I sit here trying to form words for this blog, I am a writer, my gift is words, a story a poem, a novel can all be inspired by a single image, but writing is not that simple. You live breathe and eat words, one author says even when you are not writing you are writing, and I believe in a sense that is true. Life gives you plenty to write about, whether fiction or non-fiction. Imagination has a way of running away with you.
I began writing as a way to escape but more than that as a way to discover myself, I was a teenager, facing high school life, in the fall of 1992-93 and the words just began pouring onto a page, I had always loved to read so maybe writing was a natural graduation for me, but looking back some of those writings were no good. I would have years of work, writing courses and sheer living, before I would write anything that I dared send to a publisher.
Writing became a way of me to understand myself better, and the disabilities that I had, I was born with Hip Dysplasia and was diagnosed with Dyslexia when I was in Kindergarten, but the Dyslexia never slowed me down much, later I was also diagnosed with Dyscalculia which makes sense because math had always been a struggle for me, reading, writing and history not so much. My hand writing was affected as I got older but I could get things done with a computer. I was more than grateful when I got my first computer, a gift from my aunt and uncle, when I entered college.
When I was about seventeen I began having strange symptoms, bladder issues, muscle weaknesses, frequent calls, which at first I attributed to sheer clumsiness, but after a time I knew it was something more than that, and I had to look in to it. I was falling far too often, dealing with severe muscle pains and spasms, and trying my best to deal with the pain, once again my writing helped but more than that my faith helped. I found that spending time in prayer helped me a lot more than popping some pain pills, though they certainly have their place.
I went through years of tests, doctors who at first told me it was all in my head, that I was making things up, before I finally had a doctor and a psychologist who listened. My psychologist assured everyone that nothing about my condition was in my head, and the doctors took the time to listen. I was sent to more specialists who told me who said it was all in my head, but thankfully I had a doctor who refused to believe that, she saw my symptoms and saw the family history of neuromuscular disorders in my family, two cousins on my Mother's side were diagnosed with Beckers, my diagnosis was not finalized, I have the wide term of Neuromuscular disorder placed on me, which leaves about forty plus conditions, a few have been ruled out, but more tests are to come. I find that writing about this condition, and what I have been through not only helps me but it helps others, and writing stories whether fiction or non-fiction that show that those with disabilities can do almost anything they set their mind too. Braces, Canes, walkers, wheelchairs, crutches, prosthetics, hearing aids, blindness, deafness, do not have to be the definition of a person and it does not need to be how we define what they can and can and cannot do, when I wrote A Sisters Justice and Deception Beneath I wanted to show the world that things are not always as they seem, and that someone in a wheelchair is completely capable of defending others.
Now as I write this and work on the books to follow A Sisters Justice, and Deception Beneath I once again find myself determined to show others that in no way should a person be defined by their disability…
Michelle R Kidwell
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