The Fighter

Crawling, walking, running.

Crawling, walking, running.

Normal steps in everyone’s life.

Easy steps for most.

Not for me.

Born dead but now alive.

Alive for seventeen years but dead when I was born.

No breathing or heartbeat.

Doctors everywhere.

Fighting for my life.

Fighting for a shred of life to bring me back to life.

To bring me to life.

Seconds.

Seconds.

Seconds away from not existing, not living, not being able to be seventeen today.

But one breath changed that. One fight changed a tragedy to a miracle.

Doctors can’t explain how I am here today.

“There is no medical reason that your daughter survived.”

That’s what the doctors said.

I have defied the odds.

I should not be here today, should not be alive according to doctors.

I guess I didn’t want to listen to doctors. I didn’t want to become another tragedy for my family to endure.

I had to fight.

I am still fighting.

Every day.

In elementary school when we had to run laps, I was the last one to finish.

Last one almost every time.

I kept running though to finish the race.

I fell all the time.

One step, two, three. Fall!

“I’m okay.” That’s what I would say to let my parents know that it was just another fall.

The falling and the walking with my feet turned inward.

I went to doctors, wore a brace on my feet, had a minor surgery.

Nothing helped.

When I was ten, I finally found the help.

Help ended up being a surgery and three months of recovery.

Recovery.

I relearned how to walk in this recovery.

Wheelchair two weeks.

Walker for more than two months.

Creatches for two weeks.

And then after that two week of crutches I went back to school for fourth grade.

The amount of pain I endured that first night after surgery was indescribable.

My family, mom, dad, and aunt, were there.

They couldn’t help with this pain though and neither could medicine.

I had to push through the pain that night and 3 months after that.

I try to forget about the struggles, the laughing, the taunting that has come from what be would called a disability.

It’s difficult to look back at those three months.

The memories still haunt me.

Whenever I go to a hospital, I get flashbacks of the surgery. Whenever I have to see the surgeon for a check up, I worry that he’ll say I need to have another surgery and go through that struggle all over again.

But, looking back at the struggles and pain this “disability” caused, I realize if I hadn’t been born the way I was, if I hadn’t been able to run or ride a bike well, if I hadn’t of had to learn how to walk again when I was ten years old, I wouldn’t be the person I am today.

I wouldn’t be the fighter I am today.