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Description
...And I'm certainly no stranger to the feeling.

This piece is pretty atypical of me. Most of my watchers do know that Redbird is almost two entities in the same body: I use her as an equisona of sorts, to let out emotion when I need to... and she's my character as well, entirely separate from me. 90% of the things she does, or the drawings I place her in, have nothing to do with my real life. This is one of the other 10%- it instead, has nothing to do with her storyline, and everything to do with mine.

Some of my older watchers are aware of the cancer that put me on hiatus from deviantart in late 2010 for quite a long time. I was an ordinary teenage girl before that. But this cancer... not only was it extremely rare, it was very aggressive, and despite the fact I had been in and out of so many doctors, xrays, MRIs, and countless heavy drug dosages because of back pain, it still was not caught until I woke up suddenly one morning and couldn't even twinge a single muscle in my lower body.
I fell off the couch I had fallen asleep on (I had been stumbling around all night because the pain was so bad), and eventually was rushed to the hospital... then rushed into surgery, when they realized my spinal cord was being compressed into 1/4 of the space it should have been in.
The doctors told me I would never walk again. It may have been because I was on heavy doses of morphine at that point in time, but I thought they were idiots and told my mom they were wrong.
....And if it was the morphine that caused me to not lose hope, I have a lot to owe to morphine.
I went along with it all, spent six weeks in the hospital straight, not only undergoing extensive cancer treatment... chemotherapy and such, that made me lose my hair and the majority of the food I attempted to eat... but also extensive physical and occupational therapy. I couldn't even sit up after being forced to lie down and recovery from the surgery for so long. It was a tedious road of retraining my body- my heart, brain, and lungs- to work in an upright position again without me passing out, and even retraining my deteriorated core muscles to even hold me up. Many of my first therapy sessions were just with a therapist holding me up for five minutes at a time, because I couldn't even do it myself. You do not even understand how terrifying that is, until you're being suspended by another woman that's not much bigger than you are, knowing full well that you were completely helpless, because if she let go, even the muscles you COULD control weren't strong enough to hold you in a seated position.
They taught me how to live from a wheelchair in therapy. And every day, I would go back to my room after those eight hours of therapy, and sob to my mom. I didn't want to live in a wheelchair. I was a young teenager, and was completely incapable. People needed to help me to get out of bed, get dressed, and even use the bathroom. I was, and still am, a legal paraplegic. Very little hurt more than to know that.
Even beyond my mobility struggles, with every single dose of chemo I was given- and there were countless, easily over 200 by the end of my treatment- I lost more and more weight. At my lowest, I was 5'6" and 79 pounds- painfully thin, and unable to do anything about it. That certainly did not make my therapy any easier, let alone the fact I couldn't go in public without a mask on, because chemo killed all my blood cells. My platelets were gone, so I would get spontaneous nosebleeds that wouldn't stop for hours, my white blood cells were gone, so any germ that entered my body would make me sick.... and possibly deathly sick. Because of those low blood counts, I was near-death more than just at the beginning. Numerous dangerously high fevers also were part of my struggle.
And through all of this, even after I went home, I dropped out of school for an entire year to do therapy for five hours every day, plus a two hour drive. My therapist, a 200-pound man, would make me drag him on a rolling stool, behind my wheelchair, to make me stronger. Then we'd practice standing. And slowly but surely, I would get stronger. Just a little each day.
One day, he looked at me, while I was standing, with a death grip on a walker (I'd finally become strong enough that he didn't need to hold me up), and said, "try to take a step," and I thought he was crazy. I had miraculously found very limited movements back in my legs again, and was able to twitch them just enough to make them move a few inches if I laid in certain positions.... but walking? That was a different matter all in its own. But I tried. And I took a step. And then another. And then another. Until I had walked across the rehab gym. By the time I had sat down, every single person in the gym- each physical and occupational therapist, and every other patient as well- were staring at me in awe, some tearing up, or in the case of my occupational therapist, sobbing and basically running across the room to tackle me in a hug.
I had made a huge step, but it certainly wasn't anything practical. It took me about an entire five minutes to walk 30 feet, and I was exhausted afterwards. So all we did was practice. More and more, we worked, and I graduated to forearm crutches. That was a big step. I even was able to ditch my wheelchair entirely after several years of extensive work, and became very independent once again.
But I still struggle. I walk with no assistance at all, except for leg braces, when I'm at home, and in public, I will only use one crutch, because my balance is still poor. I fall quite often, but I've become used to it. Life with a disability is not easy, but it certainly builds strength of character. I often look back and wish I had my old life, but I'm reminded I would not be the same person without all of this.
Each day is a struggle. I'm in remission but still have back pain that I can't control, and any stupid movement I make, or any concussive injury to my back could completely paralyze me again. It's terrifying. But I can't think of that. I just need to look back on all the progress I've made, and keep stepping forward.
Maybe, with time, Redbird can make another big step, with all four feet over those crutches, and I can leave them in my past as well.
I can only hope and pray.

This was originally for a contest... ^rydi1689 's contest, here: waytogozippo.deviantart.com/jo... for Disability Awareness Day. I figured, why not, may as well give it a shot. But it became so much more than that to me. This piece truly signifies all I've gone through... all the things I don't often talk about. So even if I don't win at all, the time I spent on all the little details were worth it.

The colored bandanna/scarves are representative of the awareness ribbons for my problems:
Silver is teenage disabilities, Blue is paralysis, and yellow is bone cancer.

