The most influential moment in my life has been my birth. My early arrival and medical complications scared my parents, my doctors and my relatives. The issues that resulted from my premature birth made me “different”.  I walk “funny,” one of my legs is about half an inch shorter than the other, and I probably will never be an Olympic athlete.
Although I was raised to be a patient child, a patient fetus I was not. I managed to shock everyone by popping out of the womb two and a half months premature. Unnerved by my early arrival, doctors ordered an immediate CAT scan, revealing severe hemorrhaging; this discovery caused them to label me as in “grave condition.” While nurses placed me in an incubator bundled in tubes and sensors, the doctor, unoptimistic of my fate, offered my parents counseling. Mom and Dad, simply overjoyed by my arrival, refused and patiently waited the three weeks for me to be released from the clutches of the incubator.
In the beginning things didn’t seem too bad. My first steps around the kitchen weren’t very different from most toddlers’ first attempts at tottering around. I wobbled, tripped, I fell…I wailed at the top of my lungs. Normal – just a little later that everyone else. But my legs remained rotated at an odd angle. I didn’t gain the typical confident swagger of a two and a half year old who had mastered the art of marching across the living room, much to the delight (and often terror) of his parents. I was different. I had a challenge. My “challenge,” as it turns out, had a name. According to the doctors and medical professionals we visited I had mild cerebral palsy. CP for short.
By the time I was five my family and I were referred to the Shriners Hospital for Children that helped kids like me – kids with challenges. My first visit to the clinic was shocking. It looked like a normal doctor’s office, but rather than being surrounded by kids with hacking coughs, or other children my age showing off a shiny new cast to their parents, I was surrounded by ailments, handicaps and challenges I had never imagined were possible. Here I was barely able to read and already I had been presented with a scary image of what my life could have been – of what my challenge could have been. It was a chance to see my life laid out before me in a way that most five year olds, most teens, and even most adults rarely get a chance to see. I was lucky. The problems I thought I had and the issues I whined about were all insignificant when juxtaposed with problems I could have had to face.
Most brushes with death involve car accidents, or incurable diseases. My near death experience was birth. Since then, I have been forced to come to grips with the possible alternate outcomes of my life. I have been taught not to dwell on the bad hands you get dealt, because in the grand scheme of things, most of the “problems” or complaints you have are insignificant. At the age of five, that’s a pretty big lesson to learn. Didn’t get that new Star Wars action figure for Christmas? It was fine…at least I could walk. Shoes wet from the rain? At least I had feet.
There are still moments in my life where I pause, reflect, and think to myself, “It could have been so much worse.” I go through each day thankful for the opportunities that have been presented to me. When things go my way, I feel truly lucky. When they don’t, I find an alternate solution and remind myself that I have no reason to complain.
 My “challenge” is the best thing that has ever happened to me.
Excerpt from a letter written by former patient and now college student Ronald Hill to the Chief of Staff. Upon reflecting on the past fifteen years and everything I have experienced, it is clear my visits to Shriners Hospital have made a very powerful impact on my life, character and perspective. This essay is one that I submitted as part of the college application process. I think it sums up my thoughts on my “challenge” nicely. So much of who I am and what I believe in never would have been possible without the life lessons that I have learned from the Shriners community.
