Dwarf: A Memoir by Tiffanie Didonato, Rennie Dyball Page B

to
     take turns placing your foot in this bucket.”
    She scooped ice out of the ice machine and into a small trash can while everyone looked
     at one another.
Is she serious?
    But Ms. Hart was not the type of teacher you defied. One by one, my fellow students
     took off a single shoe and sock and stepped into the bucket, grimacing and giggling
     as quietly as possible. I lined up last. Secretly, I was hoping the clock would wind
     down and we’d be done for the day, letting me quietly skip out on the assignment.
     It was not that I didn’t want to do it. I would have
loved
to deal with the crazy, painful assignment just like everyone else, and to laugh
     and joke about how badly it sucked to sit there with my foot inside a bucket of ice.
     I wanted so much to be just like everyone else.
    But I couldn’t.
    I knew that the amount of pain I’d feel in my muscles and joints would exceed the
     pain felt by anyone else. Thanks to all the surgeries I’d been through and the fact
     that my disability played on the same team as severe arthritis, the ice wouldn’t just
     sting and then numb my foot. It would pierce my joints, creep upmy leg, and take every muscle in my body hostage for the rest of the night. It would
     prevent me from moving my foot and leg, and from functioning for hours after I left
     school. Even if I sat down for the rest of the night, or just went to bed, I would
     still feel the chill of the ice controlling me. My arthritis would have a celebration
     in my body. I was no stranger to pain. I respected it, but the pain I endured was
     for a reason.
    “Ms. Hart?” I began softly when it was my turn. I stepped toward her desk, motioning
     for her to come closer to me.
    “Yes?”
    “Can I speak to you for a moment?” I nodded toward the door, hoping to move her away
     from the other students.
    “What is it?” she said. She wasn’t budging.
    “Is there something else I can do?” I said softly.
    “What?” she replied loudly.
    “Is there, um, maybe, something else I could do instead?” I repeated hopefully. “I’ve
     had a lot of surgery on my feet.”
    She stared at me blankly.
    “I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to do . . .”
    “You need to feel what the athletes will feel,” she replied loudly.
    “Yes, I know. But could I place my hand in the ice instead?” I suggested, showing
     her my scar-free extremity. “I’ll still feel the cold and I’ll still understand the
     athletes. I haven’t had surgery on my hands, see?”
    She stared back at me hard. It made me nervous. Her gaze was blank and uncaring.
    Swiftly, she moved the bucket aside and placed two egg crates in the center of the
     room.
    “Let’s talk.”
    She sat on one, and then motioned for me to do the same.For a moment I thought she was preparing for me to do something else— maybe she’d
     be a mock patient. Perhaps she was going to pretend to be a difficult football player
     who needed to be bandaged with ice. Maybe this gruff teacher wanted to see how I would
     handle the situation, I thought excitedly, and I readied myself to impress her.
    Nothing could have prepared me for what I heard her say next.
    “Look, I don’t know what kind of disease you have, but you’re obviously a
dwarf
. Why don’t you tell me what you can and cannot do?”
    I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. Her words paralyzed me.
    Ms. Hart inhaled deeply and continued.
    “Maybe sports medicine isn’t the best thing for you to do. Maybe you should find another
     activity.”
    Each word out of her mouth was sharp and jagged, puncturing my pride. Yet I was too
     frozen to respond.
    I felt a wave of heat pass through me. I had never been told that I couldn’t do something.
     It went against everything I was raised to believe. What was she talking about, a
     disease? And a dwarf? I knew I was born with a bone condition, but a dwarf? And I
     had a
disease
on top of that? Why hadn’t my parents told me?
    My eyes burned from holding back