most amazing women I have ever known. We have three beautiful girls: Evanescence Michelle (13 1/2), Happiness Rose (11 1/2), and our youngest, Elizabeth Maureen (8 1/2), whom is known by most people as "Bitsy". I am a stockbroker and my wife is a stay-at-home mom and homeschool instructer (for Bitsy only; the other two girls go to public school).
Our youngest daughter has cystic fibrosis. She was born with it. Because of this, Bitsy is often in and out of the hospital for one thing or another: another round of pneumonia, or another infection that regular medications can't seem to touch. She is on oxygen because her breathing has gotten so bad.
It's really disconcerting to hear her cough to try to expell the extra mucus that's accumilated in her lungs, and every day, for two hours, three times a day, someone has to do physiotherapy on her (which promotes coughing). It's a trial, but we do this in order to keep her alive, to keep her from strangling to death.
Bitsy wasn't expected to live to the age of five. She's going to be nine this year, in May. That she's been given this length of time of being alive is nothing short of miraculous; I honestly think that God has plans for this child. She is a gift; all of my daughters are, but Bitsy holds a special place in my heart, and it's not just because she's younger or the fact that I am her daddy.
Like most girls her age, Bitsy loves horses, or listening to people like the Jonas Brothers, Hannah Montana (aka Miley Cyrus), and the Naked Brothers Band; she also loves anything pink and talking on the phone with friends, who often come over to see her when she is well or not in the hospital. She is a champion giggler, and she has proven to be a very good little artist. She absolutely loves to draw, paint, or create things.
We would send Bitsy to school along with her two sisters, but her health is too precarious, especially with the recent swine flu scare we had. Thank God she didn't get it (Evanescence did, though; she was pretty sick). If Bitsy had gotten the swine flu (or even the regular flu), it probably would have done her in, since her health is already so fragile. So for this reason, she has school at home, where my wife (her mom) is her teacher.
Bitsy is very good at taking her medications. If we forget, she reminds us, and then we give them to her. She takes a whole plethora of pills, as many as twenty/thirty a day. I know they have terrible side effects: she's shorter than most kids her age, her teeth are rotting out, and she has the "shakes": she shakes uncontrollably. It is embarrassing for her, but Bitsy is a trouper: she takes it in stride and tries to go on with her life the best way she possibly can.
Well, it's about time to get Happy and Evanescence up so they can get ready for school (plus have their breakfast), and get Bitsy up, so she can have HER schooling. I will go now; either Barthe or I will write in here again soon with another update on our family. Until then, this is Wilbur signing off! Take care and God bless!
~Wilbur St. Clair.
