Micheline Mason: The World Stepped Back

Transcript

When I was born people had no idea that I had an impairment of any sort, but I in fact had fractures in both my legs, as far as I know. So I went home with my parents, as you would, but every time they tried to pick me up or do anything I was screaming. So after about four days they took me back to the hospital whereupon they took x-rays. And I feel I can remember the sudden change that happened when they took the x-rays, as if everybody just stepped – it felt to me the world just stepped right back from me. And it sort of changed everything, you know. There was a complete change from thinking I was just an ordinary child to being told that I wasn’t. And, you know, the shock, the fear, the … everything. And we’re also going back to the 1950s when it was worse then than it is now, in terms of what people felt or thought or knew about these things.

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