As I mentioned in my last post, as a teenager I was always wondering, if any boy would one day want me - As I'm sure most girls do. At this point I'd like to paint for you a picture of me as a teenager. Right, so there's the disability, crutches, leg dragging and right arm dangling, but that's not all! I had to wear a leg brace that would only fit in an army boot like shoe, not pretty with a dress, or anything really. I had braces on my very skew teeth, bad skin most days and very oily hair. God made sure I'd remain virgin a long, long time. Looking back at photographs though, I realize it wasn't as bad as it felt. I was super skinny and remember all through high school trying get my weight up to 40kgs.
All my friends had already had boyfriends and been kissed (to the guys, hang on in here this isn't going to turn in to a teen novel), but I wondered, when would it happen for me? I had braces so I had to make sure anyone I kissed didn't. We all knew the horror stories of two poor kids getting their braces stuck together during a passionate kiss! Nooooooooo that could not be me.
So I did get my first kiss not long after turning fifteen! But it was not like in the teen love novels I was reading. It was so gross and the guy was so drunk he leaned forward after kissing me and threw up all over the place. I still remember him waving goodbye to me with a spit string still dangling out the corner on his mouth. Surely this wasn't my prince charming! Looking back, I just wish I realized how precious I was, and that there are amazing men in this big world. Luckily that first romantic experience, convinced me that drunken parties were not the answer.
Besides I was also very concerned about what I would do one day, would I study further, or get a job, but seriously what job could I do? At one stage I wanted to look in to being a nursery school teacher, but my guidance teacher convinced me that I wouldn't manage. How sad is that? Unfortunately, that would happen a lot to me. Fortunately that was an area of rebellion in my life.
Sometime had passed since I seen a doctor and mother had heard of an amazing guy who did amazing things with muscles. So we went to see this amazing Dr Phleming. He was very good and came up with a plan for me to get use out of my right arm and hand. What he did was, first set my wrist at an angle that made using my fingers easier, my hand used to twist in to a spastic angle making finger movement impossible. He then set my elbow at an angle so it didn't lock straight. Then, the most complicated thing was, he removed my chest muscle (pectoral major) and rolled it up, swung it over to the bicep muscle and, attached it to the elbow bone. The pectoral muscle now functioned like the bicep.(clever hey?) Never mind that I lost my right breast in the process, but nothing that a wad of cotton wool couldn't fix (the wonderbra was a few years away still). This was very painful operation it took 8 hours, afterwhich I was in agony! There was also a threat that the muscle would be rejected, so a piece of skin was left attached to the muscle, and we had to watch that island of skin in case it turned green. Green was BAD! Yay - the muscle took and a few painful weeks later my staples, which made me look like a railway line, were removed. The smelly and very itchy cast was also removed from my wrist and I could bath and wash my armpit. Speaking of armpit, what we also noticed was that my armpit was now on my shoulder. I had to shave my shoulder! It was still worth it though as I regained some use of my right arm, sadly I didn't exercise very much so progress stopped.
I completed high school with an exemption, not that I was going to university. I sold myself short there, I believed that I wouldn't have managed. So I enrolled at Springs College to do my N6 in marketing. Before the term started I went for plastic surgery to place my armpit back where it belonged, the surgeon also cut away scar tissue and dum de dum, I got a right breast. Yay - braces off, skin cleared, oily hair sorted, right arm not dangling as much, and cotton wool wad thrown away, I started off a college girl. Oh hey and I qualified for a disability pension, R420-00 a month. The world was my oyster!
