If you have never tried to describe yourself or write about yourself I suggest you give it a try, it’s not as easy as it sounds. I guess I will start by telling you that I am a little different. I was born with birth defects that affected both hands and both feet. I basically had two fingers on each hand that were fused together. I had several surgeries when I was very young to separate the fingers that I had. My right foot was amputated when I was a year or two old because it was growing in the wrong direction. I wear a prosthetic leg that comes up to me knee which for all intents and purposes allows me to walk with almost no noticeable limp. I only have three toes on my left foot, and the ankle joint is not a normal type joint for an ankle which causes me to have a limited range of motion with that foot. My doctors advised using a brace when I was younger that would cause the bones of my ankle joint to grow together. This would have caused me a lot less pain, but would have probably caused me to walk with bad limp. That didnt work like they planned, but the brace did cause me to have a really neat dent on my leg. When I was in my teens the doctor also advised me that I had arthritis in that ankle, and probably had since I was much younger. The combination of abnormal joint and arthritis at times causes a great deal of pain and discomfort. This was more an issue when I was trying to be an active teenager and play sports than it is an as an adult. Depending on the activities that I do from day to day the pain is mostly manageable now.

I am 33 now, and to the surprise of many people I have met in life, I manage to be a functional member of society despite being different. A lot of my attitude and outlook on life comes from the way I was raised. I was never told as a child that I couldn’t do something, and my parents never accepted “I can’t” as an answer. I have always managed to find a way to do pretty much anything I have wanted to do. Sometimes it may take me a little longer, but that’s to be expected sometimes. I try to never complain about the hand I have been dealt in life (pun intended) because I know that there are so many people that have it way worse than I do. Having gone the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children when I was younger, I got to see first hand that while I am different there are a lot of people out there that have it worse than myself. I don’t really take myself too seriously and I don’t expect other people to either. Life is too short to get hung up on the obstacles in life, make the most of what you have to work with and enjoy the rest of  it as much as you possibly can!