On the 10th of August in 1979 was born a child who seemed to be
the same as everyone else accept for a small hole in his back that he
had to have closed immediately after birth. Being lifeflighted out of
the hospital as a little baby, being torn away from his parents even if
they were able to follow you to the place you needed to go and be able
to stay and wait for you throughout the procedure seeing you all
stitched up and crying in pain from the stitches in your back.
Your lying there crying not knowing how to convey these feelings to the
people around you other than screaming your precious little head off.
then a couple of days later the doctors come in and tell your parents
your child will never walk again.
This feeling takes a while to sink in for them i am sure. not knowing
how to take care of a physically challenged child never having ever
even seen one much less ever live with one as a baby. the medical bills
would be outrageous he would have to be in strollers and walkers and
wheelchairs for the rest of his life but that would only be after he
went through another surgery, having to be covered in a body cast from
head to toe with his legs spread out just to set your legs straight
only to find out that it didnt take and you have to have it redone all
over again.
Finally, being able to wear braces to achieve some semblance of walking
to feel somewhat accustomed to your life as a physically challenged
person not knowing yet even what that means in your immature little
life. as you grow older you also begin to notice that you have
something inside you that isnt supposed to be there. You have a scar
on your belly and a line running down your body then you find out that
line is a tube in your head that has been attached to your brain to
essentially keep you alive.
You ask your mother what it is and she tells you it is called a shunt
and if you didnt have it your brain would be so swollen you couldnt
live a normal life, well even more normal than what your already
experiencing. As his years travel on he is faced with many many awkward
moments in school and in life learning to use his walker and crutches
and trying to deal with all the stares and gawks of all the kids around
him, feeling very awkward and very shy around the other kids but
somewhere in his mind he realized that shying away from people would
leave him lonely and not able to have any friends.
So he pushed forward and he began to make friends and even found some
other friends like him in certain places. This made him feel very very
comfortable with in his own skin and he became a very happy loving
caring youth.
As life went on he grew up around everyone in school and in life
walking around him in his mind he wondered why he ws the only different
one. As a kid he never understood what the doctors said or anything
they were telling his parents, he could understand the words and
understand what was coming out of the doctors mouth but he didnt really
comprehend what heard.
The words spina bifida were alien to him and also to his parents no one
really knew what that was or what was even entailed in the disease.
Back when he was born there really wasnt a cure for it or as was said
earlier no one knew what it was or what caused it and to this day no
one really still does know much about it. as he grew up and got older
the looks and gawks lessend and he began to accept himself in his
crutches and walker but that was burning him out so he began using a
wheelchair.
While this is a bit more confining and a LOT more stare inducing this
peice of machinery is a wonderful thing. It makes it much easier to get
around and it is alot more fun to roll around in and go faster than
everyone else. But again as he grew older and he began to get used to
his wheelchair he still went through school being bullied and picked on
but he traversed on through that and came out a much stronger more
bolder person for it.
Once he became of a sexual age he realized that this would be quite
more difficult than it would be for most humans. he couldnt feel
anything from the waist down and he really didnt seem to have desires
like other people did he didnt understand what it was to be aroused or
excited. all he knew is that everytime he saw something attractive he
got hot and flushed.
But he never really understood why that is until he got older still and
realized that there was such a thing as sexuality in a physically
challenged human and to this day he is still learning lots of things
and is enjoying every single minute of his newly found sexuality it
turns him on just to not know what lies ahead and to be able to
discover things and ask questions and question everything in his life.
the many things he has yet to discover excite him greatly and that
makes him very curious.
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