National Adult Literacy Database

January 30, 2006

Here is Tremayne's story from Rabbittown Learners' Program, in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador.

Play an audio version of this story

If I could do anything

by Tremayne R.

If I could do anything in the world it would be to take Cerebral Palsy away. I don't wish I never had it because it made me the man I am today and it made me stronger. It's like the saying goes, "be careful what you wish for because it just might come true". I might have been worse off, like I could have been on drugs and drinking. I could have been an unfeeling and not caring person for nothing at all, like not going to school and not caring about what I'm going to do with my life. But if I take the Cerebral Palsy away now I can change all that. I can do the simple things of life, like walking, talking and I can eat better and faster. I can get up all by myself take a bath, and it is not going to be a bed bath. I can get dressed by myself and not wait for someone to get me dressed. I could cook and clean up the house for myself, I don't know that it is a good thing or not but I could do it.

People take all of that for granted, they just do it. But I take nothing for granted, it's harder for me. I can't do things like other people can do, like having a conversation, sure you can say it's easier with my Pathfinder but it's not my mouth. I can't even go out anytime I want to go, I need to book the bus, if Wheelway says no, I have to stay home. I also have to come home when they say so, and some of the places isn't wheelchair assessable. But I have a good life. I have workers that care, and a family that loves me. I could have it worse.