Mom was born in Irvington, CA, on December 28, 1931. She was born to Franciso Martinez and Josepha Martinez. She had two brothers and five sisters, for a total of eight children. They lived in Fremont, CA, Newark, CA and in Union City, CA, before moving to San Leandro. My Auntie Rosie, (mom’s older sister) told me that my mom was a great student and graduated from San Leandro High School.

My mom met my Dad, Don Santos when she went to her best friends party. That’s when they started dating. I don’t know if it was love at first sight but they ended up getting married in Reno, Nv, on May 30, 1955. They were married for 38 years before she died from Scleroderma. My dad died one day shy of six months from my mom, from a broken heart and other complications.

Mom and dad had four children, all girls no boys. My dad wanted anyone of us to be a boy, but no go. Their names are from the oldest, Stephanie, Cindy, Karen and then came me, Holly. We didn’t have that perfect Beaver Cleaver family we had our share of problems and pain.

I was 16 years old when I learned that my mom had this fatal disease called Scleroderma. My sisters nor I didn’t know a thing about Scleroderma, the reason being is that my dad kept this all to himself, so that we could have somewhat of a normal life. He didn’t want us to treat her any different than if she wasn’t ill. Mom survived 18 years. She had to have four fingers and one toe amputated. What scleroderma does is makes your skin very hard and the tissues in the joints of your fingers, ankles, elbows and toes become inflamed. When the tissues start to heal your fingers become bent like claws and then ulcers that look like craters develop on the joints that are too painful to describe. My dad had to clean her wounds every day and wrap them up. Soon they became so painful that it was found they had turned gangrene and had to be amputated. Mom always said you can take my fingers and my toes, but start taking my other limbs and that’s it.

My mom had to give up so many things she enjoyed doing. She worked at Del Monte Agriculture Research and always had her hands in the dirt. She was forced to retire early. She loved working in her garden, crocheting blanket, needlepoint and had to give those up. She did manage to crochet with just six fingers.

There were a few close calls when she would be in the hospital because this disease started hardening her arteries, lungs and her heart. The doctors would tell us that she only had a week or so to live. But you see my mom was a fighter to the end. She would do an about face and go into remission, which amazed her doctors.

On October 21, 1993 my mom was set to have surgery. They were going to amputate her leg from the knee down because it had turned gangrene and no circulation was going through it. We all went in one by one before they would take her into surgery. Just as they were ready to take her we heard over the hospital speaker, “Code Blue, Code Blue”. We turned around and saw them going into the room that mom was in. Dr. Liu, her doctor came out screaming to us, “Do you want us to bring her back?” We were in shock. She had signed a do not resuscitate form meaning that she wanted no heroic measures should any complications arise. We screamed at my dad, “Tell them to bring her back Dad!” and so they did. She was in a coma and moved to the ICU ward. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. She looked so peaceful. I couldn’t fathom the idea of losing her. When the doctors came in and told us that she was on life support and wouldn’t come out of this I just cried and begged her to open her eyes. My sisters and my dad were in a daze. We all were numb. Mom had always said that she didn’t want to be on any life support system at all.

At about 2:00 am, my dad and us girls had made the toughest decision ever. We all agreed to let her go. Take her off the life support. She looked so peaceful and without anymore pain. She entered into eternal peace on October 22, 1993.

Please if you know anyone who is suffering from Scleroderma and need to talk about it with someone who’s been there and knows what you are going through, please email me and I will be happy to help in any way that I can.

This is dedicated to My Mom, Virginia Santos.

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Holly M. Bayol