My Background

Just to start off, I guess I should tell you a little bit about myself and how my BPI has changed my life.

I am the youngest child, my mom already had my older brother and sister before I came along. She wasn't new to difficult births. With an emergency C-section for my sister and a broken collarbone from my brother, I'm sure she wasn't surprised when I wasn't coming easily either. What was surprising, though, was the major effect it would have on my life; that part was different than my brother and sister. When my entire body had made it into the world besides my left arm, my doctor thought it would be a good idea to just yank and pull until that last bit of me had made it too. What he didn't know is that he would tear a nerve in my left shoulder, leaving me with an injury that would change my life forever.

Before I was even in daycare, I was already adjusting to living with a left arm that couldn't fully function. When normal kids were crawling, I was scooting around on my butt, unable to hold my body up with my arm. I went to physical therapy often and doctors only told me what I would never be able to do. No monkey bars, no baseball/softball, in fact, no sports at all that involved any arm strength. But I was too young to let these predictions change how I wanted to live.

When elementary school came around, I quickly became the monkey bar champion in my grade. As soon as I was old enough, I was playing T-ball with all the boys. Me and the only other girl on the team not only kept the boys in line, but we were also huge contributors to our team's success (which, you know, at 5 years old, was a big deal). After that, I began playing softball with girls for a change. My skills started to matter a little bit more and I had to work that much harder to keep up with everyone else when basic softball functions like putting my arm up to catch the ball or turning it over to field a ground ball weren't very possible, let alone easy for me. But I learned to compensate and adjust myself so it could work and I started playing pretty much every position on the field.

There are many basic things that I'm sure anyone who has grown up or is growing up with a BPI can relate to because the exact same things are asked and observed of us all. When I played soccer, people would often ask me why my left arm looked so funny cause it didn't move. Then there are the explanations you have to give when people ask you to put your arms over your head or turn them over for various reasons. And even the adjustments we make every day for simple things that everyone else takes for granted. Most of them I don't even notice anymore.

Anyways, I had a tendon-transfer surgery when I was 5. It definitely improved my range of motion but my shoulder is still very affected by this injury. I can't turn my hand all the way over, straighten my arm all the way, lift it all the way up, and it doesn't have strength anywhere near my right arm, among many other things.

Today, I don't go to physical therapy anymore but I do many things to help my arm and keep it from giving me further problems when I'm older. I get special massages on my shoulder, I do stretches every day (or my mom stretches me), and I'm even looking into further surgeries that might help me.

Overall, it has been a challenge to overcome and work around my BPI but I know it makes me a unique and stronger person and I hope you all feel the same way. In the end we need to stop trying to avoid our injuries but embrace them instead to make us those amazing people we were born to be :)