Sid Roth welcomes Jan Aldridge

SID: Hello; Sid Roth. Let me tell you something. What would you do if you had this decision facing you? You just had a brand new baby daughter; she is beautiful, but the doctors say there is one thing wrong. Her tongue is twice the size of normal and she’ll probably just choke to death. What would you do? Well the parents found out about a unique operation in which her tongue could be shortened. But there was a catch: she would never be able to speak again. What would you do? My guest, Jan Aldridge, and Jan you were sabotaged at the very beginning. What do the doctors attribute your elongated tongue to? It was twice the size of normal.

JAN: My mom had severe fibroid problems and she was not anticipating having a third child. She had a son and a daughter. And to correct the fibroid condition that she had the doctors were giving her radium treatments, a form of radiation, and overdose of fibroid medication to kill the fibroid. And she had no idea she was carrying me at the onset of her treatment. But shortly after she began the treatment she began to have the symptoms that she had the previous times. And the doctors thought it was just the symptoms of the treatment she was receiving. But it wasn’t until she felt me move within her that she convinced the doctors to do a test and she found out she was very much with child.

SID: Now did the doctors advise to abort you?

JAN: Oh immediately. It was not a moral issue because of the radium in the medication. They felt like there would be multiple birth defects if I lived. And my mom’s life was in danger. And so they were very adamant immediately to terminate the pregnancy.

SID: And why didn’t they do that?

JAN: Well my mom, I thank God for my mother; she said that when the doctor was telling her that, that something just spoke to her, and said don’t let them take the baby. And my mom went with that voice. We know that was the High Priest interceding for me.

SID: So tell me, what was the prognosis by the doctors though, when they suggested the abortion?

JAN: Oh well, they told my mom that number one, her life was in danger. She was a mom and a wife. They also said that I, it was very unlikely that I would survive. And if I did I could have like a leg coming out of my chest, members of my body just being all distorted from the radiation and blindness, deafness…they did not know they just knew it would be very gruesome.

SID: Well, obviously you survived. But what was it like being a young child and having a tongue twice the size of normal? As I understand it, you were able to stuff it inside of your mouth?

JAN: When I was born they called it an elongated tongue. I don’t think they knew of another word. And it was the tongue of a 10 year old which was double the length, thickness, and width. And so when I went home, they had to in fact keep me in the hospital the first month after I was born. They had to feed me by putting my head lower than my feet and feeding me with a medicine dropper when the tongue would go to the side. But when I went home my parents treated me just like my brother and sister. And a young child, we don’t know race, we don’t know gender, there’s no prejudice. I was in a loving home. But it didn’t take long for me to realize that I was the only member of the family that my tongue would not go into my mouth. And so shortly after starting school, the tongue continued to grow. And as it grew there was a severe speech impediment. And later on the dentist advised that they pull 9 teeth out of my mouth to make room for the tongue. Then they taught me to use the lower teeth, as they called it in speech therapy, a fence. And the tongue, I would have to kind of manipulate it with my hand and double it behind. And as long as I kept my mouth closed, and didn’t eat or speak publicly, I could keep it in because my cheeks were kind of…

SID: And what would happen when you would speak?

JAN: Oh when I would open my mouth, the larger the tongue, the more saliva that you create. So the mouth was always full of what you could call saliva or drool. So when I would open my mouth it would come down; I would drool and then the tongue would come out and then I would have a very heavy accent.

SID: Well obviously, you had a degree of shame because of this. But did other kids tease you?

JAN: Yeah. Basically like I said, the first couple years it was kind of what I call safe. But then when everybody becomes…you know, it’s peer pressure; whether it’s a birth defect or race or whatever; and kids can be cruel, but adults can be in a passive way. They may not say it but they give you the look and kind of speak to you; like if you have one handicap, it’s like your hearing is impaired also; that you don’t hear.

SID: Well, you went to a dentist who said there was some new experimental surgery. Tell me about that.

JAN: Right. Growing up I went to a regular dentist. And bless his heart, O. L. Turner, he had to fight the tongue. And like I said they pulled the teeth to try to make room but the tongue kept growing. And the tongue is a muscle. So that muscle was pushing against teeth. And so it was a battle of which power was going to bow the teeth out or whatever. So they sent me to an Orthodontist in Pensacola, Florida, I was raised in Milton, and he made an orthodontic piece that was much like braces but it was not to correct the teeth. And all it did was put pressure on the teeth to counteract the pressure of the tongue so that these teeth would not buck out.

SID: No, no what I meant was the surgery. Tell me about that.

JAN: Ok. After five years of wearing that, finally there was an oral surgeon traveling through Pensacola. And he was on the cutting edge of new cosmetic surgery. Not just for the appearance but also to correct birth defects. And upon seeing my file he approached my father and I. And that he would do seven to nine operations that would consist of breaking all the bones in my face, taking the tongue, cutting the length, slicing the thickness, and then cutting what he called the heart of the tongue, the center, out. Cutting that out, pulling the tongue together, sewing it up, and he could make me look like anyone else. But I would never speak again.

SID: Did you hear that? Beautiful, but never speak again. What would your decision be? Be right back.