discovery health never fails

As I was reading the assigned pages in Mama Day for the afternoon class, I came across a passage that described the August butterflies in Willow Springs.

And I randomly thought about mermaid girl.

My mind shot back to the night before Spring Break when I was laying on Catherine's couch, with a glass of Riesling, watching the Discovery Health channel. Catherine was blow drying her hair and preparing to turn in early in anticipation of the 4 am wake-up that would awake her a mere five hours later.

I had just been flipping through the channel, perusing the variety of new shows just beginning on the hour. Then I was caught off guard: a show on a real-life mermaid girl. How could I tune away, and be stuck suffering through another bad reality show on VH1?

And so I was introduced to Shiloh, one of three survivors worldwide that live with sirenomelia--aka Mermaid syndrome . She was no different from a normal adolescent girl who absolutely loves butterflies. Well, except for the whole two-legs-together-and-no-genitalia-or-rectum.

Her story is interesting on so many levels, from the fact that she has undergone hundreds of surgeries to preserve her life to her parents' struggle to plan for her future and maintain the faith that Shiloh find a man that will love and appreciate her for the bubbly, happy-go-lucky girl that she is.



The hour-long documentary teaches viewers about sirenomelia as well as follows Shiloh and her parents through their hardships dealing with medicial complications, diet issues and learning new things (like swimming!).

I really recommend people watch the next airing(s), April 5 at 1 pm and 5 pm.