SURVIVOR: Dextroscoliosis

“POSITIVE.” That was still fresh on my mind, as the doctor told what my condition is. I felt nothing, I’m speechless until a tear fell down from mom. Still I felt nothing.

I don’t really understand how serious it was. Is it a matter of life and death or is it a virus that will slowly kill me? Am I an HIV carrier? Absolutely, no. Am I pregnant? Of course not! Then what? I don’t have any idea, not a single one.

Until a nurse, a doctor, some hospital staffs and mom approached me and started to measure my body. After an hour or two, the doctor showed a brace weighing 3-4 kilos in iron & aluminium steel and told that I need to wear this for 23 hrs, for two years, that it was the only cure.

Wordless and dumb. I started to cry.

First night, I slept on the floor without any comforter or mattress at all but a single blanket, and if theres a worsiest word, I’m not allowed to sleep without a pillow on my head for two years. The pain as I laid down wearing iron steels on my body. The tears I cried when the lights off and no one cared to be with me. It doesn’t mean that they don t love me, it’s just  that I don’t want to be a burden. And if only mom heard me crying or saw a single tear from me, it will cause her too much ache and pain.

First morning. I need to go to school, and face the reality. My dad accompanied me to our classroom and talked with my adviser about my condition. No one dared to ask me what happened, they just gave me a smile and a hug. And I felt I was loved.

I finished high school and entered post secondary in a technical institute in Quezon City. The location of the school is really a remote in space from our residence. I need to take two rides on jeepney and a little walk to reach the school. It’s not a big deal for me, what bothered me most is how people stare at me, they looked at me from head to toe seems like I’m a robot, an alien, a total stranger. It continued until I entered college, I found friends but I can’t go bond with them whenever they  go to malls, parks, parties or even in grace or break period. I felt isolated.

I’m not motivated to go to school anymore, I hate how people stare at me every time they see what I have on my back and on my neck. I hate the feeling of sitting alone at the back on our Physical Education class. I hate how my family treated me so special. I’m not special. I’m just a girl having aluminium and iron steels. I can do things as what normal people can do. I’m not disabled. I’m not paralyzed. I’m normal. The way people treat me different makes me feel that I’m not belong them.

That experience of mine created a vision to me that I have to prove myself worthy as a person to them.

I stopped on the middle of preliminary not to rebel but I just woke up one day changing all of my plans, wanted to get out from the fear that other people created in me. I want to face them with my chin and middle finger up, with my iron steel bars and shout, “HEY! I’M BETTER THAN YOU NORMAL PEOPLE!”

But how? How can I prove that I’m far better than anyone else? Still I’m on the process of proving it to them. On the process of making myself worthy.

2 years passed, lessons and mistakes learned, perspectives, changed in a way that I have to prove myself for my own and not for anyone else. There’s always a reason why did this happened to me. And for the others who have the same condition like me. I would love to end this saying, “WE’RE SPECIAL. GOD MADE US SPECIAL.”