After that incident with Ronald, much of the teasing had died down. I had proven capable of defending myself, and not being too weak. This made things a bit easier for quite some time. Still didn't stop me from being picked last for sports teams, but oh well.
If I recall rightly, I think I had a total of six surgeries from years 1 - 7. I recall one Christmas, I had been very sick in hospital, and had almost not made it out of surgery. That Christmas, I received more than the standard 2 presents. I think the best thing I got that Christmas, was dad not working the whole day. It was not often that dad passed up a full double shift on a public holiday.
One of the worst memories I had of any of the surgeries, I think was when I was about 7 or 8. One of the kids in the ward was often lonely, and when I could I talk to him from bed. His parents were not their frequently, but he remained strong. One day, both of his parents made it to visit. The curtain was drawn and a while later, they were opened again, and there was a new bed there. I asked the nurse where the little boy was, and was told that he passed away. It is one of only the few memories of hospital I had from primary school. But high school was a whole different matter.
At the age of 13, year 8 started and I was devastated. For whatever reason, my parents wanted to moved to the country. Dad was posted to the police station there. Mum was still working at the hospital, but she finished that job not long after we moved. I did not want to move, as all of my friends, except for 2 were going to be at a different school. These were people I cared about, had good friendships with, and I know would have stuck by me in the years to come. Unfortunately that was not to be the case. Only 3 people I knew were at my new school, and only 1 of them would stay. All was pretty good for the first few months. I got picked on a fair bit, but 3 of my first bullies, would end up becoming 3 of my most loyal friends. The taunting had disappeared until near the end of the year. I had started noticing that things were not going as planned health wise. By January of year 9, my back had curved into an almost S shape. This brought on much bullying. The only place where I got no bullying was at Army Cadets. There I had respect because I was good at what I did. I had rapid promotions and ended up several years later as Company Sergeant Major. But back to age 14.
When year 9 was drawing to a close. My marks started to drop drastically from the stress I was under at home and school. My parents were often fighting, absorbed in their own worlds and unpredictable people to turn to for help. By this time, I had just decided that things were much easier if I just let things be, and not say anything. It is very similar to those who have been abused over a lifetime. At some point in time, you just roll over and give up, and I did. I kept up the facade of enjoying life, until I got to the cadet hall, or to my friends place, where I did enjoy myself, but anywhere between home and school was a different matter.
At this stage, I gave up the thing I loved the most, swimming. due to all the bullying. Wearing a swimsuit for the last time at a swim class at school was the most humiliating thing. The names Hunchback of Notre Dame, Quasimdo, Half Formed, Freak became common names instead of Jim. The worse thing about it all, was that the teachers did little to step in. It is amazing that when you start having physical issues, how many people automatically think that you have mental issues and are stupid. Even my parents would say, " What are you doing, are you stupid?". It was after the last straw when my mum called me this after an especially bad day of bullying that I burst into tears. It was then that they found out that the bullying was out of control. I requested that they did nothing about it as it would have only gotten worse.
The worst case I remember of being bullied, was when I had just finished a class. For some reason, someone had taken offence to my existence that day, and did a leaping punch right in the middle of the curve on my back. I think it was one of the most agonizing pains I had ever felt outside of a hospital. Although, that changed not long afterwards.
As my spine was curving, it was doing so at a rapid rate. The doctors had called it Schuermanns Kyphosis. We asked the doctor at the time, if Agent Orange would be a cause of this condition. The doctors flatly stated that Yes, this is the cause. It is more a form of Spina Bifida, but we use Schuermanns disease so it wont be linked. The worst part was this comment. "If you attempt to take this to court, we will deny everything. We can't be seen admitting this as we will lose our licences due to certain companies not wanting anything to do with this". Needless to say, we were all totally stunned. What I didn't find out until sometime later, is that dad had taken a $5,000 payout when I was in primary school, little of which mum or myself saw.
By the middle of that year, my 15th birthday was approaching. Sometime around then, I started getting used to the pain, the bullying, and was keeping fit to alleviate much of the suffering. Around this time, I had friends over, I think it was a little after my birthday. We were all looking forward to going to the military tattoo. Unfortunately, this event was not to be. While playing pool in the barn, I took a drink of water, and threw up almost instantly. I had thought not much of it, and cleaned up and went back to hanging out with my mates. A little while later, it got worse. I bought this to my parents attention, and we gave it a few more hours. The next day, I was taken to hospital and 3 days later, I was getting my duodenum removed. What had happened apparently, was that a blood vessel had somehow got pinched when my back was curving and cut off my duodenum. I believe I was in hospital for nearly 6 - 8 weeks, and had about 4 more weeks of recovery time. It was during this hospitalization, that I had almost died a second time. It was starting to become a familiar acquintance, more oft than not, quite comforting.
Age 15 to 19 was a relatively mellow time, in comparison to the turmoil of much of my earlier existence. In reality, it was more of a calm before the storm. I had finally come to the point in time, where I had to have my back surgery. My mother had muted my earlier wish to have it on the grounds that I would miss too much school. Honestly, I ended up repeating highschool, so that ended up being a mute point. I worked out for a period of 6 months, 5 days a week. I got a pretty impressive bod by the end of this time period. Then it was on to stage 1 of a 2 part Spinal Fusion. This is what the operation entails.
Part 1 consists of opening up your ribcage, removing a rib, and cutting the anterior and posterior ligaments in your chest cavity. After a 2 week break, they went in, re-built to vertebrae, fused the upper section of my spine after straightening it. It is said that the surgery is like being hit head on by a truck at 60km an hour. They lay your shoulder blades on a table during this procedure and take out a rib. Bleeding bone is taken from your pelvic bone, to make a bonding agent, and then rods are insterted. This operation was another time I almost crossed between this world and whatever is on the other side. I was to have one more close call a few months later, when my parents and I noticed that I was starting to get sores on my back under the back brace. The rods that they had placed in my back had a screw seemed to have not been able to screw in further and started breaking through the skin, causing a major infection. A gangrene like infection appeared as well as golden staph. They removed the rods, and put me in another caste, that I had to wear for 1 year. this was to be my final skirt with death. Sick of all the pain, I had decided that I was to kill myself. I had waited for my parents to go out, and arranged my room. I then laid down for a bit, knowing that they had gone shopping for groceries. I then woke up, took out my baoynet that I had been given by my father, and knelt down on my bedroom floor. I had just started to line up the bayonet ready to fall over on it, and then my parents came home. I put the bayonet in a dark place, and never took it out for over 5 years. I don't thank God, or anything for saving me that day. I find more anger that I was at that point. Later that night, I had a dream in which I spoke to the Dalai Lama. That next day onwards, I decided I wanted to get better. It took until I was 22 to have achieved some sort of normality. I flirted with alcoholism for about 6 months. Usually my start to the day was waking up at 11 am, having lunch, getting a scotch and dry, and playing games on my computer. After a while, I started to make new friends, and moved back closer to some of my older ones. After that, I went to business college, trained as an administrative assistant. I spent a month in Melbourne, went back to Ipswich. I then met my now ex-wife on the internet, and moved to Canada.
This will not be my last post. I have many other things to write about. There will be one more post regarding Agent Orange side effects with my hip issue. New posts will include observations, sarcastic rants and other insights. Feel free to send any more comments. And thank you to those who have followed my blog so far.
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