Hey guys! How were your weekends? Mine was pretty quiet. I did some laundry, chatted with friends online. You know, the usual. But, welcome back to Living With Disabilities, the series where I talk about what it's like being someone with disabilities, both physical and mental. Last time I talked a little bit about what going to school was like while at a school for kids with disabilities when I talked about my time at OCTC. But in September, 1994 I was thrust out into the real world of public school, where I was the only kid who used a wheelchair at the school I went to. There were other kids who had disabilities, but none of them used a wheelchair. Which meant that I stood out from the rest of the school.
The first time I entered Greely Elementary School, was actually in May or June, 1994 because I got to go on a tour of the school, meet the teacher I was most likely going to have, and see what kind of accomodations the school would have to make in order for me to be comfortable being in my wheelchair at school. I think I also ended up meeting one of my future classmates too, but I don't remember that much. I just remember meeting Mrs. Morgan and seeing the classroom I would most likely be in.
Fast forward to the beginning of the school year, where I started grade 2 and things were different. Suddenly I was among kids who didn't use wheelchairs, or had problems walking or going to the bathroom or whatever other difficulties my former classmates at OCTC had. Mrs. Morgan was nice though I wasn't as nervous as I had been before I had my visit of the school back in the spring. I also spent the morning in a Special Education class, with Mr. Burke. Mr. Burke kinda reminded me of Joey Gladstone from Full House in that, while he could be serious, he made sure that we always had fun. Most of the kids in that Special Education class were actually kids that were in Mrs. Morgan's class with me, with two being from the grade 3 class next door. We read books, did math, spelling tests and I think there was a third thing we had in Mr. Burke's class, but I don't really remember what it was.
Mrs. Morgan's and Mr. Burke's classes were where I made my first friends in the public school system. The Lion King had come out in theatres the summer before I started at Greely E.S. and had been a huge hit with merchandise tie-ins like you wouldn't believe. And get this, the movie was actually popular with kids my age. Mostly the girls, but of course my mom had taken my siblings and I to go see it over the summer and I had loved it, so I bonded with some of the kids over the movie.
There were six kids in particular that I bonded with during that first year. Chad loved The Dukes of Hazzard as did I, so we played that at recess, with my wheelchair being the General Lee. Chad was blond, so he was always Bo, while I played Luke, even though Bo was usually the driver on the show. It was my wheelchair after all. Dillon was another story. I don't remember what we bonded over, but he and Chad actually came over to my house a few times and we played Days of Thunder and After Burner on the NES, though not until about 1998. Then there was Erica. She was in my class, but she moved in the middle of the school year and I haven't talked to her in over 25 years. I don't even remember her last name. I wonder what she's up to these days. Chelsea was another girl I played with at recess, and was in my Spec Ed class as well. She and I actually were in class together from grade 2 until grade 6, except for grade 4.
In grade 3, I had Mrs. Morgan and Mr. Burke again, and in terms of relations between myself and my classmates were basically the same as they were in grade 2. Except this year I was in a grade 2/3 split, so there were other kids I met. This was the year I met two people who would be a big part of my life right through my transition from Greely Elementary School to Metcalfe Public School in grade 7. Twin girls named Meagan and Trina. Trina had a hearing problem so she wore a hearing aid and a device that linked to a microphone worn by the teachers so Trina could hear them speak without any problems. The girls and I played together at recess, and Meagan was in my class until her, Trina and their parents moved away in the middle of grade 7. At some point she got into Star Wars and by the time we were in grade 6 we would sit outside at recess and talk about Star Wars and speculate about the then upcoming prequel trilogy, since Episode I was coming out the summer between grades 6 and 7 for us.
Something that stuck out to me about grade 3 in particular was on my birthday, two girls that I was friends with, Alex and Morgan, who were in the grade 2 part of my class, surprised me during a circle time with Mr. Burke. They got up in front of the class and sang me a song, with choreography and everything. I don't know how long they had practiced this, but Mr. Burke knew about it, and it definitely not a spur of the moment thing either. Like I said, they'd rehearsed it over the course of a month at the most.
