A Reflection of Life
Early Years
I was born in Hyderabad, India on September 27 1992. After I was born my biological parents left me in the hospital because I was born without arms and legs. After my parents left the hospital without me, I was sent to an orphanage. In India, most of the people are poor and so when someone is disabled, the family will send the person out to beg on streets. The family may also just neglect or reject the disabled family member and so the person is forced to live on the streets and beg for the rest of their lives. My biological parents spared me the life of begging and they instead gave me the present of living, which would be in the form of adoption. At the age of five, I was adopted and came to the United States of America!
Dog Years
Ashka (Left); Ravi (Right)
A friend of mine had a dog who had a litter of puppies. Every week after the puppies were born my dad and I would go over and see the puppies. One of the weeks I had gone, I got on the floor and was playing with them when I noticed that one of the puppies wasn't playing with the others. I saw behind the other puppies that there was one puppy all by himself. I went over and picked up the puppy and sat on a chair. The puppy was happy sitting on my lap and as I was patting the puppy, the other puppies were attacking my shorts and shoes. I ended up getting that puppy and named him, Ravi. Ravi, in Hindi means the sun and so at the age of eight I got my first dog, Ravi.
A year later Ravi and I began to go through TOP DOG, which is an organization that helps people with physical disabilities train their own service dogs. I was the youngest person to go through TOP DOG. In 2004, Ravi and I certified as TOP DOG Team #78. Before I retired Ravi at the age of 10, I started training my second service dog, Ashka. Ashka and I certified as TOP DOG Team #108 in the summer of 2011. One year later, Ravi died of valley fever.
A year later Ravi and I began to go through TOP DOG, which is an organization that helps people with physical disabilities train their own service dogs. I was the youngest person to go through TOP DOG. In 2004, Ravi and I certified as TOP DOG Team #78. Before I retired Ravi at the age of 10, I started training my second service dog, Ashka. Ashka and I certified as TOP DOG Team #108 in the summer of 2011. One year later, Ravi died of valley fever.
Blessing In Disguise
Starting in the second grade I started dealing with bone overgrowth. Bone overgrowth is a condition when the bone grows faster than the skin came keep up. So in other words the bone will go through the skin. When this happens it is very painful. Since I don't have any arms or legs, the likelihood of bone overgrowth happening on all of my limbs is high. When bone overgrowth happens, the only way of dealing with it is to have surgery. The surgery consists of shaving back the bone and putting either a hip graft or Teflon at the end of the limb. I have had five surgeries on my right arm, three on my left arm, one on my right leg, and one on my left leg. After each surgery it would take me six weeks to recover. I have had seventeen surgeries, ten of them being bone overgrowth surgeries and seven others but each one of the surgeries was a blessing in disguise. I would say that the surgeries were blessing in disguise because each one of them made me a stronger person.