Greetings everyone!
My name is Tracie Frank Mayer.
I am the author of the multi-award-winning narrative Incompatible with Nature–A Mother’s Story.
Born in Seattle, Washington, to a beauty queen and a domineering entrepreneurial father, I began working in the family real estate business at the age of nine by cleaning apartments on weekends.
By the time I received my degree in Business Administration from Seattle University, I had been working in the family office full time co-managing four-hundred rental units.
In 1983 on a weekend jaunt to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, I met my future husband, Helmut. I married him a year later. Undaunted by a language I couldn’t speak, I packed my bags and moved to Cologne, Germany, Helmut’s hometown. There I gave birth to my only child, a son named Marc.
Incompatible with Nature was written because of Marc.
Marc was born with a single atrium and single right ventricle, mitral atresia and pulmonary atresia; basically only half of his heart as well as with heterotaxy syndrome whereby the internal organs are arranged on the wrong side of the body. The doctors told me to let him die.
My story chronicles my journey of doing all I could to ensure my son had a chance at life while battling my own fears, an array of naysaying doctors, his innumerable infections, and struggling with a foreign language.
Despite the prognosis and the difficulties, my son Marc is today thirty-five years old and thriving.
I have written this book to inspire doctors and caregivers to be more empathetic for their charges and to encourage patients to be courageous and assertive in their health care.
Residing in Cologne, Germany since 1984, I work as a rebel, writer, and public speaker.
I am an active member of the American International Women’s Club of Cologne and support various charitable organizations, including the Parents Initiative for Children with Heart Disease of Cologne, the Ronald McDonald House in Cologne, Doctors for Ethiopia and the VITA Assistant Dogs Organization.