HandiCapable

Most kids can remember when they got their first bike. I remember my first walker. It was a big metal thing that didn’t seem appropriate for a two-year-old, but I made the most of it. I attached pink streamers to the handle bars and pretended it was a bike; I decorated it with stickers and made it my personal and unique property; I wore a leotard and ballet slippers and pretended it was my dance balance bar. I eventually grew into it, then grew with it as my dad adjusted it, then grew out of it. By the time I was 9, even my sturdy walker-friend could not hold me up anymore.

 ”Head and shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes, knees and toes…” At age three, I sat in Sunday school, singing this silly song to get rid of jitterbugs and wiggle worms, and praise Jesus with my friends. I sang with all my might, while reaching from the top of my head down to my tiny toes, which by that time were encased in plastic shoe insoles to keep my feet flat on the ground and stabilize my wobbly legs. If I didn’t wear them, my ankles would turn, which caused plenty of sprains in the years to come. “Head and shoulders, knees and toes, all for Jesus…”

Spinal Muscular Atrophy, as you can guess from the name, atrophies the muscles surrounding the spine, causing scoliosis. I think I was four or five years old when I was fitted for my first back brace. Very much like a cast, a wet, gooey cloth was wrapped around my torso over and over, then left to dry, before being peeled off and cut into a thick plaster brace that strapped around me with Velcro. It was hot and sweaty and very uncomfortable, sometimes rubbing sores over my ribs, on my legs, and under my arms, but it gave me good posture and better balance for several years.

For the first five years of my life, I was toted around in a twin stroller with my younger brother, Kevan. When I was in kindergarten, I got my first electric wheelchair, which I used for going long distances. It, too, I decorated and made the envy of my classmates, to whom I always gave free rides on the playground during recess…

These are some of my earliest childhood memories.