Shatter

A

My life has been a twist and turn. Every little detail is paired with a sting of pain. To be honest i'm not sure how i'm alive. I am always prepared to die at a moments notice so, I always try to look for the little things that make me smile. Whether it be the dirt on my bare feet or the thousands of butterflies I feel trying to escape my stomach when I look him in the eye.

This story is true from my perspective.

I was born July 1st 1997 in Reno, Nevada. I have a rare disease called Hip Dysplasia. The doctor told my mom I probably will never walk and be confined into a wheelchair until the day I die. My mom is very strong willed and didn't really accept that something couldn't be done about my hip. She went to a lot of doctors in the Reno area and found someone to do my surgery. They say he was the best and she trusted him with her only child. I ended up in a full body cast at the age of 3 months. I couldn't crawl so I kind of scooted around getting rug burns on my forearms. My cast was taken off in a few months due to the fact that the cast was digging into my spine.

I lived with my grandpa and my mother for a long time. My dad was in prison and we visited occasionally. My mom was up late one night watching T.V and saw an advert for Shriner's hospital in Sacramento CA. She took me there and that's when my life changed forever.

They were really curious as to why my surgery didn't take the first time and my mom explained. From then on I was a lab rat for this horrible disease. My mom always told me I was a happy baby and I was. I guess I always knew I was going to be different and had to make the most of life. 

My second surgery was at the age of 6 months and I was in he hospital for quite a while. I had my first birthday in that hospital. I couldn't really leave because I was a baby with a full body cast, tubes, and a large pole between my legs making me do the splits for months.

My dad had gotten out of prison when I was 3 and had a couple well paying jobs. My parents bought a house in a decent neighborhood. We were doing well. I hardly saw my mom because she usually worked in the day. I grew really close with my dad. We were two peas in a pod. He just knew me.

My mom always made me be this girly girl who loved dolls and dresses but I hated it. It was easy just my dad and I. He knew I liked to be crazy and different. I loved to play with dirt when I was younger and find all kinds of bugs that I thought I discovered in our front yard. He built me a stand so I could show my bugs off and also sell cherries from the tree in our front yard.

I felt like a normal kid. I didn't really have friends but I had my dad to hang out with so I didn't mind all that much. He had a motorcycle and fed me sweets so everything was alright in my little bubble.

I had yet another surgery before kindergarten. I was a little late coming into school. I went to a Catholic school. My mom thought that would be better for me because I would be with the same people until high school.

I was an odd kid. Going to school and having no social skills was a little tough. I had gaps in my education from early on. The only good thing about that school for me was the friends I made.

There was a kid who had it rough like I did. Our parents thought it would be a good idea if we both didn't go outside because the other kids might accidentally hurt us.

His name was Michael and I thought he was the coolest person alive other than my dad. I wanted to be like him. I didn't know until later that both of us had something wrong with us. Michael was allergic to everything under the sun and was sensitive to most things.

It was a logical decision to keep us inside. We had to keep each other occupied so we would come up with crazy stories and do weird things. We went into the library after lunch and we checked out a bunch of books on Egypt. We seriously thought that we were from that time period. There we never ending made up stories we told to our classmates that came back in from recess. We spoke in our own language that we said was Egyptian. We once pulled out one of my teeth that wasn't loose just so he could take me to the nurse and we could sit on the couch and eat candy.

He was the best friend.