Music class was fun as Mrs. Sheriff, the mother of one of the kids in my class, was our teacher, and we sang a lot of songs, including "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and others (she also taught us music in grade 6 as well). Mrs. Sheriff was also the choir director and I don't remember what it was for, but I remember us practicing a few Disney songs, still classics like "A Spoonful of Sugar" and others from before 1981.
Grades 4 and 5 were fun years too, though I only made one new friend, in grade 5, named Andrew. Everyone else were people I had already known for two to three years. Though, once again, we sang Disney songs in music class for a performance at some assembly. Mr. Meredith was my teacher for grades 4 and 5, and Mrs. Brown was my Special Education teacher. Mr. Meredith introduced me to a lot of books, including one book in particular that we read for a novel study. That book was The War with Mr. Wizzle by Gordon Korman, starring Bruno & Boots.
Grade 6 was where I had my first group of friends and where I met my best friend that I had from 1998 until 2010 when he stopped coming home to Ottawa for summers and Christmas holidays. That friend was Garrett. He introduced me to the world of Star Wars novels and even lent me the X-Wing series as well. In that group as well were Meagan, Jessica, Kayla, Jordan, Spencer, Rachel and Jasmine. As I've mentioned in another post, Jessica was the girl who introduced me to Animorphs by K.A. Applegate.
Greely Elementary School was really the time of my life. Especially in grade 6. I had to stay inside during first and third recesses during the winter since they were the shorter ones and it wasn't worth it to get off my feeding pump and get bundled up only to have to come in five minutes later since it was too cold for me to go outside with my feeding pump on. Luckily I had friends who were willing to stay inside with me during those recesses so I wouldn't be alone. They would rotate too. One recess Garrett would stay in with me, then another Meagan would stay, then Jessica, Jordan, Spencer, Rachel, Kayla and Jasmine would all stay in with me at different recesses through the winter. Lunch recess however, I was outside with my friends as I would in the fall and spring.
My friends and I also had a radio show during the lunch hour once a week too. We'd play a song from a CD that I owned, do a fake weather forecast, tell stories, and have fun. The principal, Mrs. Macdonald, was in charge and since I didn't have to eat, being that I was tube fed, I handled most of it, though like I said, my friends would help out as well. It was just this silly thing we did, but it was then that I decided what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Be on the radio.
As my classmates and I became teenagers and moved onto middle school, making friends was a lot harder for me. Kids who'd been with me since I started at Greely Elementary School became not so nice, while kids I was meeting for the first time at this new school weren't nice either. Friends drifted apart. My one friend in my class, Meagan (Andrew was there too, but we'd drifted apart over the summer), moved away. Girls started to ignore me, and for the first time I didn't hang out with girls at recess. Just a group of guys, whose friendships wouldn't last beyond that school year. One of them, whose name was also Andrew, is the reason I have two of my best friends now, but I'll get to that shortly.
Unbeknownst to me (but knownst to someone else), I had a stronger ally in my class than I thought I did. There was a girl named Alex (not the same Alex who sang a song to me for my birthday) in my class, and she secretly had a crush on me. She'd been new to school in grade 6 (or was it grade 5?) and had come over with me to Metcalfe Public, and ended up in my class. Anyway, any time we had indoor recess, or a free period (Christmas party, Metcalfe Fair etc) Alex always found some reason to come over to my specially made desk that was made when I got a bigger wheelchair at Greely Elementary School and had transitioned over to Metcalfe with me, and talk to me. Now, I am absolutely oblivious when it comes to girls liking me in a romantic way so it wasn't until we were adults and were chatting on Facebook one day that Alex told me that she'd had a crush on me when we were in grade 7 but of course being an awkward teenager, she wasn't gonna do anything about it. And like I said, I was clueless. I should've known that Alex had a crush on me though, because out of all of my classmates, she took the time to bike over to my house one random Saturday afternoon with her friend, Julianne, who I'd also been friends with since grade 2, as her mom and my dad had worked together before that.
