To Be Half the Woman She Is

For the first seven years of my life, I barely slept. Most of my evenings were spent crying, trying to cope with the agonising pain in my legs, and my mum sat beside me through every long night.

A lack of oxygen at birth had led to complications with my development, but this lay undiscovered and would have remained so if not for my mother. One day, when I was around two years old, my mother had had enough and she stormed into the doctors’ (where she had been repeatedly assured that nothing was wrong) and demanded immediate attention. Her child was not screaming for no reason, she told them. They agreed to carry out more checks but even after that they still had no answers.

The doctors couldn’t understand my distress and turned their frustrations on her, suggesting that she may have Munchausen Syndrome by proxy (essentially that she was causing me distress to gain attention). This would have been a dreadful time for her, but she fought on and I eventually received my diagnosis of cerebral palsy, after seeking out a new doctor’s opinion. My condition is mild and therefore complicated the diagnosis process.

To ease the pain in my legs, I went through physiotherapy until the age of 18, and mum was there by my side for every single appointment. 

My mum would not let my condition stop me from trying to realise my potential. She worked her hardest to pay for an opportunity for me to perform in front of talent scouts at Her Majesty’s Theatre, in London’s West End. As a single mum, she couldn’t find a flexible full-time job that worked around my schooling hours, so she sold our secondhand items on eBay to make money. On the day of the audition, we woke up super early and didn’t get home until midnight. My older siblings came to watch my performance too, and even though I couldn’t see the audience due to the stage lights, my family’s presence encouraged me. I tried my best, but I wasn’t scouted. When she collected me from backstage, my mum hugged me tight and told me how proud she was of me. We ate chicken nuggets from McDonald’s on the way home, and then, as my legs were killing me the next day, she let me have the day off secondary school to recover.

My mum is truly an incredible woman; her eventful life could fill the pages of a novel any day. While I’ll admit, she does annoy me at times, her strength and support has shaped me into the woman I am today. It is a cliché, I know, but when I say that my mum is my inspiration I truly mean it. If I could grow to be even half the woman she is, then I would be proud.