Life With A Disability

As anyone could imagine, living life with a disability is never and never will be an easy part of life. But, you see, life is not supposed to be easy. You will go through some amazing times but you also will go through some more difficult times in life.

To be quite honest with you, I do not like the word "disability." Yeah, sure there are some things that you are unable to accomplish depending on what "disability" you have. But there are and will be certain things in life that some people told you straight to your face that you would never be able to do, that you will find a way to prove them wrong.

And that's just what happened to me. When I was born, the doctors quickly determined that I had a condition called spina bifida Myelomeningocele.

Myelomeningocele is just one of four stages of spina bifida.  It is the most severe. With this condition, the nerves in the spine are messed up, affecting what you would call everyday tasks, such as walking and moving your extremities (legs).

You see, when I was born, there was doubt about whether I would live long. There was also doubt that, if I did survive, that I would ever take one step. I proved those doctors wrong. I was able to walk (even with a few bumps in the road) until I was about twelve or thirteen years old. I had to overcome some obstacles but here I am.

I have had many surgeries to help me with some things in my life, starting with right when I was born. I had surgery to have a shunt placed in my head. I have had a couple surgeries on my spine. I have had stomach surgeries. There was a time where I had to have casts on my legs. A metal bar that was attached to one actually went through my foot and caused it to get infected. We couldn't go anywhere without it stinking up the areas around me!

It was December 13, 2002. I was 9 years old. My family and I moved from Ontario to a small town just outside of Winnipeg, Manitoba. I was a shy kid. Going to a new school was extremely terrifying to me. I didn't know what to do. Everything seemed different. It took me quite a while to get used to the new town.

At this point in my life, I was walking, running, and loved to play sports. Playing football and soccer every recess and gym class were two of my favorite things to do in elementary school. I didn't know this at the time, but just a couple years later, the ability to play those two sports were going to be taken away from me.

During the middle of grade 8, when my time in elementary school was coming to a close, I started having severe pain in my left knee. The pain wouldn't leave. Some days it just got worse and worse. I was on crutches shortly after the pain started, because it got to the point where I couldn't stand without support.

The pain eventually got so bad that I couldn't support my legs very well. There were multiple times in grade 8 where, on my way home from school, I had to drop my backpack onto the road or else I would go with it. Sometimes I was too late.

Over the course of a couple months, I lost the ability to move my feet. That progressed to both of my legs.

By the start of highschool, there was talk about me being in a wheelchair. I was still on crutches for a couple months of my first year of highschool but I knew that life in a wheelchair was fast approaching.

In highschool, the classes were much larger. Like I mentioned earlier, I was a very shy person. One day, I showed up to school in my new wheelchair. To be honest, I was embarrassed. I knew I shouldn't have been but it was different. I felt like I stood out way too much. I wanted to be under the radar.

I was very nervous about showing up in a wheelchair. The thought of people staring at me completely freaked me out. After quite some time, I got used to it and it didn't end up being a huge issue for me. I understood that people were not trying to be rude. They were simply curious.

I was asked by a teacher to explain the reasoning why I was not walking. It caught me off guard. I didn't really know what to do so I lied. I just said that I really hurt my ankle. Of course, everybody realized that was a lie after a little while. I couldn't pull off that lie for very long!

Anyway, back to sports. My ability to participate in some sports was not completely gone. There were a couple things I could still do in gym class. One of my favorite sports to play was basketball. I loved it. I even signed up to play wheelchair basketball at one of the major universities in the city.

At this point, I was a teenager. Unfortunately, the rules were the rules. I was unable to actually play in a game due to my age. The only thing I was allowed to do was participate in practice, and I am so incredibly grateful that I was able to live that experience.

When it was time for driving lessons, I was still able to partially move my legs but it was definitely something I really had to focus on. It was risky. It was dangerous. I thought that everything would turn out alright and I would be able to drive like everybody else can normally. I was giddy with excitement.

Not long after I finished driver's ed, I realized that I was unable to drive in the condition that I was in. Hand controls were installed in my yellow VW Golf. Starting in-car lessons was quite scary for me. There was always that voice at the back of my mind saying that it would be an extremely difficult task for me. That voice didn't stop me from attending many weeks of driving practice. I thought it was a lot of fun.

However, after careful thinking and consideration, I felt it would be too dangerous for me. There were too many things for me to focus on while driving. My brain couldn't handle it.

 Even though I truly miss participating in the sports I love, I am extremely grateful for the experiences I have had in my life. There isn't a day in my life where I don't think I am blessed to be alive and able to do the things I truly am able to do. Life is truly amazing and, sure, I do wish some things ended up different, but I love my life and whatever obstacles come up in it, I know that I have overcome so many of those obstacles already and I can do whatever I believe in.