So this one day, I think it was in late May or early June, 2000, I'm up in my bedroom, reading a comic book, my dad was at work, my siblings were doing something else, my mom was in the kitchen, and my grandfather was over, working on something in our garage. Anyway, he comes in the house and yells up to me, asking me to come down as two girls were asking to see me. I had no idea who it might've been as only three girls had ever been over to my house before, and that was for a Halloween party or to drop off a get well card after I'd been sick and off of school (and in the hospital most likely). This was none of those times. Alex and Julianne had looked my address up in the phone book (yes kids, you had to look addresses up in a physical book in the '90s and early 2000s) and then biked over. I think Alex had planned on asking me out or something but THAT subject never came up. We just sat on the back patio and talked for half an hour before the girls had to bike back to either Julianne's place or Alex's place (not sure which). They didn't visit again, but that was pretty cool they even did that, since Garrett hadn't even started biking over yet.
Grade 8 was the worst year I'd ever had at Metcalfe Public. Grade 7 wasn't bad though I did have classmates and other kids at school who picked on me. It got worse in grade 8. I loved my teacher, Mr. Pare. We were his first teaching job and oh man my classmates were the absolute worst class of kids I'd ever been in. We missed so many gym classes because the people in the class wouldn't stop talking long enough to let Mr. Pare actually talk. He even kept us after school at least once (luckily my bus driver had the leeway to circle back and pick me up after after the other buses were gone). There were a few people who carried my books for me to my Special Education math class with Mr. Fitch, who was the craziest teachers in the entire school, the way he was always rushing about. I was amused by this of course, but still. Anyway, some of the nicer kids in my class carried my books back and forth between Mr. Pare and Mr. Fitch's classrooms every day after french class that year. But the only friend I had in that class was a girl named Leslie, who I'd been off and on friends with since grade 2, when she pushed my wheelchair too fast and tipped me over. I wasn't hurt, but she laughed at me which made me angry.
High school was the best of times and it was the worst of times. It was the best of times because I made a lot of friends. Some of whom I still see all the time as an adult. It was the worst of times because as I got older, the jerks who'd harassed me mercilessly in grade 8, multiplied and decided it would be fun to not only harass me, but to start picking on my friends as well. Of course the majority of the teachers and the school's administration were worthless at Osgoode Township High School, because they did nothing about the bullies. It got to the point where one of my friends transferred to a different school because she was being bullied so badly. Luckily I had three teachers who were in my corner my whole five years at OTHS. Mr. Saint-Yves was my Spec Ed teacher, Mr. Pritchard was my mom's old English teacher and while I never had him as a teacher, he was well aware of me and had promised my mom he'd look out for me as long as he was a teacher at OTHS, and he was also my vice principal for a couple of years towards the end of my high school days, so any time I had a problem I went to him with it and he helped me with it.
What saved me in high school, after having been isolated in grades 7 and 8, were the people I hung out with. Not all of these friendships survived, but at the time these people were my life. There are a few people I want to mention, but a few of them will wait until I do my post on what dating was like for me as a teenager and what it's like as an adult. The big ones in the early days were Keira, Kelly, Brad, Garrett, Claire and KrisP (his last name starts with the letter 'P' hence the nickname).
Of course Garrett has to be mentioned because he was the only person I still hung out with from my Greely days. He was also my best friend at the time too and the only one of my friends who didn't need a parent to drive him over to my house because he was in biking distance. He wasn't over every weekend. But he'd show up after school and on some Saturdays too. I knew his sister, Hayley, as well but Garrett was the man. He was my safe harbour for when things got a little too intense with the Lunch Group. Him and Keira. Keira more so when I was in grade 9, just because Garrett was still over at Metcalfe Public, in grade 8. But when I was in grade 10 and he was in grade 9, Garrett and I would spend entire lunch hours together.
