Phone interview with Kitty Cavas, owner of Cavas Expressions.
Hello Kitty, it’s Tracy. How are you?
Hello Tracy, I am good. How are you doing?
I’m good. So we will do the interview we talked about. I know your son (Jasiel) was not born a well child and you were a single mother, as well as having your own health struggles with Lupus. Tell me about your son and how old he was when you found out you had Lupus?
Jasiel was supposed to be born on September 7th, but he ended up being born on June 26th. I had just met the 27th week of pregnancy. When he was born he was born 1 pound, 3 ounces. Right before he was born, I had •severe preeclampsia. I woke up with blurry vision almost to the point of being blind, my kidney and liver started to fail and swell up into my lungs, so basically we needed to get Jasiel out in time and save my life.
Looking back I feel the preeclampsia was due to the Lupus I did not know I had at the time. So when Jasiel was born they had to airlift him from the local hospital to a children’s hospital in Philadelphia. I was still recovering so I did not get to hold him. I did not get to see him until he was about three weeks old. After about three days of Jasiel being in the hospital, they had contacted me while I was recuperating telling me they needed my consent because his stomach just perforated. A hole had expanded in his stomach spilling toxic waste into his body. They needed to go into his body to flush out all the toxins then they were going to go in and close up and remove half of his lower intestines; that is a majority of where the hole was. He was one of the smallest babies they had to do that surgery on. He survived that which was impressive. Then they found out he was a “bubble kid” which means he did not have an immune system therefore he could not heal from his surgery.
His incisions got infected and Jasiel contacted sepsis fungi which is known to kill you, especially for an adult. It goes through your blood system and constrict your veins so they swell up causing your blood not to travel through your body which then your organs start to shut down. They say babies are more resilient so I feel that is the only reason he survived. know because my grandmother passed away from sepsis fungi.
We made the decision to put Jasiel in an induced coma. Jasiel was such a fighter, he even fought against the machine. He fought against everything and just keep breathing. If anyone knows about an oscillator or a nitric jet machine, those machines are high intense forms of life support, meaning, it is punching the air into your body; you can not move when you are in a situation like that, however, for a baby that does not understand that and only wants to live, he is going to breathe and fight though it to try to save his own life. So that is the reason we decided to put him into an induced coma, so the machines could work and do their job.
He was in a coma for about three months it was a very, very emotional time. I was a young mother of 21 years old, and I felt like a lot of the hospital workers did not respect me. They were thinking just because I was a young single mother, I was not really going to be there, yet there were babies in the hospital with parents that were 30 years old and up that were not really there with their children. I was there every single day with my son.
It was a very disrespectful time. The social worker came in and said I was being selfish for letting Jasiel in the coma for such a long time when things are really not progressing. She felt I was letting him suffer and go through all this pain and what were the results!? Him being a vegetable!? I got very upset and I would not accept anything but saving his life which was the best decision I made. If I would have listened to them I would have not been able to live with myself, seeing now how beautiful, talented and special my son is.
After that, I got in a really bad time in my life because I was not seeing eye-to-eye with the doctors. They were doing things behind my back. I did not know legally what my rights were and how to advocate for my son. I was a first time mother, not to mention a hospital mother. That type of experience is very different from a normal parent. There is a whole other level of stress a hospital mother has to deal with from the beginning due to the way the child is born. I never had the chance for it to be explained to me regarding what can happen with a premature baby or what to look for with insurance or help aides, so basically I was on my own.
I got very upset and became super depressed. It affected me mentally, physically; everything. So one day we were talking to the doctor and I was informed my son needed another surgery which was one of the more critical surgeries. I couldn’t accept it. I went into overload and I mentally broke down. They ended up having to call the police and I spent my first Mother’s Day in a mental institution due to the trauma I was going through and the lack of help I did not receive from the services at the hospital. I was very alone, I was living in my car, I could not stay at the Ronald McDonald house, it was a lot of trauma for someone to go through with a baby. After I got out of the mental institution, I felt like I wanted to change hospitals for my son, so we transferred him which was emotional, but positive experience; they actually saved him. Jasiel was in the hospital the whole first year of his life.
Within that year it was a lot for me to take so I could not focus on myself. I felt like I was sick but then I was thinking it was just stress induced. After Jasiel came home from the hospital I started to work more. I noticed bruises all over my legs and arms. There was nothing that was happening on the outside to cause me to become bruised. So, I called my doctor and was told to go to the hospital to get a series of tests. Even though Jasiel left the hospital in Philadelphia, he was still going through the motions which caused him to go back and forth to the hospital in our area to stabilize him. So it just so happened at that time, I had to go get my blood tests. Since I was at the hospital on the Pediatrics unit, I went down to get my blood test, then went back up to the unit to be with my son. About two hours later I got a call, they were asking me exactly where I was because it was an emergency. I told them I was in the hospital with my son. They told me they were going to send someone to get me in a wheelchair to get me and wheeled down to the emergency room because I was going to have a stroke. That was the first indication that something was wrong with me, I just did not know what it was.
