1. Early Life

H

ave you ever wondered what life is like with a disability? Well, I am going to describe my life dealing with Cerebral Palsy in my own personal autobiography.

When I was born, the umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck which created a lack of oxygen to my brain. It was not until I was around two years old that my parents and doctors noticed that my crawl was irregular and my gait while walking for the first time looked abnormal. 

Craig at 4 years.

I was seen by many specialists at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick  Children and Barrie’s Royal Victoria Hospital and was  diagnosed with a mild case of Cerebral Palsy. I was incredibly lucky as there are many types of cerebral palsy with some minor cases where it only affects one limb and there are cases that are so severe that they cannot talk, move, or think for themselves, and require daily assistance by a developmental service worker.

SCHOOL LIFE

Growing up differently was a challenge because of the abnormalities of my walk and with bullies. I wanted to play all sports with my friends, but some sports were too hard for me as my Cerebral Palsy affected my hamstring muscles and balance. This disability did not stop me though. I tried out for every team, and I even attended track and field, this earned me the nomination of the prestigious citizenship award in public school and I also excelled in my studies and graduated from Grade 8.

When I merged into high school, things were a bit different. I realized that there was a huge difference in the student population compared to public school. I was very shy, I did not try out for as many teams, but I focused on my studies.

I did have some difficulties with some courses like physical education, some math and science. I did better in classes such as English, geography, history (both Canadian and American,) and all shop classes such as: drafting, machine shop, woodshop, small engines, and auto mechanics.

I eventually excelled and graduated from high school. After this, I had dreams of going to college but ultimately, I chose to go to work. I had some struggles with many job types for the next six months, and I was also missing school, so I went back to high school and completed O.A.C.

 

WORK-LIFE

After finishing with O.A.C, I turned my focus towards work once again and found a job in the call centre industry. I worked at quite a few call center jobs, my first job was for Teletech in Orillia, Ontario. I started working there in September of 2007, I only stayed there briefly as I moved back to Barrie in December of 2007. After moving back to Barrie, it took me a little bit to find work, luckily, I had a friend from high school who was a supervisor for a call center called Nucomm. I started my job at Nucomm in April of 2008 (which changed to Transcom two years later.) I worked there until 2014. I found a job at another call center called HGS in early 2014 and stayed with them briefly but I returned to Transcom later that same year.