I recently wrote about this on my blog. When I was 3 1/2 I had a selective dorsal rhizotomy, which is a surgery where they cut and link in certain nerves in your spinal cord to hopefully help you to walk. In my case the surgery went very well. After the surgery, though, I had to go through years of physical therapy, as well as occupational therapy. I did intensive therapy up until the age of six or seven, and then occasional therapy afterwards. Sadly, now I am not as flexible as I was then. But that’s OK with me. I had a doctor tell me and my mum when I was a teenager that I could stretch 3 to 4 times a day, but if I did that I would have no life and I probably wouldn’t want to do that (he hit the nail on the head!). So, I traded stretching for a life, and now people could say that I “pay” for it, because now I don’t have as much flexibility and muscle tone in my legs. I almost always have pain in my back at some point during the day, and as of right now I am looking at transitioning into a manual [wheel]chair for part of the day at least. I don’t see this as a negative thing, per se, because I see it as normal aging with CP. Now I opt for natural pain relief and less invasive options for stretching and things like that. For a time I tried Botox to help with some of the muscle spasticity in my legs, but that went horribly wrong (that’s a long story and it is in a video on my channel). I have also had my ankle tendons and lengthened (So that I could walk flat-footed) and that helped for a few years, but because I didn’t keep up the stretching I have gone back to my “normal” stance, which is fine with me. I have also had more eye surgeries than I can count because I have nystagmus (a lazy eye) that refuses to respond to surgical intervention. Other than a chronically sore neck it doesn’t cause me any real issues.

Although my life is different now and has definitely changed from what it was, I wouldn’t change any of my life experiences for any amount of money because I believe they have made me who I am.