Here is a link to the audio version of this blog, if you would prefer to listen: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMkV-cmoEYo
When I was diagnosed with Ataxia at thirty-eight an old half-burned-out light bulb flickered and sputtered...and then the bulb came fully on. Why? Because this explained so much, my whole childhood raced glaringly through my mind’s eye, and I took a long walk (or stumbling shuffle) down memory lane. Actually, in my case, it’s not so much a memory lane as it is a pitted, one-lane dirt path. I remembered with a sense of awe and wonder all the cuts, burns, stitches, and blood. And that was before I turned two. I was also late in accomplishing, well everything. While my friends were gleefully riding their bikes at age six or seven I was running alongside whooping and trying to convey that, yes, I am doing this by choice and having a blast. I didn’t have the sense of adventure, not to mention the balance, to learn to not fall over on a bike while at the same time coordinating my feet on the pedals until, well, actually I’m still working on it. Not really. It was by the tender yet mature age of eleven.
When I was diagnosed with Ataxia at thirty-eight an old half-burned-out light bulb flickered and sputtered...and then the bulb came fully on. Why? Because this explained so much, my whole childhood raced glaringly through my mind’s eye, and I took a long walk (or stumbling shuffle) down memory lane. Actually, in my case, it’s not so much a memory lane as it is a pitted, one-lane dirt path. I remembered with a sense of awe and wonder all the cuts, burns, stitches, and blood. And that was before I turned two. I was also late in accomplishing, well everything. While my friends were gleefully riding their bikes at age six or seven I was running alongside whooping and trying to convey that, yes, I am doing this by choice and having a blast. I didn’t have the sense of adventure, not to mention the balance, to learn to not fall over on a bike while at the same time coordinating my feet on the pedals until, well, actually I’m still working on it. Not really. It was by the tender yet mature age of eleven.
There were a lot of examples of a pre-ataxia childhood but let’s jump ahead and talk about the teen years where I attempt to learn how to drive. This presented a problem for me. It wasn’t so much the feet. That part worked just fine, and I quickly picked up on how to smoothly accelerate and brake, if for you the definition of quickly is a year. The most significant obstacle was steering, I didn’t get it. I thought you had to guide the car like they did on bad TV shows, you know the ones where the scene is inside the vehicle and the person driving is jerking the wheel back and forth like their flying through a dense asteroid field? Yep, that was me. You could have replaced my windshield with a giant video screen and the game Asteroids, and I probably would have done a whole lot better. I’m not sure how my driving instructor stayed sane the summer when I was sixteen, but the guy should have gotten hazard pay and probably a Knighthood out of the deal. Eventually, just like riding a bike, it all came together for me, and at the age of twenty-one, I got my license.
This is a link to the audio version of this blog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMkV-cmoEYo
Very well said, Jason. Good luck with your blog!
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