My
Cane and Me
By
Amy Barta
A
stuffed gymnasium housed the hundreds of graduates from the
University of Michigan-Dearborn. On the sides of the seated students
donning navy robes and colored ribbons determined by their field of
study were family members and friends. The student speaker that day
in April 2007 focused her inspirational speech on a fellow graduate,
me. She described how I’d overcome enormous challenges to achieve
a
Bachelors Degree with high honors.
Rewind
to a scene with the ‘fellow graduate’ about five years
earlier:
“Amy,
I think you should try walking with a cane,” advised my physical
therapist.
“Walk
a lap around the room and see how you do.”
Neurotoxicity
on my brain stem resulting from nearly a decade of cancer treatments
(two unrelated bone marrow transplants, chemotherapy, radiation, and
a host of complications and medications) for Acute Promyelocytic
Leukemia caused my steps to become imbalanced. An obvious need for
walking assistance didn’t include hanging on to the end of my
Mom’s
shirt.
“No,
I don’t need one of those things,” I responded.
I
shuddered at the mere thought of using the device. Walking with a
cane has a stigma attached to it, thus, I firmly rejected the idea.
I
was sure the society I lived in shunned individuals who couldn’t
take a single step without wobbling. I feared people would view me as
useless and stupid. My extremely limited exposure caused me to think
that canes were only for small and frail, stooped, older people. No
way was I about to align myself near that category.
Eventually
I agreed to try the cane. Each step was surprisingly easier with the
despised metal stick by my side, although I hated to admit it.
Fast
forward to my name being called at graduation:
“Amy
Barta.”
The noise of a standing ovation
boomed
throughout the room as I walked across the stage to accept my
diploma. My cane was in its usual spot on the left side of my body as
I triumphantly thrust my left arm into the air. Unlike my initial
response, I’ve grown to fully accept the cane that accompanied me
as I took my final steps toward ending my college education.
I
never would have guessed that I would like an ever-present metal
stick by my side. I appreciate little features like the grey spongy
gripper around the handle that prevents my left hand from developing
calluses on three fingers. I realize that people’s behavior
mirrors
how I felt before I began using a cane: uneasiness, curiosity, but
most of all, fear of the unknown. I feel I have a responsibility to
answer questions concerning my method of movement by the few people
who dare to ask.
Piercing
eyes of gawkers often subside and relax upon observing my ease at my
situation. Every day I comfortably travel with the shiny silver stick
that sits on a rectangular metallic base.
In
addition to helping me walk, over the years the cane has served
various purposes. My cane often disappears whenever I visit the home
of my sister, brother-in-law, and their growing family. The short
thin cane doubles as a microphone for my preschool age nephews to
belt out the latest Jonas Brothers’ songs. Watching them perform
and sing into the pretend microphone makes me laugh as I’m
usually
invited to join an impromptu concert.
Another
convenient function is the hat rack the cane makes when my bald head
longs for fresh air. The lengthy arm of the cane can also hook and
conveniently drag faraway objects into reach. My silent reliable rod
reminds me life doesn’t need to move full speed ahead. Rather,
life
is more enjoyable with the calmness and peacefulness a slower pace
brings. I am grateful to have learned the lesson as a young person
that life is valuable when people live confidently by any (mobility)
means necessary.
I
heard a man, probably in his thirties, grumble in the dentist office
to another man. Kids were treating him disrespectfully because of his
cane. Hopefully people like him and people without canes can read
this article and have a positive attitude towards canes. The useful
device can double as a rockin’ makeshift microphone, portable hat
rack, always available arm-extender, but above all else, cane.
Amy
Barta is a 26-year-old survivor of Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia. Her
battle against cancer from ages 13 through 21 included four relapses,
two unrelated bone marrow transplants, chemotherapy, radiation,
kidney dialysis, an investigational drug Arsenic, brain surgery and
many complications. Amy graduated from the University of
Michigan-Dearborn with a bachelor’s degree in Communications and
minors in Psychology and Linguistics.
She
competed against nearly 5,000 students worldwide as a high school
senior to be chosen as a recipient of Guideposts magazine’s Young
Writers Grace Award in June 2002. Amy won first place in the
University of Michigan-Dearborn’s 2007 Creative Writing Contest
with her short story called Legally Bald & Sentenced to Live.
SpeciaLiving magazine
featured one of her articles in their winter 2008 issue. She worked
with the University of Michigan Mott Children’s Hospital to
publish
a book of poetry written during her cancer treatment. Amy is
confident her writings can encourage, relate to, and offer hope and
humor to people in the most important fight of their lives.
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