Taking some inspiration from a few months ago, tweaking a Disability Pride Month prompt about the best/worst thing about my disability into about my best and worst speaking experiences.
Since it's earlier chronologically, I'll go worst first.
Sometime shortly after I started college (I want to say 2004/5??), I was still speaking as a part of Easter Seals' Leaders of Tomorrow program. Being in the city, I linked in with Easter Seals' Ottawa office.
One of the annual events they hosted was the Bell Canada Skate with the Senators (Ottawa's professional hockey team). I'd already given a couple speeches and had been to the event before, so they asked me if I would be willing to say something.
Normally, I would write up a bulleted version of what I wanted to talk about and practice. However, after only a handful of events, I got it in my head that I was quite the speaker, so I got cocky and decided to wing it with no notes or anything. Very bad decision!
When it was my turn to speak, I got up on stage, in front of families, and representatives of Easter Seals, Bell Canada, The Ottawa Senators, and local media represented by Max Keeping, then one of Ottawa's leading broadcast journalists, and spoke about my life with Easter Seals: what they did for me when I was younger, and being a representative for them.
Then, I started to talk about Camp Merrywood. That was going really well, until I tried to make a joke about a concoction the camp used to make to keep kids...regular. Long story short, I rambled when the "joke" didn't land, my father just about leapt out of his chair to haul my teenage butt off the stage, and I've never forgotten the time I talked about poop with Max Keeping.
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Now onto the best.
Fall, 2011. Shortly after my Joubert syndrome diagnosis, the national news wanted to do a story on rare genetic disorders and my geneticist recommended they interview me and my parents. After a few weeks of scheduling conflicts. representatives from CHEO and a CTV News crew came to our house.
After walking us through the interview and getting set up, filming began.
Since we were in Ottawa and CTV's medical correspondent Avis Favaro was based in Toronto, she conducted the interview via a two-way earpiece. I sat on our couch in front of the camera with the device in my ear, and she fielded questions, asking about my life and recent diagnostic journey. Afterwards, she did the same with my parents.
When the interview portion of the story was done, CTV wanted some clips of me doing various things around the house. First, I was asked to pour myself a glass of juice and pretend to have a conversation with my mother. So awkward! Then, they filmed me walking upstairs. Since I had spoken about writing and using a computer for a lot of things, I was filmed in my room typing (I wrote "I am on TV" ten times 😆) and flipping through a couple comic books.
It took a while for the story to air but on December 24, I made the national news! After our usual Christmas Eve traditions, me, my parents, sister, and grandmother stayed up late to watch. Mine was the last story, right between something about Vladimir Putin and NORAD's Santa tracker. It was a great segment, though not without a couple embarrassing moments. My mother never realized she cried during her interview, and CTV got a great top-down shot of my gigantic bald spot while I was walking upstairs (I started shaving my head soon after). At least my Dad, sister, and Nanny though it was funny!
A very nice Christmas gift, and a great opportunity.
Cheers!
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