On This Day (December 5, 1984), I Stopped Breathing

On this day (December 5, 1984), I stopped breathing and was given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation at 5 months old. Extra irritability than your average baby, coupled with a lack of oxygen to the brain caused my cerebral palsy. I may be anti-smoking, alcohol, and drugs, but this is the day I believe cemented my rock star status. You hear about stories of rock stars overdosing with drugs, and dying, then being resuscitated. But I didn’t even have to do drugs to do it! Haha.

In all seriousness, I know it was an extra scary time for everyone, especially mom. I had just started sleeping thru the night. She came in to check on me, and I was all blue and by all accounts experiencing “crib death”. But I can say this in all honesty, I embrace my cerebral palsy as part of my uniqueness. Not all, but a lot of people with my level of physical severity (not able to walk under my own power, but can with assistance, muscle tightness, and range of motion issues. Also, no seizures, physically writing/typing takes 3 times as long without my speech recognition software, and is tiring like working out), also have a lot of mental problems, which thankfully I have none whatsoever. My higher brain function, mental faculties, and 100% feeling throughout my body are completely and totally intact.

The older I get, the more and more I truly do realize how unique I am. I am how I was meant to be. And I’m the one who wakes up with it every day, so I never understood why other people aren’t okay with it, if I’m totally fine with it. It takes a lot of creativity to live the way I live, and has taken a lifetime of learning how to be self-sufficient, so that I can be as less dependent on people as possible.

And to piggyback off the post on my mom’s timeline, of course I decided to stay, who’s going to keep you sane, and break all the negative stereotypes about people with “disabilities”? I was anti-crybaby snowflake before it was a thing!