Yesterday, I stayed home from school (my stomach was – is actually – hurting a lot. I blame Captain Crunch Cereal) and halfway through the day I found myself bored with nothing to do. I had already finished an entire project that normally would have taken me several hours – I was so intent on finishing it that it was finished in half an hour.

I started cleaning up the family room a little bit, picking out the stuff that was mine and needed to go downstairs to my room. Then I found my yearbook from grade seven. I started flipping through it to read what people had wrote. The instead I flipped it open, I saw a little comment that read “Crippled Lady! Hava good summer!” by a kid in my class.

I decided to do a test, to see how many times people said that to me over the years. At least 3 different people said something along those lines in each of my yearbooks. Gimp was mentioned, “Broken Leg Girl” was too. It’s interesting though, because none of those kids meant to be mean, they just thought they were sharing a rather funny inside joke with me.

But I didn’t find it funny each year when I took home my yearbook and read things like “It was nice seeing ya when you were actually at school, Broken Leg Girl. Have a good summer!” I found it rather depressing. If I ever have kids, and if they ever got their hands on my yearbooks then they would probably think I’m really pathetic or something, and feel sorry for me.

I’m kind of mad that each year I paid 60 bucks for a yearbook only to have it littered with sayings like that. Now isn’t that something you want to look back on years later? I swear to God, if someone writes something like that in my grade twelve yearbook, I’ll flip and throw them all out.

I dislike how my disorder has become an “inside joke” with my peers.

I know that I’ve mentioned before my hatred of awkward questions regarding anything “odd” about my body. I’m very weird about things like that, in my really messed up mind, I believe that it’s a little rude. I mean, I don’t ask people about things on their body because I’m cautious like that – I wouldn’t want to make people feel the way I feel when asked an awkward question like that.

Last night while I was at my boyfriends house, I was asked yet another awkward question by his nine year old sister about the bubble scar on the back of my right ear. She wanted to know why it was there, and it was really awkward because I don’t know how to respond to questions like that. I know that kids ask questions, so I try not to take it to heart, but I’m always worried about people noticing the “weird” things about me. Luckily my boyfriend told her to go away and stop asking questions like that, so I didn’t have to reply. I know, I’m being really stupid about questions. People are just curious, but their curiousity makes me anxious.

I got the bubble scar from when my ears used to be pierced and a kid pulled the earing out. I’m rather weird about it, as I think it’s a little gross and I used to love having my ears pierced – I really miss the whacky earings I used to wear to draw attention away from my “sticky-out ears”.

A while ago, I went to see a plastic surgeon about removing it – but that didn’t go well. The guy was a really big jerk, and basically wouldn’t touch my ear. He said he didn’t want to “make it worse” and that I was “very shallow” for wanting it gone. That really upset me, for starters he shouldn’t be judging a girl on things that make her feel different, like my scars – which he also said I was shallow for wanting to remove them as they “are reminders” or something along those lines.

I don’t need reminders, as I have memories, and I didn’t even want to remove all of my scars, just the really big, annoying itchy ones that make me hate summer time and bathing suits. But the point of that visit was my ear. It’s a tiny bubble, barely noticable unless you stare at it, but I really want to get my ears pierced again. That bubble scar is preventing me because it’s in the way. I wanted it removed so I could repierce them. The plastic surgeon acted very rude towards my mother and I. He acted like we were really stupid and wasting his time. All this was really shocking to us because it was at Sick Kids, and usually the doctors are really polite and friendly. He’s the only doctor I’ve ever met that was really rude to me at Sick Kids. Even years later, it still really irks me. I can’t explain why really.

Don’t think I’m crazy, okay? I just believe that if you go to a plastic surgeon about something like that, he shouldn’t judge you and make you feel really stupid and selfish for wanting it gone. I still feel really stupid and selfish for wanting it gone, because a man who changes peoples noses and lips because they don’t like them told me I was being shallow. Fine, I’m shallow. I want the bubble scar on my ear and the huge ugly puffy red scars on my arm and legs gone.

Since my post on “Expensive Thoughts“, I’ve been thinking a lot about my game plan for the future and what career I’m going to pursue after high school. Ever since I stated volunteering at Sunrise Youth Group, I’ve wanted to work with the developmentally challenged. There is just something about them, you won’t know what I’m talking about until you actually see for yourself so there’s no point in trying to explain it.

