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Today I won.
- Thread starter Psycho
- Start date
Everyone is dealt a hand, some better some worse but we have to learn to live those cards. What seperates us is the Grace in which we play with are cards and you my friend, in your young life have learned to be Graceful.
If you can overcome the physical and mental odds that you have, you can do anything you put your mind and will up against.
Congrats.
If you can overcome the physical and mental odds that you have, you can do anything you put your mind and will up against.
Congrats.
thanks for sharing.
6jase5
Mammogram is down but I'm working manually
Effing-A!! What a great story, and well written. You sir have not only won the interwebs today, but also a double fist pump.
Celebrate your victories, no matter how big or small.
Celebrate your victories, no matter how big or small.
Great story, thanks for sharing. I have never faced any battle remotely close to what you have, but I too spent my adolescent years trying to hide, so I can relate to that part of it, at least a little bit. Your strength and perseverance are inspirational. Kudos to you.
Dude. You are the man. Use this as motivation to keep going. Anytime you feel like you can't do something, remember that victory. Keep it up, brother!
both my kids were born prem and both have severe fine motor skill issues which flows over into comm skills which in turn impacts school work....sort of a flow on effect. As parents we have been involved in introducing them into different sports in order to get them to develop their confidence and for them to follow through to be successful in something. It has kind of worked in a positive way with some good wins in their sports and private lives
You're one of my people.
I was WAY premature, as well. In 1964, minimum survivability margin was allegedly three pounds, eight ounces. I was born two pounds, fourteen ounces. They didn't have ventilators for babies back then. They just put you in an incubator and hope for the best. They told my mom straight out. "Don't get attached to him. He won't make a week." Fortunately, they hadn't factored in simple Irish stubbornness.
Growing up I was ALWAYS getting hurt in stupid ways: I've been run over by a tow truck,run over by a tractor, bitten by a rabid dog, blew up my leg with a chicken water bottle, had a house collapse with me in it, and I got into four major car wrecks and six minor ones. (Other stuff happened when I was grown. But for purposes of this thread, it's only about growing up.)
The tow truck episode left me with the worst parts because I had disfiguring facial injuries that took years to get over. And since this was in the '70's when their focus was on intracranial pressure, my doctors put me on huge doses of steroids to slow down the healing of my facial injuries so that they wouldn't raise my ICP. I think those steroids were the reason I grew all at once. I was 5' 11" and a bit and around 230 pounds as a twelve year old and I've never gotten taller since then.
A growth spurt that big makes you horrifically clumsy. I would fall over while just standing still. So moving that badly, while having scars and 'lumpy' places on my face, and being a head and a half taller than my class at school got me christened Frankenstein. Life was really ugly for a few years.
But a couple of years later, I suddenly realized one day that I hadn't fallen down in a long time. And I had filled in a bit so I was a little stronger than most grown men. And it hit me that all those *******s that enjoyed abusing me at school were now smaller, weaker, and likely clumsier than I was at the time.
Then it occured to me that I could probably catch one of them.
No sooner had I had that thought, than my main tormentor, a kid from my same grade who had always been one of the popular kids and therefore, for some reason, an evil douchebag, came around the corner of the hall, saw me and deviated his path so that he could run into me with one of his shoulders, trying to knock my schoolbooks out of my hands. He said "Out of the way, Frankenstein." and ran into me.
I let the books fall, grabbed him, and lifted. I put him against the wall and held him there, just a few inches off the ground. Then I told him that the next time anyone called me Frankenstein, I would come find him and beat him until I got tired. And that I didn't get tired.
Then I let him go because I was tired. He ran off like Wile E Coyote and later that day I heard him telling people not to call me that anymore.
So in today's school environment, I'd probably get in trouble for trying to scare the bully who had tormented me. But it worked. He quit picking on me and actually tried to prevent some of the other kids from doing it, as well.
That day, when I didn't have to watch out to see which bully would attack me randomly anymore because the 'alpha' bully had nearly wet his pants because of me, is one of my short list of best days of my life. I'd say it's number three, behind my daughter's birth, and my marriage.
