One step at a time, imperfectly
An insight into the world of a chronically ill child
Walking is something we don’t think much about — until we can’t do it. A sprained ankle, slipped disc or balance problem can suddenly make us hyperaware of the complex series of movements needed to put one foot in front of the other.
It’s something Peter Kavanagh has had to think about his whole life. Infected with polio as a 2-month-old baby at the height of the epidemic in Canada in 1953, Kavanagh spent a year isolated in hospital and emerged with permanent paralysis in his left leg.
He first learned to walk at 15 months in a walking cast, launching himself off the top basement step and landing at the bottom, upright on his cast, unhurt and laughing his head off. The next two times he learned to walk, as an adolescent and then a mid-life adult, were not nearly as much fun.
Kavanagh, who recently finished a long career as a CBC radio and TV producer, has had more than his share of medical maladies, mistakes and missed diagnoses, as he recounts in his memoir, The Man Who Learned to Walk Three Times. But this is more than a medical tale. It offers insights into the world of the chron- ically ill child, the ways we learn and lose and relearn skills, and the ramifications of being considered “imperfect.”
Kavanagh muses about why some cultures see scars as proud marks of ritual, or walking sticks as signs of nobility and power, while other societies see only damage and disability. He reflects on how walking, beyond locomotion, can signify attitude and status. Think fashion models. Or police officers.
After learning to walk the first time, Kavanagh spent years wearing a steel brace and a heavy built-up shoe. At 9, he underwent experimental surgery to lengthen his shortened bad leg. But three years later, searing pain led doctors to discover an unrelated hip dysplasia. He had a hip-to-pelvis fusion that would leave him flat on his back in a body cast for a year. And then he had to learn to walk for a second time.
Decades later, he needed another huge surgery to rebuild his hip, after which he needed walking lessons all over again. Between surgeries there were hundreds of doctors’ appointments, medications, therapies and bouts of other illnesses that nearly killed him. He’s become a “connoisseur of pain,” he writes.
But Kavanagh is no victim. He acknowledges that while sickly kids often get special attention, they can also be spiteful, whiny, judgmental and manipulative. This middle child of five used his brace and cane as weapons and sometimes bullied other kids with his words and wit. A bright boy who had loads of time to read and listen to the radio, he channelled his intellectual abilities into a successful career.
But he’s no hero either, he says. He’s not one of those who embrace their health challenges as essential to making them “the person I am today.” Kavanagh wonders frankly how his life might have been different if he hadn’t been one of the unlucky 11,000 Canadians paralyzed by polio. He writes, “When you sleep wearing a rigid device that weights two pounds and rips sheets, you dream of running in sneakers. I had those dreams for years. I still do.”
Kavanagh doesn’t waste time with “Why me?” He leans toward a Buddhist perspective of life, whose bottom line he reduces to “S--- happens.” He contrasts that with his long-abandoned Catholic viewpoint: “If s--- happens, you deserve it.”
For a private, intellectual man who has spent long stretches of time isolated in lonely hospital rooms, this married father of a grown daughter has opened himself up here in ways that you suspect don’t come easily, which makes his thoughtful observations seem all the more valuable. In The Man Who Learned to Walk Three Times, it’s clear Kavanagh has learned much more than how to walk. Journalist Marcia Kaye (marciakaye.com), who specializes in health issues, is a longtime member of a walking group.