The ideas I’ve been looking into are; Educational Assistant, Human Services Counsellor (which I couldn’t find a description for), and a Child or Youth Worker. Those job descriptions have captured my interest for quite some time now, but lately I’ve been wondering about benefits. I need to choose a career that will be flexiable, and offer benefits. If it doesn’t offer benefits, would I be screwed over if I had to take time off for a surgery?

Of course when I went to the Guidence Counsellor, she told me that I really wouldn’t be able to base it on the jobs in themselves, but I’d have to consider where I would be working. Will I have a contract? Be a part of a union? Things like that.

I honestly don’t know why I’m so worried about all that financial crap, but I don’t want to waste all my dads money on schooling for a job that I can’t afford to take time off for surgeries. Surgeries aren’t always something I can put on the back burner for a time more convenient, sometimes it’s a now or never sort of deal.

I seem to have a lot of misfortune when it comes to winter. Already, it has begun. While walking up the driveway to catch the bus, I twisted my ankle. I went home today because even before I twisted my ankle, my legs, hip and back were all killing me.

Yesterday, I was at my boyfriends house. His younger sisters use me as a trampoline, and after a day of that my body has rebelled by aching. My hips are locked and very stiff, moving them takes great effort and I have to help myself by moving them with my hands. Pathetic much?

I feel like I’m 90 years old today.

In the comments over at italk2much for my review, Ish mentioned in his comment “It’s great that she’s not gone into hiding because of her disease. Not many people would talk about things like that easily.” I was flattered and touched to read that, seeing as it is hard for me to share this part of myself with everyone out there in the blogging atmosphere.

In the past, I admit that I have cowered in the corners of my self and made up stories for the questions people asked me, because I didn’t know how they would react to the truth. It’s always awkward telling people because they usually aren’t all that interested in hearing a long, indepth story about it. The strange part is they aren’t satisfied with a simple “I got it from a surgery,” in response to them asking about my scars. They ask me what the surgery was for, and almost always lose interest halfway through my explanation. It’s a little easier on this blog to talk about my disorder, but it’s still pretty difficult. I have a lot of stuff I want to say, stuff I want to talk about and share with everyone – but it’s sometimes really difficult to put all those thoughts into words that I know at least one person will read after I post it. But I’m doing it, slowly and maybe not very well, but it still counts for something.

I also admit to hiding. In grades seven and eight I didn’t even wear a t-shirt to school. I still don’t feel 100% comfortable wearing t-shirts, and I’ve never worn a short skirt to school. I did buy two short skirts last summer in hopes of breaking out that complex of not being able to show the public my legs, but I haven’t worn them anywhere outside my house. I’m working on that though, and hopefully this summer I will be able to wear the skirts.

I was flattered by a lot of comments. Some people said I was strong and others complimented my ability to not let my disorder define who I am – which I try not to, but it is a part of who I am and it has sort of shaped who I am today. I understand that it wasn’t some people’s cup of tea, but that’s okay; you can’t please everyone in the world and usually “medical” blogs aren’t very popular. I didn’t make this blog for a popularity contest, I made it for me.

One comment was made saying I was totally made up, and screaming for attention. Surprisingly, instead of bumming me out that comment really made me laugh. I would really have liked to be making all this stuff up, but fact of the matter is I’m not. I have this disorder. These are my thoughts and feelings on having it – it isn’t made up. Although I must confess, I do like a little bit of attention every now and then – who doesn’t? But that’s not the purpose of this blog at all. I’m surprised that person missed the purpose, seeing as I made it clear in my first entry, but whatever. Although everyone is gifted with a brain, a lot of people don’t know how to use it.

Apparently it’s National Delurking Week, I’ve already posted on my other blog about it but I figured it would be interesting to find out a little about the people who read my blog. I want to hear from all you regulars who never leave coments and all the regulars who do.

So everyone, have you ever been to the hospital? For what reason? What happened and how did you feel? Comment me with the answers, because it would be interesting to read. If you’ve never been to the hospital at all for yourself but you have had either a family member or friend, then feel free to talk about them (you don’t have to use names).

I’ve been to the hospital countless times, but everyone knows that so I decided to write about my Granny. My Granny is diabetic, and before Christmas last year she had a diabetic reaction. Her sugar level was way to high, and she was sent to the hospital for a couple of days. I remember when my parents told me about what happened; it was just after they picked me up for work. I was so scared because at the time we didn’t really know if it was a diabetic reaction or a stroke. A few days later, my dad drove us all down to visit her. She looked well enough, but the doctors were still concerned about her sugar level.

