I'm disabled. My story well it starts when I was 8 years old. My parents had never really gotten along. My father left and I started getting headaches. And they continued to slowly getting worse. The pain was a 7 out of that 1-10 scale the doctors give you to measure pain. I would get them everyday. The doctors were baffled didn't know what was wrong with me. The only thing they could say was that it was most likely stress. This continued for 2 years. There wasn't really one event that tipped me off it was more of a lot of little things. I was able to dribble ball with my left hand,Not being able to tie my hair up,tripping all over the place, drooping a tray at Disney land. I was a healthy kid. I've always had goals and ambitions. I played a lot of sports before I got sick. Basketball,volleyball,track,soccer,archery, and rode horses. I was active. Looking back I should have seen the signs. But I was 10 and just a little kid. I had nothing to fear. Or so I thought. finally the doctors ran a minor test they asked me to extend my lift arm and torch my index finger to my nose and then his hand. And I couldn't. My world did a 180 in 5 seconds. I was told to schedule an MRI immediately. My mother dd and asked to be called if there were any cancellations. She dropped me off back at school. At that time I had no idea what a MRI did or what it could tell me about what was wrong with me. It was towards the end of lunch when I was told to go to the office. My mother was there to pick me up and take me to get my MRI and how lucky I was that somebody canceled. I had n amazing radiologist that day. He was funny and really nice. My mother said it was a big machine where I would have to lie flat so they could take pictures of my brain. The radiologist put me at ease. MRI's are loud. While I was having to lie flat I imagined target shooting. The noses were the gun shots. After it was done the radiologist showed me a cool trick with metal and I was off to see my doctors to tell me what the tests showed. I went to the office ad he told me. "You have a brain tumor. And need to go to UCSF Medical Center." He explained that Kaiser didn't have the appropriate surgeons. That I needed immediate brain surgery to get a biopsy to see what kind of tumor it was. I was whisked off to UCSF Med soon after and got my first taste of what my life would be like for the next 4 years. I was scheduled for surgery the next day by one of the best nurseries in the world. They discovered I had an astrocytoma and that it was grade two. A low grade tumor. There are grades that range from one, minor to four, severe I was n the middle. My type is slow growing. I was told it was in a very dangerous location. Hitting my brain stem,cerebrum,and cerebellum. After my biopsy I completely lost the use of my left side. I was left off worse then before. I was a freak a huge freak. I couldn't play sports anymore. I didn't know who I was anymore. And to this day I still haven't recovered. After that 2 and a half years of chemo followed it didn't work and they gave up on me. That summer the headaches returned with a vengeance. My tumor had begun to grow again. And I was scared. I knew my chances of surviving an operation to remove m tumor were slim to none. That's one of the reasons they hadn't taken it out in the first place. The doctors told me the risks. I could die or become paralyzed. I took the risk. I told my mother I didn't ant to live in pain anymore. The surgery was scheduled and I was 12 at the time and didn't know if I would live or die. Not the easiest thing t go through when your 12. Th surgery was both a success and a failure. They were able to take out 95/%. But they paralyzed me. About a month after my surgery just as I was being transported to UCSF for rehab I had a seizure attack. I smelled a weird smell and asked my mother to pas me the flowers. That was the last thing I saw m mother face and flowers. My attack begun just as they were about to load me into the ambulance to take me across the bridge. Luck it hit then and not while I was on the bridge. I was having 90 seizures a minute. I blacked out when the attack started. and didn't wake up until 5 days later. I had fallen into a comma. I couldn't see very well when woke up. It was like everything was sketched. My mother had her back to me and I whispered mom. Though I felt like I was yelling. she turned around and told me what had happened. had slipped into a chemically induced comma to stop the seizures. about two weeks later I was stable enough to be moved. I went to rehab at UCSF and I learned how to talk,smile,walk and take Care of myself all over again. I had to learn to do things that many people take for granted. Learning to something as simple as mile with both sides of my face was work. I exited rehab. I walked out the front doors. And I started school again. I was put in home studied for a few months after the surgery and then returned to school going to school half days. I finished 7th grade with poor grades and poor stamina. I didn't graduate from middle school. Due to no child left behind. which really didn't hep me. I attended a small private school for two years where I met my best friend. That school didn't work ou for me so I went back to public and have bee a lot happier. This past summer I attended the Youth Leadership Forum YLF a conference for students with disabilities and it changed my life. I am ow disabled and proud. And want to be an advocate for students with disabilities. Well that's my story. Sorry its so long. In this blog you'll be able to read about some of the things I am doing in my community to help students with disabilities. I am the first and only cane user at my school.
