21 August 2010

Spastic Hemiplegia Cerebral Palsy

I have a condition called (SHCP).
I got SHCP when I was 10 days old (27.12.10) when I had a bleeding to the right side of my brain so my CP affects the left side of my body.
My CP isn’t that bad as most cases where the person can’t walk, talk etc. So I am quite lucky, but it still affects me.
Sadly there is no cure for CP but it can be made stronger. The treatments I use every day and every night are my AFO’s (or splints). I wear them every day at school for 6 hours to get a good stretch and I also wear them at night to still get that good stretch but when I’m fast asleep. I don’t like wearing my splints at school because people always ask: ‘Why do you get to wear trainers?’ or ‘What is that thing on your leg?’
I also have to have cereal castings 3 times a year for 3 weeks which helps to get a good stretch and to help get my foot into a 90 degree angle.
Then, there are the Botox injections; they help relax the muscles in my leg. They hurt but I don’t mind going through pain if it is going to help me.
Then there are the moments of my life I have been dreading- the operations. I have been told many times by my friends and family that if I do have the operations that I be fine and safe and that the doctors know what they’re doing, but I’m scared of having operations because: I have a BIG fear of hospitals- I hate them! If the operation that I’ll need in the next year or so doesn’t work, it will have to be done again which I’m not going trough twice- no way. I would be in a cast for 6 weeks and using crutches (most people would think that is a good thing but I can’t use crutches and my leg would feel weird).There are so many other reasons but if I wrote them all down I would be here forever.
At my high school I am the only person with CP- scary? Yes! At school, I would have to say P.E. is my hardest subject because my CP lets me down, I’m slow at running, last in every race etc. In races when I hear times being called out before mine, they are usually very fast. When I ask my friends what they got it will be something along the lines of 15/16 seconds for the 100 meters and I got 26 seconds. It makes me feel angry and I feel like I want to just give up.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Ella. My daughter just turned 12 & has the same CP as you do. She had surgery on her leg almost 2 yrs. ago and also had a cast & had to walk on crutches. She had a pretty hard time trying to figure them out too but the surgery went very well. Her walking & running looks so much better. She also has the same dilema as you do with always coming in last with PE issues. Keep your head up. Jennifer

    ReplyDelete