Introduction

Unbreakable, the movie by M. Night Shyamalan with Bruce Willis and Samuel Jackson pairing as opposite polar points…one breaks easily while the other is unbreakable.  The movie follows the path of both individuals and introduces the audience to a rare condition called, Osteogenesis Imperfecta (O.I.).   Hi, I’m Roni and I am unbreakable and I will be writing about my experience with O.I. as a means of venting and educating people in general.

For years my brothers and I would find ourselves injured. So what? You ask; most active kids do find themselves recovering from cuts, bumps, and bruises but for my family, the bumps, bruises and broken bones didn't take much effort.  My brothers broke their bones often while I just bruised.  For a long time, we never knew why.  My family passed off my brothers' E.R. runs as just part of the course for boys but my baby brother was in his first cast just months after being born when he trapped his leg in the crib.  I vaguely remember going to some massage specialist that in my smokey memory seemed more like a tribal Shaman.  He would massage my brother's ankles and perhaps mine as well.

I seem to be going on more about my brothers but it's for reason; they did suffer more than I did when growing up. However, it seemed that at least one of my friends in the fourth grade recognized that I was different when I attempted a cherry drop from the monkey bars and failed miserably landing on my head. I distinctly remember hearing my friend run over from a different area of the playground yelling at the girls who "allowed" me to attempt the drop, "why did you let her do that? She's fragile!" Wow! Up to then, I never thought of myself as fragile.  I remember thinking while blood streamed down my face and I was escorted to the nurses office,  “I’m not fragile! That was not me, she was mistaking me with my brothers. My brothers break not me!”  Like most kids with bumps on their head, I survived.  There was no injury to the neck, no injury to the back...I was not breakable!

When I was finally in high school and made marching band (positions were earned) I managed to step on an uneven part of the practice field and pulled something in the back of my left leg. I kept marching in spite of the pain because I was not about to give up my spot and become an alternate (one of those kids that just sat on the side lines). The next day I had an ugly bruise directly behind my knee but off to practice I went anyway. The bruise grew over the course of several days and covered the entire back side of my leg from my ankle clear up to the base of my buttocks. My friend, Jackie, pointed out the extreme ugliness of it so I covered it up by wearing pants.  There was no doctor’s visit and I survived just fine again...I was not breakable!

It was my sophomore year in high school when my brothers were finally diagnosed with Osteogenesis Imperfecta and everything for them changed. They were quickly pulled out of all P.E. classes and couldn't participate in after school sports. The Orthopedic doctor finally asked my mom if there were other kids in the household and she told him she also had a daughter.  I was taken in to my brothers’ next office visit and as soon as the doctor saw me, he confirmed that I was afflicted with it as well.  “What! not me! I AM NOT BREAKABLE!” But the whites of my eyes gave it away, apparently I’m a walking billboard for O.I.  The whites of my eyes known as the sclera, is greyish/blue rather than white; a common trait of O.I. patients.  I was tasked by my mother with looking up O.I. at our school library but it was only a high school library and there really wasn't much known about O.I. back then anyway; there still is little, public knowledge for it is a rare disorder. So rare that I often feel I am the one educating my medical caregivers about the condition and its symptoms.

Through out the years, my brothers kept suffering from broken bones.  My middle brother suffered the most and had other, extreme symptoms.  Like Diabetes, O.I. has different grades of affliction and in some grades also affects soft tissue and organs.  My middle brother ended up having open heart surgery twice because his mitral valve was not functioning as it should.  Just last year, my baby brother had the same surgery.  “What’s my fate?”, I wonder.  I’ve brought this to my primary care physician but he seems to think that it’s not something I need to worry about.  I do live a much healthier lifestyle and have for many years but still, the history is there in my family so it is a concern.  

As I have aged, my bruising has become more severe, my spraining of ligaments and tearing of tendons occur more often.  At first, I was open to the idea of it just being a natural, aging process because remember, I am not breakable, but as more research is done by the O.I. Foundation(O.I.Foundation Web Page), more information becomes available for me to use as a resource.  My connective tissue does not absorb collagen type II like a normal person so my afflictions are not the same as the normal person of the same age.  I have added multiple supplements to my diet to assist but there is nothing that fixes my affliction...I can at the most, just minimize the occurrence though lately, I can’t seem to even do that much.  And then, there is my loss of hearing.  Also a common trait of O.I. and one that seems to get worse with aging.  I have worn hearing aids since I was in my late twenties and every ten years, I need an upgrade.  Will I eventually lose my hearing all together?  Only time will tell.

My CalVmx friends (CalVmx - California vintage motocross racing) have seen me in some sort of brace year after year and I’m not a racer.  My injuries have occurred from the simplest of things.  I have had multiple surgeries to correct for torn ligaments and tendons and even tried surgery to correct for my hearing loss.  I am not breakable...I tear.