A SUPER-CONDENSED CHRONOLOGY ON MY EARLY YEARS

I am not your average teen who uses the Internet, and lives a “normal” life.

I was born premature (eight months), and got brain-dead for a few minutes in the hospital incubator due to lack of oxygen (because I stopped breathing inside the incubator). Miraculously, I was revived after that.

However, I was diagnosed with athetoid cerebral palsy when I was two years old. My physician said that there is a delay in my motor development since I could neither walk, nor crawl, nor even lift my upper body up during my infancy. From then on, I got treatments of physical and operational therapy at the rehab center until I started schooling at seven years old. When I became a bit older, I found it hard to feed myself or get a drink without spilling anything. My manual writing was slow. I stumbled, bumped into something, or fell down often. Heck, I constantly jerked all the time because of my uncontrollable musculature and involuntary movement.

I never had much of a social life during my elementary years. My handicap hindered me from gaining playmates and my classmates often teased me. I could never be able to come along in adventures and power trips. I thought I was a weakling…

Then, off to high school where people somehow had a certain level of tolerance for people like me. It was during high school that I ‘became a person’. It was here where I had my own beliefs, ideals, ideologies, dreams, and ambitions. I was not a stock character anymore, and I tried to carve a niche of my social existence on those four years of my secondary education. And yet, the flaws of human nature (to be specific, favoritism, backbiting, preferential groupings in cliques, apathy, selfishness, romanticism and pessimism) toppled my optimism regarding high school life. I plodded on through those four years of highs and lows until my day of graduation.

My college days came. I had high hopes of self-redemption. I could never be able to redeem myself if I never made a new set of comrades, while maintaining my relations with not-so-old but time-tested high school buds. Although I also had my low moments, my first year in college had fruitful results due to my determination in academics, optimism from my hobbies and interests, and solidarity with my comrades.

Until now, I still find it hard to handle liquids. Writing by hand is still slow. I stumble, fall down, or bump into something occasionally, but if I ever do, I still have the guts to stand up again and keep walking. Regarding my uncontrollable jerking and twitching, I could only say, “Someone get me a Richter scale!” Bwahahaha… never mind.