Keira was the girl I was in love with almost all through high school. She was one of my closest friends as well. She was special. It all started in the summer between grades 9 and 10. My friends and I had planned on going to see Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones after exams were over as our first major group outing. Kelly and I started planning it in like February or March of 2002, two or three months before the movie had even come out in theatres. Well, as it turned out, neither Keira nor I could go, so we made plans to go see it together, just the two of us. However, by the time we were both able to get together, the movie was out of theatres, so we ended up going to see the third Austin Powers movie, Austin Powers in Goldmember instead because it was the only movie that either of us were even remotely interested in seeing. After the movie, my mom had to stop at Ikea to pick up bucket chairs for the basement to replace some child size chairs that my siblings and I couldn't fit on anymore. We had a station wagon at the time and on the way home from Ikea, Keira had to sit in the front seat with my mom while I sat in the back so one of the seats could be folded down to fit the bucket seats into the trunk. Keira and my mom made fun of me the whole time. Which should've been the first inkling that Keira had a thing for me.
That same summer, Keira came over and we hung out in my family's above ground, inflatable pool. Then about a month later, I had to go to the Guidance Counselor's office on the first day of school to get my schedule switched, because somehow they managed to have me in a class that was outside in one of the portables. Which wasn't a problem at Greely Elementary School or Metcalfe Public because there was one portable at each place that had a ramp. The problem at OTHS was that NONE of the portables at that school had ramps. Every school year, at the beginning of EVERY semester I inevitably wound up in the Guidance Counselor's office getting my schedule changed because of this goof up. So the first day of school in grade 10, I went to the Guidance Counselor's office and Keira, who was in my homeroom as she had been the year before, came with me and then, she just sat with me while I waited until she had to go to her first class, which I would be late for because of that goof up. She actually sat in the outer office area with me.
As the semester went on, Keira and I found ourselves becoming closer. To the point where people around us, thought we were actually dating. We weren't, but that's how close we were at the time. Finally, for my 16th birthday I had some friends over and Keira was late because she was in the drama club and the drama teacher, who I liked, Mr. Karp, had kept them a bit later than normal, and it being almost winter, it was snowing that night as well. Anyway, me, Keira, Jess (a girl from one of my classes), her boyfriend Andy, Andrew (guy I knew from Metcalfe Public), Kelly, Claire and Barbara sat in my basement, watching Spider-Man (2002) on VHS. We were on a mattress and two of the bucket chairs, and Keira and I somehow ended up on the mattress together, sitting next to each other, under a blanket just watching the movie. Our hips touched each other, because I was actually sandwiched in between Keira and Kelly, and I had shifted more towards Keira. Then, Keira was the last person to leave when my party was over, because her dad was late picking her up, and we ended up singing along to "Hero" by Enrique Iglesias (laugh all you want, but it's a good song). Jess and Andy had gotten me Enrique's second English album, Escape for me for my birthday and "Hero" is on that album, and I wanted to listen to it. As the music started playing though, Keira said that she liked the song and before I knew it we were singing the song to each other.
Sadly, Keira and I drifted apart after high school. Though we did come back together for a brief period in 2009. She came over in April of that year and we hung out in the basement, listening to music and chatting for hours. Then in June of that year, Keira ended up driving me to a friend's Wake. My friend, Amber had been killed in a house fire in June of 2009 and it happened that Keira was going to the Wake as were pretty much everyone else we knew who had also known Amber. The next day Keira and I ended up standing together at the cemetary during the burial. At one point my legs were tired and I bent over to try and give my knees a rest. Keira grabbed me by the arm and just held me as we watched the caskets for Amber and her daughter (who'd also been killed in that house fire) be lowered into the ground. That was the last time Keira and I saw each other. We also haven't spoken since.
