Michele McCruden

2027 | 78pp pb | ISBN: 978-1-914002-66-3 (regular print edition)

2027 | 166pp pb | ISBN: 978-1-914002-65-6 (large print edition)

My name is Michele McCrudden and I have cerebral palsy.

This is my story.

I was brought suddenly into this world after my umbilical cord came away and Mum was rushed in for an emergency c-section.

That was March 1967. Mum was completely unaware that there was anything wrong and, so it seemed, were the doctors.

My parents were separated and mum was a single parent with two of my four siblings at home. Her experience would tell her what normal child development should be.

At home I couldn’t cry or suck, so mum obviously knew something was wrong, but the doctors just told her that I would cry sometime. I did, but I don’t remember when.

Time went on and I still couldn’t sit up, crawl or pick things up. Mum got worried and, finally, at the age of about three years, I was referred for tests at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Croydon.

Mum said to the doctor that I reminded her of a ‘spastic’, a word for disabled people we don’t use now, but one used back in 1970!

I stayed in Queen Mary’s for about a year, where they cared for me on a ward with other disabled children, until Mum came to bring me home again.