The Science of being short.

Hey guys! Now I'm not one to bitch ... at least I don't think I bitch? (you guys read my blog ... do I bitch?) That was so off topic ...

I knew when I decided to go into medicine, that things would not be easy. I'm not just talking academically, either. I knew there would would be physical roadblocks to jump over. I knew labs would physically be a challenge. I've never seen a lab table that I could reach. I also can't stand for extended periods of time.  I took all the necessary steps to circumvent any problems. Faculty told me all about the newly built Science labs with stools, and adaptable equipment. (whatever that is.)

Not to my surprise, it's time to use the microscopes and I can't see into mine. Not the biggest deal in the world, I just climb up onto the lab table, cross my legs and begin my lab. (much to the school's dismay I'm sure- being that these are brand new labs and all.)

Me and my microscope are drawing lots of attention. (but when do I not draw attention.) Suddenly some peppy blond girl says to me: "why don't you just raise the chair?" Now, I'm sure that was a genuine idea, but I've been 4' tall a majority of my adult life. And the time that I wasn't 4' I was 3'. Raising chairs, and sitting on things is lil people 101. Did she really think I didn't try that?

Getting up and down to mount slides, get new slides and all the other happenings becomes taxing. (Plus I'm trying not to fall in front of a class of 24 people. - Well all know I fall alot!) The professor sees me struggle, and offers to excuse me from the lab. Is she serious? I'm going into medicine, and she's willing to let me skip a lab of looking at bacteria through a microscope? Probably now her best idea! I tell her I want to participate. I want to mount smelly pound water on a slide, and look for miro-organisms. After all they do have me paying 500.00 a semester for "lab fees." I want my 500.00 worth of pond water! We settle on me working on her desk. That was successful(none of her papers were lost or damaged by the pound water. And than peppy blond comes back: "I think those chairs go pretty high!" She has now turned her lab exercise into testing the hight of chairs??

I learned long ago that the world wont change for me. I have to literally, and figuratively, rise up to meet the world. At 31 years old it's my way of life. It's not even something I'm conscious of, anymore. While other people might notice me climbing up on a table or standing on a chair, it's something I do without thought. What I have become aware of is that every time attention is drawn to me, it's usually also drawn to something that needs to change. I'm not naive enough to think I'll change the world. Although I would love me headstone to read: "Here lies Taniya, the girl who changed the world." That won't happen. But I   can change a bio lab.

I walk into banks, and see lower ATM machines, with an option to have it speak to you. Why is that slight change in place? Because enough people noticed the little person jumping up and down to try and get his ATM card out. Or the blind or illiterate man ask a passerby to please read the choices to him.

That's what peppy doesn't understand. In this world I am a micro organism, and this lab is so much bigger than me. I know how to adapt. I'm confident enough to have the class stare at me while I sit on top of the lab table. What about the kid that comes after me? What happens to the shy, fresh out of HS disabled kid, who just wants to use that microscope? What if he's afraid to ask for what he needs, so he does accept the offer to be excused from the lab? Where does that leave him? Behind his classmates, academically? Or behind his peers, socially?

So while I know all the "peppys" are well-meaning, they are quite counterproductive. It does the world no good, if I just find a way to raise MY chair. I'll always find a way to "make it work." But in the process, let me make it a bit easier for others to be able to HAVE it work!!

And that's my rant for the night!

Accepted

Self acceptance is a strange thing. It's an elusive ideal, that you can: believe you have, want to have or pretend to have. Yet, it's not until you've really discovered it that you realize what you've you never had.... I always felt that I accepted myself, but in recent months, I realized that I haven't. 31 years old and I'm just learning to accept myself.

OI was this gorilla on my back. I tried for years to carry it effortlessly, and succeeded. If I pretended it wasn't there than it wasn't. But that lack of acknowledgement, became a sense of denial.

Sure I loved my "parlor tricks." I have double-jointed fingers, I broke 92 bones (yes, I got an extra one over the summer!!) and have been been broken apart and put back together more times than I can count. I love my scar stories. I tell them and love the responses they illicit. In that respect I hold my OI in high esteem. However, I never wanted that "stigma" of having OI.

I just started referring to myself as a "little person." I've accepted that this is a characteristic, and not an all-encompassing definition of me.

I've accepted that I will be a PA and still have OI. I will be a mother that's the same size as my child. I will be a wife who happens to have seizures. I have to be able to incorporate, and these own these characteristics just another adjective.  I would never deny being black or being female. Why are all my medical adjectives, so hard for me own?

My love life has been at a standstill, and I've seen great relationships fall apart ...

Maybe the the old adage is true - Who will love you if you don't love yourself.

My confidence is finally matched with my own acceptance.