RAPHAELLA VAILLANCOURT 

Montreal, QC

I was never the sportiest kid. I was born with a congenital heart defect, and had already undergone several surgeries, one of which was open-heart, by the time I was 2 years old. I hated PE. I couldn't keep up with others my age and I hated moving my body, because my body never handled it well.

Fast-forward to the month before my 18th birthday. I had taken up longboarding, and it had afforded me a freedom I absolutely loved. But one day I lost control while going down a slope, flew off my board and tumbled across the asphalt. A split chin, stitches, and 7 broken teeth later, I went home to recuperate. But 48 hours after my fall, I woke up with a swollen neck, and yellow and purple bruising all over my chest. I was rushed to the hospital, and admitted into the OR directly. I was given anesthetic, I was asked to count down from 10, and I went under—thinking I'd wake up the next day and that would be that. When the surgeon started operating, they realized I'd developed the flesh-eating bacteria in my neck. They operated for hours. They kept me in an induced coma for 3 weeks. My parents were told I would not walk for a long time. They were told that because of the operation, I may have lost my ability to speak. They were told that I may never wake up. If I did, I would never be the same. Did they want last rites performed? Did they want to keep me on life support?

After 3 weeks trapped inside my own head, a living nightmare, I finally started to regain consciousness. But now I was trapped inside a body that had shriveled, atrophied, and could not move. For a while, all I could do was blink. But slowly, every day, with the help of OTs and PTs, I started regaining tiny bits of strength, until eventually I was able to make a fist, shake my head, sit up, and even stand with assistance. When I left the hospital, I weighed 80 pounds. I was sent to a physical rehab centre, where I worked on gaining strength day in and day out, slowly coming back to my body. I had always hated running before then, but now I dreamed of it at night. Every night.

I started feeding myself, changing myself, bathing myself. I cried at breakfast one morning because I wasn't strong enough to crack the shell on the boiled egg they'd served me for breakfast. I celebrated my 18th birthday: I refused cake because I couldn't feed it to myself, and didn't want my friends to see me being fed. I began wheeling myself around the centre; I found my voice again. I practiced my speech and eventually went from slurring my words to speaking clearly.

I started to do push-ups upright against the wall, and then at an angle, and one day finally I was able to do a full push up; something I'd never been able to do even before my accident. I began walking again, first with a walker and then unassisted. And one day I got on the treadmill and jogged. And I cried, because the thing I'd hated all my life was the one thing I had craved for months, while I was stuck inside a body that would not cooperate.

I fell in love with growing stronger, with pushing my limits. I fell in love not with chasing an aesthetic or a look, but proving to myself, to my doctors, to my family, to the world, that I could do it. I re-learned how to walk, talk, eat, bathe myself, run, jump, dance. And not a day goes by where I take it for granted. I'm in the gym for my mental health. I'm in the gym to prove to myself that I can do anything. I'm in the gym because I CAN.

The human body is the most powerful machine I've ever had the pleasure of witnessing. My body went from frail, malfunctioning, to strong; today, I have given birth to my first child and I am a mother, I am a runner, I am a lifter, I am an entrepreneur.

After rebuilding myself from the ground up, literally, I know that there is nothing in this life I cannot do, have, or create for myself.

This body has been through hell and back with me. I have the utmost respect for it. I wear my scars proudly. And I am still amazed to this day at how strong it keeps getting.

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