S05 Ep01: Sophie Saves Zambia
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What are the complexities of transracial adoption?
True Story Media. Before we begin, a quick warning that in this show, we discuss child abuse, and this content may be difficult for some listeners. If you or anyone you know is a victim or survivor of medical child abuse, please go to munchausensupport.com to connect with professionals who can help.
There is a family in Renton that I want to introduce you to. Mom, Sophie, went on an inspiring trip to Zambia in her college year. She's since adopted two girls. One of them has an incredibly rare disorder. Doctors say it's a one in a million chance.
The audio you just heard is from a news story that aired on King 5 television back in May of 2019. This story wasn't on my radar, but I had a lot going on back then. I had just had a baby and had a new book coming out. And this was around the time that Munchausen by Proxy was really entering my work life. The month that this story aired, I'd done my very first interview about my own family story for Vanity Fair. And this was followed by an appearance on a local station about my third novel, We Came Here to Forget. This was all taking place amid the second investigation into my sister for Munchausen by proxy abuse of her children. By the middle of that summer, the courts would return my sister's children to her. And a few months after that, the prosecuting attorney would make the decision not to file charges against my sister, Megan Carter, despite the horrifying and voluminous evidence against her. But back to Sophie. In general, seeing stories about sick kids in the news is upsetting for a bunch of reasons.
So family friends are banding together. They're trying to raise money. And this is something that is, you know, no little ask. We're talking about like $60,000 for a vehicle for them. So we just wanted to put their positive energy out there.
Of course, there are the particular fears and questions that I bring to it, given my experience with my sister. Is this mom telling the truth? What if this child isn't a victim of a rare disease, but a victim of the person purporting to care for them? Even when there are no red flags for abuse, which is mostly the case, these stories are pretty dystopian because they illuminate a tragic failing of our country's healthcare system. The horrible reality that families, many of whom I'm sure would prefer to keep their children's health private, are forced into a situation where they have to perform their trauma publicly in the hopes that kind strangers might step in to relieve the skyrocketing medical bills that could otherwise bankrupt their family.
So while I usually avoid these types of stories in my day-to-day life, once I did see this news report, right away I noticed that Sophie was positioning herself as the only one who saw what was happening with her child.
I started noticing just kind of weird things or times where her body would just feel really different. Like it would either be super, super tight or like really limp. Doctors visits filled the first few years of her life. And right away they found pretty significant brain damage. And so she was diagnosed with CP at the end of 2015.
This is like a sandwich.
But Sophie quickly realized was experiencing something much more concerning. Complaining to the neurologist saying, like, she's having seizures, so they would bring her in for an EEG, and it was nothing. They're like, no, we don't see anything. Maybe she is. Here's the walls. Sophie admits she started to question her own instincts. There'd be times where she was, like, literally totally paralyzed, and I'd go to her doctors and be like, I know she's walking right now but like she was literally paralyzed all day yesterday and they'd be like no that's not possible I'm like but like it she couldn't move like I'm telling you and they're like okay but she can now and I'm like right I know but after seeking a second opinion and running through genetic testing she also has one on the ATP 1A3 gene which is associated with a disorder called alternating hemiplegia of childhood
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