Both my grandparents have given me scares, and if they’re reading this G&P then stop with the scaring of the me! You two are not aloud in hospitals, do you hear me? Good, now that we’ve got that covered, lets hear from all you lurkers out there.

My review came over at italk2much; two smacks is pretty good for this blog, if I do say so myself. The main point of even setting this blog up for a review was to get more hits and hopefully come to achieve one of the goals I talked about in my first entry, which is bascially to just give teens who have MHE something to relate too. I know before I found my MHE friends; Mandy, Jodie and Nicole, I felt really lonely. It was like I was the only one in the world who had MHE. Of course, I felt all that before I discovered the joys of the internet and the Bumpy Bone Club. The world is a lot smaller when you don’t have the internet. But that was all about five years ago, and now the world is much bigger to the likes of me.

In any case, the Bumpy Bone Club members have helped me out a lot. They’ve sympathized with me when I was feeling down, and their stories gave me a lot to relate too. I was hoping that this blog would be a more personal way of giving teens something to relate to; they could read about my daily triumphs, set backs, and experiences with MHE.

I seem to be achieving that goal, slowly but surely. A lot of my MHE friends come here to read it and I’m sure they take a little out of it. Although I know there are some people that don’t understand the meaning of the blog or why I made it. I suppose its all in how you interpret things though.

My doctor’s appointment at Sick Kids was today. We left at about 6:30-7 a.m and got held up big time in traffic. It took us an hour to get from one town to another that normally would have taken around ten minutes. I fell asleep luckily, and I missed out on all the fun of road rage. I woke up a couple of times to my parents arguing over the traffic and if they should call the hospital to warn them that we would be late – as I had to be there for 8:30 am and it was going on 8 am.

We finally got there around nine, and waited in the waiting room for several hours until my doctor could see me. I didn’t mind too much, it’s worth the wait; Dr. Wright is a good man. He’s never let us down or disappointed us in anyway, and that’s saying something because I’m easily disappointed.

I was expecting to hear that I would need one more surgery to reconstruct the toes on my left foot, but all that worrying was for nothing. My doctor said that I should just stop cutting that one toenail (yeah…I attempted to cut it last night and it ended up bleeding – again) but other then that there was nothing we could do. My toes will probably always be deformed and in some sort of pain, so it’s best to leave them now and if they get worse down the road then we’ll take action. For now I’ll just have to suck it up and stop complaining.

That means that today was the last time I would be in Sick Kids – for myself anyway. I’m being referred to a Dr. Wonder over at Mount Sinai Hospital. Isn’t that funny? I go from a Dr. Wright to a Dr. Wonder, that must be a good omen of some sorts. Maybe that he’ll work wonders? Who knows, I won’t meet him for another 6 to 12 months. I’m still really nervous about the hospital switch, but if Dr. Wright say’s I have nothing to worry about then I should have nothing to worry about. He did hand pick my future new doctor. However, I’m still a little nervous. That’s a whole lot of starting over and getting used to new faces poking at me. I’m sure Dr. Wonder will be wonderful, but who knows what the staff will be like. Yeah, I’ve seen all those TV shows about adult hospitals being boring and lifeless and all the nurses being bitches – but I assure you that it’s probably just my over active imagination talking. The nurses are probably just as wonderful as the ones at Sick Kids.

I have to admit though, I did have a nice farewell to Sick Kids though. Right outside the elevator doors there was a clown entertaining a young child with bubbles. It was so cute, the child looked amazed by the clown as he rolled around on the floor, and it brought a smile to his little face. I told myself that I had grown out of Sick Kids and that my leaving would allow another child to be helped by the wonderful doctors that helped me. Not to mention, I’d probably be back anyway – if I ever decide to have kids (but thankfully that won’t be for several years). If I did have a child who had MHE, then I would choose Sick Kids because the staff and volunteers were so amazing to me, I’ve been spoiled. I’ll probably constantly compair things to Sick Kids, but at least I had Sick Kids at the crucial parts of my childhood. It made having to go to the hospital often growing up a lot easier on me. So thank you, all staff members of Sick Kids; for making my experiences at the hospital bearable.

Mount Sinai Hospital is just another chapter in my life, and I’m sure it won’t be nearly as terrible as those lifeless hospital’s you see on TV. Who knows, maybe Dr. Wonder will be really hot, like McDreamy from Grey’s Anatomy – at least that would give my mom and I something to look forward too every time.