Back in high school, when Keira and I were in grade 10, the time we were becoming much closer than just friends, I was excited because Garrett was going into grade 9 and I'd planned on dragging him into the insanity that I'd had to endure by myself the previous school year. Which meant introducing him to everyone in the group. Including Keira. That did not go as planned, though it makes for a hilarious story that has stayed in my mind for 18 years. So, it was lunch time, and I asked Garrett to meet me at Keira's locker in the main hallway of the school so I could introduce them. Anyway, Garrett arrives and I introduce him to Keira. Garrett said the most hilarious, and the most horrifying thing he possibly could've said to Keira at this point in hers and my friendship. He said, "Oh so you're Josh's girlfriend". Of course, Keira had been hearing this from other, not so nice people, in the school by this point. So what did she do? She punched Garrett in the shoulder like Rachel would do to Marco any time he made a snide remark in the Animorphs books or Donna would do to Kelso on That '70s Show. What was my response to this? I laughed. Hard. I finally had two best friends and one of them, inadvertently, antagonized the other.
Also in high school, I met two of my favourite people in the whole world. Kelly and Brad. I won't go into the story of how I met Brad right now, because that's gonna be a story for this series at another time, but Kelly had been Andrew's girlfriend before I ever knew her, and had been away from the group for the first few weeks of school when I was in grade 9, because Andrew was dating Claire by then, and she was uncomfortable with that. I was too, but only because they never tried to hide their Public Displays of Affection or were discreet in any way. Anyway, Kelly came back to the group for the Metcalfe Fair that year and eventually she started writing me notes, which she expected me to write back to or she'd write me a longer one that I would then have two to reply to. Yeah, this was before E-mail was the primary form of written communication between people. Lol. Kelly was there for a lot of my firsts as a teenager. She was there for my first girlfriend (Claire), my first high school dance, the first time I ever ate solid food at school, and most importantly, Kelly was the first girl I ever slow danced with. Period. For the OTHS Oscars ceremony (big event combined with a school dance) in 2004, we went as a group as usual, though some of my friends had dates (I was flying solo), but somehow Kelly and I both ended up dressing in black and there's a picture of us in a very red carpet fashion, with her arm draped across my shoulders and me trying to look sexy, but failing miserably. Lol. Those were the fun days.
Believe it or not, Brad and I were not friends right away. That came later in our high school years, after Garrett had moved away, but we talked a lot at school and in our later teen years he'd lend books to me, often dropping them off at my house randomly. We were into Star Trek and Star Wars so we had those to talk about all the time. As well as comic books. Our friendship would solidify when we became adults, Brad got his driver's license and a car and we started being able to do things like go to the movies, go to the mall or the comic book store without needing a ride from one of our mothers. High school was the very beginning of it though.
In the later years of high school, aside from Brad, all of the people I had been close with, Kelly, Garrett, Claire, Simon, KrisP and even Andrew, had all moved on from high school or moved away and I found it more difficult to be friends with people because I was one of the oldest people at the school since I turned 19 in 2005, a few months before I graduated from high school. The younger kids were more reckless, and less mature, and so I found myself in a difficult time. Especially since the bullying was getting worse and the principal and vice principals (except for Mr. Pritchard) were becoming more and more incompetent as time went on. And being the only person who had disabilities and used a wheelchair, I stood out even more than I would've if I'd just been a geek/nerd.
Luckily I made friends with two awesome girls, who would help me out no matter what happened. Amber, who I already talked about, and a girl named Sarah. Sarah suffered from Depression and Anxiety and other mental illnesses. She was a great friend though. She even helped me get through my first real romantic relationship (Claire doesn't count since she and I were together for a day) where I was with a girl who was...very difficult, shall we say. Amber did too. But Sarah was the one that stayed by my side during the whole thing. Both girls died in the late 2000s. As I mentioned before, Amber died trying to rescue her sleeping daughter from a burning house in 2009. Sarah's death was a lot more tragic. Her Depression and Anxiety overcame her in July, 2007 and she committed suicide. She'd gotten really bad the previous September, and she'd cut me out of her life as a result. Amber was the one who called me to tell me that Sarah had died. It hurt. I remember being at the church in Osgoode, with Amber, Kissy and Kayla (I'll talk about Kissy's and my friendship at a later time) and during "My Immortal" by Evanescence, which was Sarah's favourite song, I remember closing my eyes, tears welling up, and I just remember listening to the song, on the verge of crying, when this hand grabbed mine and a head fell onto my shoulder. I opened my tear filled eyes and looked to my right and Amber was leaning on me, our hands entwined. We cried. Losing Amber and Sarah two years apart like that hurt me more than any operation, medical diagnosis, or a bully's words ever had.
