A Day in the Life...
By: Thomas Davila
A disability is defined in the dictionary as a physical, mental, cognitive or developmental condition. A disability also impairs, interferes with or limits a person’s ability to engage in certain tasks, actions or participate in typical daily activities or interactions.
My name is Thomas Davila. I am a 37-year-old Chaffey College student, and I was born with the severest form of Spina Bifida. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Spina Bifida is a condition that affects the spine and is usually apparent at birth; it is a type of neural tube defect.
For nearly two decades I have been going to school to obtain my associates degree in "something.” I just did not know what that something was until fairly recently. I started my college career at Mt. San Antonio College (Mt. SAC), and approximately four years after that I decided to go to Chaffey College in Chino. I have been a student at Chaffey since 2005.
I go to the Chino campus because it is closer to my house in Chino Hills and it is a lot smaller than Mt. SAC or even the Rancho campus. I have been to the Rancho campus, and like I said, it is too big. At the same time even though I prefer the Chino campus, I feel claustrophobic being there because there are always a bunch of people in the way of wherever I want to go, and I have to wait for them to move just so I can go faster. Sometimes, I think they walk slow on purpose.
I like my classes during the day because I feel that I accomplish more at that time. I guess everyone must feel the same way because my classes are always full. When I am in class, everyone is still taller than me even when they are sitting down which makes it harder to see because I am not always in the front row. Instructors that put me in the back row say that it is a safety hazard to seat me in the front row.
I recently had to take a semester off from school this past spring because I had to have surgery in February to remove kidney stones. That was my 20th surgery in my life. The process leading up to the surgery is not fun. I will just say that having kidney stones was not painful for me.
I just want to say that you may be going through something right now, but whatever it is that has got you down now will not keep you down for long. So, get back up and start something new today. If you are saying to yourself that you are too old: you are not. It has taken me almost twenty years to get to where I am in my educational career, and you would think that after going to school for so long I would be burned out by now. I am not. The way I see it I am just getting started.