Disabled softball player meets life's challenges
"Robyn doesn't complain, but one night last summer we were sitting in the kitchen and she said to me, 'Mom, why was I born like this?' I just said, 'I wish I knew. You're just going to have to do the best you can with what you've got,"' said Sue Shelton as she watched her daughter play softball for the Highland Rams. "Sometimes you can see others' problems and sometimes you can't. But we've all got them."
It was kindergarten when Robyn first remembers being teased about her prosthetic leg. She said people still make fun of her "all the time," but she doesn't spend a lot of time or energy worrying about what those people think of her. She is too busy trying to find a way to do all of the things she loves — including playing third base for the Highland varsity softball team this year.
"I just shake it off," Robyn said of the stares and name-calling. "I usually don't even say anything. ... It's surprising, but I see lots of kids getting picked on at school. I just don't see why people do it. I don't really get that."
The other thing Robyn doesn't get is special treatment from her softball coach, friends or family. When she tried out for the team, coach Junior Lopati said he didn't even know the infielder had a prosthetic leg.
But she is different.
Robyn was born with no fibula and no growth plate at the bottom of her tibula. Her mother said that most children born with her particular birth defect do not have a foot, but Robyn did. That left Sue and Mark Shelton with an agonizing decision to make for their baby daughter.
The Sheltons could undergo multiple surgeries every year in which doctors broke Robyn's leg in several places and then tried to lengthen it, or they could amputate and allow their daughter to wear a prosthetic.
She saw the attempt to stretch her daughter's tiny leg each year as "barbaric."
"I wondered what kind of a life she'd have growing up," said Shelton. "She'd be in traction six weeks of every year, not to mention the pain of recovering."
The Sheltons believed Robyn would have a more normal childhood if they amputated the foot and allowed her to use a prosthetic leg.
"Robyn, for all intents and purposes, has lived a normal life," said Sue Shelton. "She's had challenges that are special because of her leg."
In fact, sometimes that challenge is just plain painful.
"I've always just left it up to her to decide how much she can take," said Sue Shelton. "If to her the benefit of doing whatever it is she's doing is worth hurting ... then I'm not going to stop her."
Recent comments
Robyn truly is an amazing person but this story was written before...
Highlander | June 3, 2008 at 1:54 p.m.
yeah! way to go MATT
barn | May 23, 2008 at 3:50 p.m.
Robyn is the Bean who keeps on growing. She's funny too and...
Bucket | May 22, 2008 at 11:43 p.m.