Aside from the bullying, school wasn't always peaches and cream. While Occupational Therapy and Physical Therapy were part of our routine at OCTC and were incorporated into our daily activities, at Greely Elementary School, I actually had to take time out of class for those things. I had a nurse at school with me to take care of my feeding pump, help me with going to the bathroom, and help me do my Physio. OT happened once a week, but not with my nurse, with an Occupational Therapist who was assigned to the school. I had three nurses at Greely. Two of them I liked, the other one not so much. Eva was my first nurse and she was pretty spectacular. I remember her babysitting my brother, sister and I on weekends when my parents wanted to go out. Eva has two kids, Amy and Jonathan, who also came over and I loved spending time with them. I remember Johnathan bringing over his Game Boy and NES games over and that's how I played Home Alone 2: Lost in New York on the NES and Super Mario Land on the Game Boy. Johnathan also helped me on the Game Boy games that I owned at the time as well. He was kind of like a big brother to me, since I'm the oldest of my siblings and I. Amy was also like a big sister, though she probably did more with my sister.
I remember one day, Eva took my siblings and I (or maybe it was just me, or just my sister and I) to her house for the day and we watched the 1995 film, Babe and we also watched an episode of the original DIC English Dub of Sailor Moon. I remember because Amy was home that day and she watched Sailor Moon with us. It was cool having older siblings like that, even if it was only for a short time as I got a new nurse after grade 3. That nurse's name was Kathy, but I didn't like her very much, even though I had her for grades 4 and 5.
The nurse I had in grade 6 was Lorraine, and man I had fun with Lorraine and her son, Spencer. Lorraine would watch us on Friday nights after school, and, like Kathy and Eva before her, she would help me bathe, do Physio, and watch us while my dad was at work and my mom went out for time for herself. We watched movies, and did a lot of cool stuff. In fact, Lorraine even took Spencer and I to see Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace after school one Friday. I'd seen the movie the weekend before with Ahmed (as mentioned in the previous edition of Living With Disabilities), but I gladly watched it again because not only did I genuinely like the movie (I was 12 and a half when it came out), but I had gotten to get out of school early to see it too.
School was difficult for me. Academically and socially. Grades 2 through 6 were great, but things declined as my classmates and I grew up into teenagers, and they just stopped caring about the goofy, geeky kid in a wheelchair, with some of them actively disliking me simply because I was different. By high school, the OT had stopped altogether, and the Physio Therapist started just coming to the house instead of to the school to see me. But I was still out of class a lot because I had my feeding tube and pump to take care of, as well as the bag on my neck that needed to be changed. Which is why in grade 10 enough was enough and I would make the appointment with Dr. Bass that would change my life forever. Go read my CHEO and OCTC posts for details on that appointment and how it affected me in the most positive way ever.
I didn't talk about college, because it was basically an extension of high school and I didn't have a lot of close friends in any of my programs. At least, none that continued after college was over. Plus I could do an entire post on my college life if I REALLY felt like talking about it. Lol. High school was my major period where I made a few friendships that continue to this day. Friendships that I am forever thankful and grateful for.
That's it for today folks. I've got a comic book review coming your way on Wednesday, and then on Friday will be this week's Geek Talk from the Basement post. So stay tuned for those later in the week, and at the end of the month I'll have another Living With Disabilities post coming out, where my friends take over and talk about things from their perspective as well as me talking about them. Later.
