Monkey Bars

When they tell your parents you have a brachial plexus injury, they also tell them a long list of everything you won't be able to do because of it. I didn't crawl, I scooted around on my butt. I couldn't grasp things with my left hand or straighten my elbow. When I ran, it would hang limp at my side instead of pumping like my right arm.

But they also told me I wouldn't ever be able to do a lot of things that I ended up doing.

The monkey bars was one of those.

In elementary school, that was one of the big playground activities. We had a few sets of monkey bars and there were always competitions and tricks and races. It's not that I remember the first time trying the monkey bars but I remember becoming one of the best at them at my school and what I don't remember is ever thinking about my BPI when I was playing on them. Sometimes my arm would cramp up or it would hurt a little and I definitely had to work harder than most to get from bar to bar and still be fast and do tricks but I was just another kid on the monkey bars when I was on that playground. It was a childish game but if I had let the doctors stop me and just sat in defeat telling myself I couldn't do it because of my arm, I honestly think I would have a lot different of an attitude about my BPI and even myself.

It might have been incredibly stupid of me to even try the monkey bars, let alone get so into them and I'm not encouraging anyone to go against doctor's orders but the risk my 5 year-old self took (or just the plain ignorance I had) by climbing all over those monkey bars ultimately payed off.

When you're that young, habits form. How you view yourself from the perspective of your peers shapes who you grow up to be. I wasn't stuck sitting on the sidelines watching all my friends have fun because I wasn't going to let myself become that. I didn't let my BPI determine my participation, fun, self-worth, attitude, or anything beyond that. Of course I know that none of these thoughts were really swarming inside a five year-old's head pushing me to make that decision...I was a smart kid but maybe not that smart. Like I said, I don't even remember the first time I got on those monkey bars but I like to think that something like all of that was what caused me to get up out of the sandbox and jump up there.

I'm not saying don't listen to your doctors. I'm not saying do something you shouldn't just so you're not the outsider. That's not why I played on the monkey bars. All I'm saying is that your BPI doesn't have control over your life and it doesn't define you. Sure you're special but you're also just another kid on the playground.