They did more testing and found that my body was killing my red blood cells and platelets, therefore, I could not clot properly which was causing my bruising. The clots were increasing and getting closer to my heart and brain. They immediately took me to surgery and put catheters in my chest. I automatically started chemotherapy and dialysis to try to reverse my body from killing itself. At first they thought I had leukemia or some other kind of blood diseases. They were treating me to stabilize me, but at this point, they did not know what I had. I ended up having a second stroke and my mom was not going to play around anymore with this. She felt they were not helping me; I was getting worse. She felt if I stood at that hospital I was going to die. We did our research and transferred me to a hospital in Philadelphia. That is when I received the information and finally knew what was going on. I was told I had Lupus as well as *Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (TTP). Now that they knew what I had, they could treat me better.
It has not gotten better because I have relapsed five times in the last four years, but at least I know my symptoms and what to expect as well as the treatments I need to take to keep myself alive. Since then, my son has progressed. He ate from a feeding tube until he was about four and a half years old, we went to a rehab center for children which started him on a rehab feeding program. He stood there for about three and a half months. He lived in a dorm setting and I stood with him every other day. It was about an hour drive for me but I went as much as possible. After that, he started to eat solid foods and been eating solid foods ever since. He is fine mentally. He does wear glasses and is petite, but he eats, he is doing better; he is thriving. He is in soccer, he is going to second grade, he is no longer on oxygen or eating from tubes. The only thing is, he is severely allergic to dairy, to the point of Anaphylactic Shock so we keep an EpiPen.
As for me I just keep up with my blood tests and medications going. Lupus can be dormant. It can be in your mother and father’s DNA but does not mean they have it. In my case, both parents have it in their DNA but they do not have it; it crossed over to me. Since both parents have it, for me, the Lupus is stronger.
So do you feel all the stress caused the Lupus to come out?
Yes
Through all of this, when did you get involved with skincare?
About 3-4 years ago, after I found out I had Lupus, I relapsed about two more times within that year. I feel like I relapsed because it was so brand new. We really did not know what to expect to keep everything at bay. Everyone is different. Once we customized the strategy for my disease, we then got it under control. Once that happened, I was like I am not going to be able to keep a 9-5 job and there is nothing I can really do, so I thought I would go back to school and take it from there. I did not think I was going to get in estestetics. I took a tour at a school. I originally went to check out their makeup program. I use to model and I worked for a well-known cosmetic brand, therefore, I was comfortable with cosmetics. I felt it was second nature to me. They explained to me that in the state of Pennsylvania even if I received the makeup certificate I would not be able to touch someone’s skin and charge them without having my cosmetology license or being an esthetician. I figured I will just do the full esthetics program. At the time, I had a portacath implant hanging out of my neck. I still had to get dialysis. When I was in the hospital I would get dialysis everyday, seven times a week, then as I got better, it decreased to four times a week which was still a hassle with going to school from 9am-4pm in another city an hour away. Dialysis is very tiresome and that is something that I really had to push myself with; doing dialysis from 5am-8am then having an hour drive to school and spending all day in school which was a lot on my body.
Yes, most definitely! With all that stress you completed the program then you started doing skin care, but mostly you started out doing eyebrows for the most part, correct?
When I first got in to skincare, eyebrows was not my main focus. It became my thing when my teacher said she only wanted me to wax her eyebrows, then all the other girls said the same thing. Originally it was not me thinking eyebrows was my main focus until later on.
I watched the opening video on Facebook which was beautiful by the way.
Thank you
I heard you say you started doing eyebrows at home having two appointments week which progressed to two a day, then 30 a day.
Yes. Sometimes I look at my schedule in my phone and it is so full I want to through my phone (laughs)
It did all this over the course of five years, which means your son was two years old at the time and you were one year in to your diagnosis with Lupus and TTP. Meanwhile, your son was still pretty sick as well as yourself as you were doing all this, correct?
Yes, that is correct.
So through all of this with your son being sick and your health your health, were you doing only eyebrows or all skincare?
Well I am a licensed esthetician so I do all skincare. I was specializing in microdermabrasion and skin tightening when it came to European facials. I was also doing makeup and eyebrows. Little by little when I first started my little business, I was getting a mixture of everything. I was not an “eyebrow girl”. Then more people started telling others how good I do eyebrows. Then my appointments started to no longer be just for skincare and makeup, strictly eyebrows all day. So then I was like, oh okay, I am doing something and I just stuck with it.
