Learning How to Walk Again, Again
March 2006-September 2008
Bright white lights burned my eyes, while my ears slowly adjusted to the sound of regular beeps. My mouth was unnaturally dry, my throat was hurting. All I wanted at that moment was my mum. I couldn't feel my legs, but I could feel the tubes they were putting in me. I said little on that operating table. I just kept asking for my mum.
The more I gained consciousness, the more I grew uncomfortable, and yet still had no sensation in my legs. Just numbness. I just kept asking for my mum as a sense of panic set in. She had been there before when they were putting me to sleep. I was so confused. I'm sure it was only minutes before she came through those big white doors that swing both ways, but as a child of eight, almost nine, minutes felt like hours.
I didn't know how long it would be before I got to go home, return to school, and learn to walk again. I became at one with the hospital ward I stayed in and felt in some strange way, like I belonged somewhere. It was nine days before my ninth birthday I had the op, and as I was desperately waiting to go home despite feeling like I belonged.
A lovely lady who had a child in the bed across from me brought me a big bag of birthday gifts. I don't remember her name, but she had a warm smile, glasses and a mousey short bob with a block fringe. In the bag there was a pair of die, which I still have in a little box to this day. I will never forget this.
Once home, I had a birthday party in my bed, I still dressed my best for it. Sparkly top, black, nothings changed, accompanied by a purple mid-skater skirt, that was a favourite of mine. Accessorized with a matching headband of course. I was most certainly party ready. I just remember my large family cramped into a small bedroom in a small house. Sitting around my bed, actually talking to each other and getting along. This was the first time in my memory I saw my mum and dad in the same room as one another that lasted for more than five minutes.
One thing I couldn't wait to do was to give my legs a well good itch. The casts covered both my legs from hips to toes. I really wanted to scratch and scratch, and I had to wait two weeks to do so. When they did finally come off, I was sad. I could itch, yes, but my pale frail legs, where now covered in ten red-purple scars. Most had faded quickly to white except four, especially the ones just above my knees. I have metal hips, so airports are always amusing and only three out of four of my quad muscles. As such, you will never see me in a short dress, and if you ever do just by chance, it's a very hot day.
It wasn't long before the physiotherapy and hydrotherapy sessions began. I would have to be hooked into a harshness and lowered into a warm, specialised pool. The idea was that if I could walk in water first, then on land it would make the recovery easier. The problem was, I just wanted to swim, for some reason I had a knack for it. I had pretty strong arms after learning how to do wheelies in my purple wheelchair, so swimming was something I really enjoyed. As well as the wheelies and races with the nurses who were on night shift.
The physiotherapy was something I have had since I can remember, only this increased to multiple sessions a day and using a zimmer frame just to build my strength up. It is as they say, one step at a time, and with each day I would take another. All in all it took eighteen months, I don't remember each individual day, but I remember my books I would read, the stories I would right and still own. The Doctor Who episodes that made me feel like a child, a child that could do anything if I truly believed it. So cheers David Tennant you gave me my childhood.
I was the first in the U.K to have this surgery, and now thousands of others have since followed in my small petite footsteps. Yet just before I started secondary school, I underwent another operation that straighten my left foot; this one was much smaller and was a common procedure. Recovery only took four months, and the night I decided I wanted to try and walk once more, was the evening of The Pride of Andover Awards (2008).
I won the award of courage, gifted to me by Dame Esther Ranson. She came and spoke to me afterwards while we ate salmon and cream cheese sandwiches. I made sure to stand straight and as tall as my little wobbly legs could make me. I was walking again, again. When I saw my great nana bud, I couldn't wait to tell her, my pen pal. I oddly told her in a busy Morrisons, her face glowed like I had never seen, she looked very happy, and well I got a nice big bag of sweets. I miss her a lot. I miss her letters too.
Strangly, I miss this time in my life because it made me who I am today. I see people for what they are, people. Not what they look like or how many followers they have. I would never exchange my disability for an able-body for this very reason, it makes me me, and nothing on this damn earth will ever change that. Don't get me wrong I live my life in pain, and I am off-balance most days, yet here I am standing, walking, when I was told by the time I was twenty I would be paralysed.
Do you know what I was doing at twenty? Travelling the world, I'm twenty-six now.
I didn't write this to be an inspiration to others, I wrote it as a reminder to myself that I am a badass. Nothing will stop me, because no matter how many times I fall on my arse, my legs never mind how weak will always bring me back up again. I will always tell my story because I want people to know what disabled people like me are truly capable of, we are fighters in a world that isn't built for us. I will never stop fighting for my life, and the impossible possbilities. Never ever, not until my last dying breath.
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About the Creator
Rosie J. Sargent
Hello, my lovelies! Welcome, I write everything from the very strange to the wonderful; daring and most certainly different. I am an avid coffee drinker and truth advocate.
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Comments (1)
An important journal of your personal life and battle with your disability. You are inspiring.