Description
...And I'm certainly no stranger to the feeling.

This piece is pretty atypical of me. Most of my watchers do know that Redbird is almost two entities in the same body: I use her as an equisona of sorts, to let out emotion when I need to... and she's my character as well, entirely separate from me. 90% of the things she does, or the drawings I place her in, have nothing to do with my real life. This is one of the other 10%- it instead, has nothing to do with her storyline, and everything to do with mine.

Some of my older watchers are aware of the cancer that put me on hiatus from deviantart in late 2010 for quite a long time. I was an ordinary teenage girl before that. But this cancer... not only was it extremely rare, it was very aggressive, and despite the fact I had been in and out of so many doctors, xrays, MRIs, and countless heavy drug dosages because of back pain, it still was not caught until I woke up suddenly one morning and couldn't even twinge a single muscle in my lower body.
I fell off the couch I had fallen asleep on (I had been stumbling around all night because the pain was so bad), and eventually was rushed to the hospital... then rushed into surgery, when they realized my spinal cord was being compressed into 1/4 of the space it should have been in.
The doctors told me I would never walk again. It may have been because I was on heavy doses of morphine at that point in time, but I thought they were idiots and told my mom they were wrong.
....And if it was the morphine that caused me to not lose hope, I have a lot to owe to morphine.
I went along with it all, spent six weeks in the hospital straight, not only undergoing extensive cancer treatment... chemotherapy and such, that made me lose my hair and the majority of the food I attempted to eat... but also extensive physical and occupational therapy. I couldn't even sit up after being forced to lie down and recovery from the surgery for so long. It was a tedious road of retraining my body- my heart, brain, and lungs- to work in an upright position again without me passing out, and even retraining my deteriorated core muscles to even hold me up. Many of my first therapy sessions were just with a therapist holding me up for five minutes at a time, because I couldn't even do it myself. You do not even understand how terrifying that is, until you're being suspended by another woman that's not much bigger than you are, knowing full well that you were completely helpless, because if she let go, even the muscles you COULD control weren't strong enough to hold you in a seated position.
They taught me how to live from a wheelchair in therapy. And every day, I would go back to my room after those eight hours of therapy, and sob to my mom. I didn't want to live in a wheelchair. I was a young teenager, and was completely incapable. People needed to help me to get out of bed, get dressed, and even use the bathroom. I was, and still am, a legal paraplegic. Very little hurt more than to know that.
Even beyond my mobility struggles, with every single dose of chemo I was given- and there were countless, easily over 200 by the end of my treatment- I lost more and more weight. At my lowest, I was 5'6" and 79 pounds- painfully thin, and unable to do anything about it. That certainly did not make my therapy any easier, let alone the fact I couldn't go in public without a mask on, because chemo killed all my blood cells. My platelets were gone, so I would get spontaneous nosebleeds that wouldn't stop for hours, my white blood cells were gone, so any germ that entered my body would make me sick.... and possibly deathly sick. Because of those low blood counts, I was near-death more than just at the beginning. Numerous dangerously high fevers also were part of my struggle.
And through all of this, even after I went home, I dropped out of school for an entire year to do therapy for five hours every day, plus a two hour drive. My therapist, a 200-pound man, would make me drag him on a rolling stool, behind my wheelchair, to make me stronger. Then we'd practice standing. And slowly but surely, I would get stronger. Just a little each day.
One day, he looked at me, while I was standing, with a death grip on a walker (I'd finally become strong enough that he didn't need to hold me up), and said, "try to take a step," and I thought he was crazy. I had miraculously found very limited movements back in my legs again, and was able to twitch them just enough to make them move a few inches if I laid in certain positions.... but walking? That was a different matter all in its own. But I tried. And I took a step. And then another. And then another. Until I had walked across the rehab gym. By the time I had sat down, every single person in the gym- each physical and occupational therapist, and every other patient as well- were staring at me in awe, some tearing up, or in the case of my occupational therapist, sobbing and basically running across the room to tackle me in a hug.
I had made a huge step, but it certainly wasn't anything practical. It took me about an entire five minutes to walk 30 feet, and I was exhausted afterwards. So all we did was practice. More and more, we worked, and I graduated to forearm crutches. That was a big step. I even was able to ditch my wheelchair entirely after several years of extensive work, and became very independent once again.
But I still struggle. I walk with no assistance at all, except for leg braces, when I'm at home, and in public, I will only use one crutch, because my balance is still poor. I fall quite often, but I've become used to it. Life with a disability is not easy, but it certainly builds strength of character. I often look back and wish I had my old life, but I'm reminded I would not be the same person without all of this.
Each day is a struggle. I'm in remission but still have back pain that I can't control, and any stupid movement I make, or any concussive injury to my back could completely paralyze me again. It's terrifying. But I can't think of that. I just need to look back on all the progress I've made, and keep stepping forward.
Maybe, with time, Redbird can make another big step, with all four feet over those crutches, and I can leave them in my past as well.
I can only hope and pray.

This was originally for a contest... ^rydi1689 's contest, here: waytogozippo.deviantart.com/jo... for Disability Awareness Day. I figured, why not, may as well give it a shot. But it became so much more than that to me. This piece truly signifies all I've gone through... all the things I don't often talk about. So even if I don't win at all, the time I spent on all the little details were worth it.

The colored bandanna/scarves are representative of the awareness ribbons for my problems:
Silver is teenage disabilities, Blue is paralysis, and yellow is bone cancer.