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Persistence |
Tremor |
Frustration |
Deficiencies |
Being In Charge |
God
Being Out There |
Girls |
Sex |
Frozen |
Two Types |
Starting Out |
Topsy Turvy |
My Words
Check out the Arclight Magazine article about my first book project
TREMOR -
With everything I have been through and experienced, I am thinking that if I was to name the one thing that bothers me the most about my disability , that it might be my tremor. I have an involuntary tremor in my extremities (my arms, and legs, and get this, even my head.
This means that when I am trying to drink from a glass, my head trembles away. How embarrassing. I know, just use a straw. I have been struggling over half my life, to live like John Doe. (Not to be targeted as being different).
How do you think it would look to be sitting at OD'S (a popular bar I hung out at during my high school years), drinking a beer out of a straw?" You get drunk quicker, that way," people would tell me. I would continue to drink my beers out of a mug, using my left arm, which didn't have as much range of motion, but also didn't shake as much. Over the years I have come, not to accept, but live with this condition surprisingly well.
I think back eighteen years, right after my accident. This tremor was non-existent. I remember sitting in the lounge, on the fourth floor of Rusk Rehabilitation Hospital drinking beers with my right hand, and no tremor. Those days, the tremor did not exist. I ate my food; drank my drinks; wrote my notes; and dressed myself with no tremor.
It was only after I came home, and began a creative writing class, when I resumed classes at Nyack High School, that I noticed the deterioration of my writing. I remember I was writing in my journal about the USA hockey team (in a creative way), winning the gold medal in the Olympics. I was amazed to see how poor my handwriting had become. From that day on, things just continued getting worse.
I definitely feel that my tremor makes me different in a negative way, but over the years I have learned to cope with it. I will never accept this part of my disability, but I grow stronger each day of living with it.
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