Injuries.

[Vulpes Abnocto]

Alright, I keep bringing it up, so a part of me apparently wants to tell the story.
Suppose after being here four years I might as well tell you people about it.
I was born with a condition called spina bifida.
Most kids born with this condition never walk.
Most of those who do have to use leg braces or crutches of some sort.
But I was extremely lucky in a number of ways.
Being born by c-section, in one of the leading hospitals for neonatal neurosurgery in the world, and taken care of by a team of incredible surgeons.
So I walk normally. You can't even tell that I have a problem most of the time. I've had a lot of people laugh in my face when I mentioned having back trouble because it's that unnoticeable.
My first surgery (to move the spinal cord back within the spine and close the wound) was at seven days old.
The next was at twelve years when I started getting tall. you see, the scar tissue from the first surgery was entwined or 'tethered' in the nerves, and stretching my spinal cord like a rubber band. Less than a month after that surgery I shot up four inches in height.
And technically speaking this procedure should have been repeated some time before my 20s.
It makes me look rather stocky because I'm supposed to be about three inches taller. That's how much the nerves are being stretched right now.
When I mention that I'm hurting, this is usually the cause of it.
It hasn't stopped me from doing many things. Though the Army wouldn't take me, and I was never allowed to play football (two things expected of the boys in my family) I still went into the family business, building houses. Finished more than 100 before the housing market in the US collapsed.

Eventually I'll probably have to accept being called "disabled".
And eventually if I don't have this problem corrected the nerves are likely to snap, and I'll wind up in a wheelchair or dead.
But it's just one more thing I've railed against for years, and don't intend to stop any time soon.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Alright, I keep bringing it up, so a part of me apparently wants to tell the story.
Suppose after being here four years I might as well tell you people about it.
I was born with a condition called spina bifida.
Most kids born with this condition never walk.
Most of those who do have to use leg braces or crutches of some sort.
But I was extremely lucky in a number of ways.
Being born by c-section, in one of the leading hospitals for neonatal neurosurgery in the world, and taken care of by a team of incredible surgeons.
So I walk normally. You can't even tell that I have a problem most of the time. I've had a lot of people laugh in my face when I mentioned having back trouble because it's that unnoticeable.
My first surgery (to move the spinal cord back within the spine and close the wound) was at seven days old.
The next was at twelve years when I started getting tall. you see, the scar tissue from the first surgery was entwined or 'tethered' in the nerves, and stretching my spinal cord like a rubber band. Less than a month after that surgery I shot up four inches in height.
And technically speaking this procedure should have been repeated some time before my 20s.
It makes me look rather stocky because I'm supposed to be about three inches taller. That's how much the nerves are being stretched right now.
When I mention that I'm hurting, this is usually the cause of it.
It hasn't stopped me from doing many things. Though the Army wouldn't take me, and I was never allowed to play football (two things expected of the boys in my family) I still went into the family business, building houses. Finished more than 100 before the housing market in the US collapsed.

Eventually I'll probably have to accept being called "disabled".
And eventually if I don't have this problem corrected the nerves are likely to snap, and I'll wind up in a wheelchair or dead.
But it's just one more thing I've railed against for years, and don't intend to stop any time soon.

Wow...That sucks cuz of the disease but that's amazing you can walk. I applaud you good sir.

 

[Skelletonike]

@Vulpes Abnocto that must suck, being something you were born with and not knowing when it might endanger your way of life must be really though... I once studied a case that happened sometimes to babies which was them being born with an extension of the spinal cord, forming kinda like a tail, but from what I recall that didn't damage the baby seeing as it'd be cut off soon.

Well, I hope it doesnt make you lose or your legs or worse. =S

 

[nasune]

Oh, I remembered some of my other, more amusing, accidents, such as the time when I hung from a rooftop, only to realise there was a beehive right in front of me (little buggers didn't like me, at all). This caused me to have some kind of attack a week later, when another bee stung me. Which was a nuisance considering the fact that I was on my bike at the time and couldn't get any air (my face was grey, and my lips were blue when I finally came home).
Then there was the time that I smashed my face into a radiator, which left a small triangular scar just above my nose (this might not seem funny on its own, but the faces of those that panic are always funny to see), and the time that my cat had a fit (he's epileptic) and tried to take a chunk out of my arm. Fortunately there's so much scarring on my arms (partially due to blood thinners) that it's impossible to discern what caused what, but it took far too long (a month and a half) to heal (I mean I could walk three weeks after I broke my leg, and part of the bones in my leg were shattered).
There was also the time that I actually got kicked in the face by a sheep, we were trimming its claws when it decided it didn't want to play anymore and gave me a nice wound just below my eye.
And the last time I had an injury that was amusing was last year, when we decided to go snowboarding for the first time. The people there were already looking at me (might be because of the way that I was dressed, or because of the fact that I was litterally being dragged by one of those snow lifts, I don't really know) but when I was on top of the slope for the last time I decided to see how fast I could go. This wouldn't be a problem if not for two little facts: It was indoors, and I don't know how to stop (I fell over all before I reached six feet the other times). So what happened was that I miraculously missed everyone in the hall, only to smash into the window at the end. This led to my disability to use my right knee for a couple of weeks, though, to be fair, that knee was fucked long before that (during the surgery to insert a rod into my leg).

Most of the other injuries that I can remember were of the garden variety (Getting baseballs thrown in my face, smashing my head in during a faulty salto, nearly drowning, etc.), and, while this doesn't really count as an injury, I currently have an ear infection that's been lasting for over a year now (and a couple before that, going back for about half a decade) that currently makes me feel like half of my face is dunked in acid, though it's really only a problem when I want to sleep (sad part is that it's not even the worst that it's ever been, there has been a time that I actually had blood coming from my ears).

And Vulpes (I don't know how to do the @ thingy, and I can't be arsed to look it up, so meh, screw it), you are planning to correct it right? 'Twould be a shame to lose the ability to walk, or worse, now, after fighting so long.