You stuck with school and finished, and look what it has flourished into and thank God you did stick with it! What fueled you at the time to keep going through all the sickness and struggles?
My son! The fact that, it is different when you go through a stroke and you can’t physically move. It gets very frustrating being young seeing everyone living their life and you are in a bed and no one is visiting you. You go to the cancer center and see women in their most troublesome time and you look at things differently. All that is really what motivated me to make a bad situation and turn it into a positive one. Even as I grow with my business, my mindset changes and my idea of how I want to make people happy has changed as well. That is the whole reason why I got in to permanent tattooing. When I first started my business out, it was strictly tweezing, I was not even sugar waxing at that time. I was crawling before I walked and I walked before I ran, so my dream has progressively got bigger as my business has got better.
Do you believe it was due to you building confidence in those areas?
Yes, definitely! The more people keep saying you’re the best, you’re really good, you are going to start feeling that way and you are going to want to venture out and be even better. I then got really involved in education leading me to want to be the best esthetician and eyebrow reconstruction person I knew I could be. I went on to get my certificate in microblading and ombre shading. I did not even practice on anyone until about after a year. I practiced on bananas, oranges, and pigskin; it was strictly practice, I did not want to hurt anyone or mess up their face. I did not want anyone, even family as guinea pigs. That whole year I practiced I was afraid, then one day I was like, I need to make this money! Waxing eyebrows was doing good for me, but I felt the only way I was going to progress and save a lump sum of money was to have a more expensive service; so I had to get better at my craft. I did it and did not give up.
Tattooing is not easy. You can’t make everybody happy, your results vary when it comes to skin, and there are a lot of factors when it comes to permanent tattooing. It was something I had to stick through. My husband became my advocate. There were times I said, “I no longer want to do this; I don’t want anyone complaining anymore.” he told me I have to stick with this because I have something going here, I just need to get better, and I did. Now I don’t receive anything but good feedback, but I had to get through that in order to be where I am at now. If I would have given up I would not be where I am today.
People get intimidated. I have to listen to Jazz music when I do my tattoos because I need to have a very relaxed environment. Your dealing with somebody’s face and it is permanent. You can get sued at any time so there can be a lot of anxiety because there is a lot that is riding on you and at the end of the day they trust YOU, so I try to do my best job as possible by being as stress-free as I can.
It is so good you stuck with it! Tell me a little about Cavas Expressions?
We have our own off-street parking. We provide all aesthetics which include: European facials; specialty facials such as: oxygen facials, chemical peels, microdermabrasion, skin tightening, full body waxing, makeup and eyebrow reconstruction. My husband just finished his massage therapy license so he is a licensed massage therapist.
Visit Cavas Expressions at 4900 Kutztown Road, Temple, PA 19560
Phone: 484-772-7077
Open Monday-Sunday 10am-7pm.
Book an appointment with Kitty at: https://cavasexpressions.setmore.com/
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/CavasExpressions/
Email: cavasexpressions@gmail.com
*Severe preeclampsia causes headaches, vision problems even to tolerate bright light, fatigue, rapid weight gain caused by increased body fluid, nausea and vomiting, reduced urination, pain in the abdomen, change in reflexes, shortness of breath, and tendency to bruise easily.
*TTP- Thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) is a rare blood disorder. In TTP, blood clots form in small blood vessels throughout the body. The clots can limit or block the flow of oxygen-rich blood to the body’s organs, such as the brain, kidneys, and heart. As a result, serious health problems can develop. The increased clotting that occurs in TTP also uses up platelets (PLATE-lets) in the blood. Platelets are blood cell fragments that help form blood clots. These cell fragments stick together to seal small cuts and breaks on blood vessel walls and stop bleeding. With fewer platelets available in the blood, bleeding problems can occur. People who have TTP may bleed inside their bodies, underneath the skin, or from the surface of the skin. When cut or injured, they also may bleed longer than normal. “Thrombotic” (throm-BOT-ik) refers to the blood clots that form. “Thrombocytopenic” (throm-bo-cy-toe-PEE-nick) means the blood has a lower than normal number of platelets. “Purpura” (PURR-purr-ah) refers to purple bruises caused by bleeding under the skin. Bleeding under the skin also can cause tiny red or purple dots on the skin. These pinpoint-sized dots are called petechiae (peh-TEE-kee-ay). Petechiae may look like a rash.
Taken from https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health-topics/thrombotic-thrombocytopenic-purpura
