….all grown up.

Its been a while. I should probably write about my surgery and I will some time. It went well, recovering in Roanoke was fantastic. Now I am back in Wisnton and life is very well difficult.

DO you remember what you wanted to be when you were five? eight? fourteen? twenty?  I do. Teacher, writer, doctor, missionary (/doctor).  In academic international medicine I will get to be all four.  In six months I will have achieved the three out of the four and the fourth halfway on a shorterm basis. I”m a lucky (blessed) young woman.  Its not that I found my niche in the world, although I did.  Its not that i have some high and mighty calling or endless ambition. Nope that is not why I am lucky.

This weekend I am helping lead a retreat for young adults with disabilities and chronic illnesses. I just got the schedule. The theme of the weekend is WHEN I GROW UP.  We are asked as staff and campers to bring a COSTUME of what we want to be when we grow up for a special banquet.  There  is only one other disabled staff person who I have ever met working at this camp. She is very nice, smart and pretty. She lives in her parents’ basement and volunteers at the hospital where I learn medicine. So its the two of us plus 40-60 other 20 somethings/late teenagers with disabilities in a room dressed as our greatest ambition.   I am sure most everyone will bring something or make it at camp. I am sure nearly everyone will dress up for the big banquet.  I just have one question…one thing that makes me put my face in my hands and feel very alone and yet very lucky.  I won’t be wearing costume and honestly I might be the only one.

Today I went to my first physical therapist appt in Winston. It was a nightmare. They were unprepared, lost my transfer paperwork from Virginia, had not processed my insurance correctly. But what really got me was they did not understand how I could possibly have a full time job and be recovering from a hip replacement at 25.  They didn’t understand that I have to be in clinic at certain times.   It was odd to them I was not on medicaid and had complicated out of state insurance (because the blessed school’s policy will not cover birth defects). They looked at me like I had seven heads when I told them no I can’t be there at 10 in the morning or 1 in the afternoon I have a job.  and yes a disability.

You know for the last three weeks I lived like I am supposed to live according to my society. …in my parents’ basement.  I didn’t cook a single meal, my Mom did my laundry, my Mom picked up stuff I dropped so I would not have to struggle to not break hip precautions, my Mom or my friends drove me around for the first two weeks.  This is how most of my friends live (NOT ALL). Oddly enough we never had a single problem with my insurance, I got therapy for proper amt of time each week and everyone talked about how freaking inspirational I was.  Funny how well everyone plays around when you play the part they expect you to play.

Being the only one in a room full of disabled people ….its awkward.  I didn’t wake up one day and decide I am going to be the one disabled kid who moves out of their parents’ basement. I just grew up, went away to college, chose the career of my choice and lived my life.  I’m not a freak, I’m not a pioneer, I’m not anything particularly amazing. I am just a 25 yo almost doctor who happened to be born missing a few nucleotides.  My parents aren’t superheros, my doctors aren’t brilliant, we all just missed the memo about the whole disability checks, medicaid basement thing.

My life is difficult but it only compounded by a society that just can’t get over the fact that I became who i wanted to be when I grew up.  And not despite of my disability or because of my disability. But because that’s what I wanted and that’s what I worked for.

Today I heard the sound of a heart that was born backwards (transposition of the great vessels) but corrected almost normal state by human hands. Doctors’ hands.  Today I finally began to master heart murmurs and laughed with a little kindergarter and teased a young man with Downs’ Syndrome about his girl friend.  And I loved it.

so on Sunday I will put on my scrubs and my stethoscope and my white coat and my hospital ID badge with my name and date of graduation there in small block letters.  And no I don’t know what corny, inspirational thing I will tell these young adults this weekend other than this: I am so happy being a pediatrician, I don’t think I could ever do anything else.  And our social norms suck…ignore them.