Yes. It was a bigger deal to me than my first paying gig. Until that day, it was apparently 'okay' to hit me, trip me, whatever they felt like doing. None of the school officials cared. Kids would get in trouble for hitting other kids. But somehow it was okay to go start a fight with the big weird looking kid. That stopped once they realized I was now able to fight back effectively. I still got attacked occasionally. But the teachers wouldn't look the other way anymore. I
That was a very very good day.
I was WAY premature, as well. In 1964, minimum survivability margin was allegedly three pounds, eight ounces. I was born two pounds, fourteen ounces. They didn't have ventilators for babies back then. They just put you in an incubator and hope for the best. They told my mom straight out. "Don't get attached to him. He won't make a week." Fortunately, they hadn't factored in simple Irish stubbornness.
Growing up I was ALWAYS getting hurt in stupid ways: I've been run over by a tow truck,run over by a tractor, bitten by a rabid dog, blew up my leg with a chicken water bottle, had a house collapse with me in it, and I got into four major car wrecks and six minor ones. (Other stuff happened when I was grown. But for purposes of this thread, it's only about growing up.)
The tow truck episode left me with the worst parts because I had disfiguring facial injuries that took years to get over. And since this was in the '70's when their focus was on intracranial pressure, my doctors put me on huge doses of steroids to slow down the healing of my facial injuries so that they wouldn't raise my ICP. I think those steroids were the reason I grew all at once. I was 5' 11" and a bit and around 230 pounds as a twelve year old and I've never gotten taller since then.
A growth spurt that big makes you horrifically clumsy. I would fall over while just standing still. So moving that badly, while having scars and 'lumpy' places on my face, and being a head and a half taller than my class at school got me christened Frankenstein. Life was really ugly for a few years.
But a couple of years later, I suddenly realized one day that I hadn't fallen down in a long time. And I had filled in a bit so I was a little stronger than most grown men. And it hit me that all those *******s that enjoyed abusing me at school were now smaller, weaker, and likely clumsier than I was at the time.
Then it occured to me that I could probably catch one of them.
No sooner had I had that thought, than my main tormentor, a kid from my same grade who had always been one of the popular kids and therefore, for some reason, an evil douchebag, came around the corner of the hall, saw me and deviated his path so that he could run into me with one of his shoulders, trying to knock my schoolbooks out of my hands. He said "Out of the way, Frankenstein." and ran into me.
I let the books fall, grabbed him, and lifted. I put him against the wall and held him there, just a few inches off the ground. Then I told him that the next time anyone called me Frankenstein, I would come find him and beat him until I got tired. And that I didn't get tired.
Then I let him go because I was tired. He ran off like Wile E Coyote and later that day I heard him telling people not to call me that anymore.
So in today's school environment, I'd probably get in trouble for trying to scare the bully who had tormented me. But it worked. He quit picking on me and actually tried to prevent some of the other kids from doing it, as well.
That day, when I didn't have to watch out to see which bully would attack me randomly anymore because the 'alpha' bully had nearly wet his pants because of me, is one of my short list of best days of my life. I'd say it's number three, behind my daughter's birth, and my marriage.
Yes. It was a bigger deal to me than my first paying gig. Until that day, it was apparently 'okay' to hit me, trip me, whatever they felt like doing. None of the school officials cared. Kids would get in trouble for hitting other kids. But somehow it was okay to go start a fight with the big weird looking kid. That stopped once they realized I was now able to fight back effectively. I still got attacked occasionally. But the teachers wouldn't look the other way anymore. I
That was a very very good day.
It can be as daunting to have everything going for you only to be smacked down into a feeble near crippling condition by a disease and watch those fine and basic motor skills be rendered feeble and experience excruciating pain.
It took 2+ years to work back to a mobile state with considerable residual pain.
Yet we keep going. We have to.
It took 2+ years to work back to a mobile state with considerable residual pain.
Yet we keep going. We have to.
