CP

Last night I also got to hang out with a new friend, Kristen. I met her Friday night. She has cerebral palsy. It's caused by a bruise on a baby's brain. If treated before the age of 2 the outcome is usually really good. Her parents didn't believe in hospitals so they didn't get her treatment until it was too late. She had to have surgery on her hip and her parents took her out of the hospital immediately afterward so she didn't have any physical therapy. She laid in a bed for 6 months until her surgical incisions were so infected that she had to be rushed to the emergency room.

She has a lot of problems she shouldn't because of her parents' irresponsibility. She has severed all ties with them because they always wanted to hide her problem. Socially she runs into a lot of issues as well. Most people see people with CP on television and think it's really severe. It depends on the person. She also has guys who have dumped her because they were afraid the CP would get worse - it doesn't. Some times people think she's mentally disabled because of her walk. She told me "I feel like I walk normally and I always hate walking by a mirror and I can see that I don't". She endures a lot of ridicule from people who don't realize she has CP but she's at the point where she just ignores it and gets on with her life.

Kristen was never much of an outdoors person until 2003 when she met a woman at the airport who asked if she had tried hand cycling. Kristen was like "what the fuck is a hand cycle?" She started attending events like No Barriers and now sky dives, hand cycles, rafts, and horse back rides. She spent every day of No Barriers doing two new sports she never tried before.

Like me she often travels by herself. We cooked up some adventure trips to go on, and hopefully we will get to do a trip together this year. Though, Kristen and I are a lot alike, and we like to get into trouble, so it might not be a good thing for us to hang out together. Or, it could be the perfect thing!