A couple nights ago, my sister Kathrynn was writing out a cover letter and resume for a job she was applying for. She told me if you milked it a lot, then they would give you the job, then she read it outloud to me. The cover letter talked about how Kate was working at a movie threater but wasn’t making nearly enough to pay insurance from the new car she had had to buy with her scholarship money because her old car practically died on her and she had to get a new car. Now she needs another job because she can’t afford the insurance and gas money for it. The cover letter made reference to our father being self employeed and not having a lot of benefits, and she even mentioned me and my medical problem – which I don’t mind her doing because she also hates taking money off my parents and wants to be able to pay for things herself, and getting this job would help her out a lot.

What confused me was how she mentioned me, saying that most of our family’s benefits went to me or something. It was a couple nights ago so my thoughts are a little fuzzy but I still can’t get it out of my head. I’m to shy to ask my parent’s if I’m really costing them a lot of money because of my MHE. I had thought everything regarding me was covered by the government. Clearly I was misinformed about this.

I remember a while ago – before my first surgery I think – when they asked me during prep what colour cast I would like to have. Purple? Pink? Blue? At first I hesitated; they looked like they would cost extra, and I didn’t want mom and dad spending more money on me if those plain white casts came for free. I’m pretty sure they told me not to worry about it, and that it was all covered and to choose whatever colour I wanted – so I picked pink as I couldn’t decide. I’m not too sure if that’s completely accurate, as it happened a long time ago and for all I know it could be a conversation that happened in my head (ever get those?), but it’s still making me hold back on asking. Perhaps they didn’t want me to feel bad for costing them extra money.

I know that crutches and that leg brace I had to wear after last years surgery to keep my leg straight both cost extra money and isn’t covered, which is why I didn’t want the leg brace because it’s something you can only use once. Even if I need to use another leg brace, I think it would have to be created new because it’s shaped like your leg and my leg shape is always changing.

Anyway, it’s rather irritating because I don’t really know the situation. Am I costing my parents lots of money? It’s going to be a skeleton in my closet, because I don’t want to cost them money we don’t have. I know theres nothing really I could do about it, seeing as I can’t get a job that I can physically do, but still…I guess I would feel better if I knew, or perhaps I’d feel worse – but at least I would know what’s going on. I hate being kept in the dark. Besides, if I ever had kids then it’s likely that they would have this lovely bone disorder and it would look foolish of me if I didn’t know what was covered and what wasn’t. Not to mention, I’d have to warn my future husband how expensive I’m going to be – and it’s going to suck that it won’t be on material objects but instead on medical supplies.

NOTE TO FUTURE HUSBAND: “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend” doesn’t really ring truth for me. For me it’s; “Medical supplies are a girls best friend“.

I have been trying to update this blog for two days now, but I can’t really think of one topic to focus on, as there are so many floating through my head right now.

Firstly; I’m nervous about the prospect of having another surgery. In two weeks, term one will be over, and I will be starting term two. In term two, I’m taking Writers Craft and co-oping at Sunrise Youth Group. It’s going to be a heavy semester due to the fact that you must show up every day and get the required hours to pass the course. Obviously if I have the surgery on my toes, showing up everyday won’t be an option. I don’t want Niki regretting taking me on as a co-op student.

Secondly; lately my right ankle has been poping and hurting a lot when I walk long distances. I consider this to be a bad thing because the surgery my parents will want me to have is on my left foot, and I will need my right leg to bare most of my weight during the recovery stage. I’ll most likely want to get back in the game of co-oping and going to school as soon as possible, even if I’m doped up on drugs. I’m sick of being “that girl that misses a lot of school”, and I’m really not looking forward to this June because I won’t be graduating with my friends. I wouldn’t go to prom if it wasn’t for the mere fact that if I didn’t, then I wouldn’t get to share that experience with my friends. I’d have to share it with a bunch of people I don’t really know.

Thirdly; I’m nervous as to what effect having a surgery will have on my relationship with my boyfriend. Yes, I know – it’s a stupid thing to fear, especially since I know he isn’t the type to just walk out for something like that – but still. It’s difficult to prevent myself from thinking something negetive like that, even though he’s nothing like the other guy’s I’ve dated – which is why I like him so much.

I’m not a negative person, I prefer to look at is as I face reality. I’ve had past experiences that spur me to think what some people consider “negatively”.

But I suppose I will find out in four days time.