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    I'll Never Wear a Backless Dress
    I'll Never Wear a Backless Dress
    I'll Never Wear a Backless Dress
    Ebook95 pages1 hour

    I'll Never Wear a Backless Dress

    By Sandy Appleyard

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    About this ebook

    Diagnosed with Scoliosis at age twenty three, there was little doctors could do to help her. She was faced with daily discomfort or pain, fear, and not knowing what future complications the medical condition would bring. The author illustrates to the reader what the last twelve years have brought her in dealing with her deformity. Against the perceived odds; she started a career, birthed two children, went through several specialists, clinics and therapists, wrote two books and fought for disability. This book was written for anyone who is challenged with daily pain, and would like some help emotionally with how to make the best out of life despite it.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSandy Appleyard
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781475236590
    I'll Never Wear a Backless Dress
    Author

    Sandy Appleyard

    Some have said that if you see me on the street (usually with a book in hand or a laptop fired up), I appear a cold, hard-fisted person. However, once we’ve spoken for five minutes or less, you’ll have laughed at least once. That is, provided you appreciate sarcastic, self-deprecating wit.My first short story was penned in middle school and I was hooked ever since.I graduated with honours from Humber College and began working as an Administrative Coordinator for a large, multinational corporation shortly afterward. Quickly learning that the corporate world, despite the love I had for my job, is a slow killer of creativity, I chose to quit during maternity leave in 2006.Difficulty thinking outside the box soon evaporated when I received something that didn’t come in one: my first child. While at home with the baby my imaginative energy got the better of me and my first memoir was written. It had been a dream of mine to write about my late father, who passed away from alcoholism in 1992, and it took me two years to compose a fifty-page manuscript, but I did it.After my second daughter was born in 2008 I had more fuel to write, and felt it necessary to voice the challenges and inherent gifts I acquired during my struggles with Scoliosis. Hence, my second memoir was born. The words flowed out of me with such ease I shocked myself.My love for words grew with each book I read and every word I wrote. I soon realized I had no more material to write non-fiction, which led me to take a stab at fiction. The next two books were such a revelation: it became more and more clear what my true calling was. The rest, as they say, is history!

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      Book preview

      I'll Never Wear a Backless Dress - Sandy Appleyard

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      No Thanks, Mommy, I Peed Yesterday

      Keep In Touch

      No Thanks, Mommy, I Peed Yesterday – Sample

      Also by Sandy

      Did You Enjoy This Book?

      Author’s Note

      PREFACE

      I was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada by my Mother, Father and my older sister Cher. We had a pretty textbook family up until I was around four years old. That was when my parents separated. My mom, sister and I moved out to Malton, Ontario to live closer to my maternal grandparents. My parents separated for many reasons, but mostly because my father had a severe drinking problem. Some family members on my dad’s side have said it was arguable whether my dad’s drinking became heavy before or after my parent’s separation. More of this story is outlined in my first book, The Message in Dad’s Bottle.

      I was always sick as a child; whether it was asthma, bronchitis, tonsillitis or ear infections. I was never healthy for my birthday or for Halloween, which are only a week apart. It wasn’t until I moved away from my mother in my early twenties that I realized most of my childhood illnesses were likely attributed to the fact that I always lived with a smoker. It seemed like within a month of moving out on my own, all my ailments were cured. To this day, I still remain very healthy, and live a much healthier lifestyle.

      One of my passions has always been reading. I enjoyed doing it less as a student, since textbooks are constantly forced upon you. I did pick the hobby back up as a favourite in my early twenties, and now in my thirties I am hooked. The other, rather obvious passion has been writing; since I was a young child. My favourite class in high school was English. I took all my subjects at an advanced level, but my English homework was always completed first.

      In elementary school I wrote a story entitled How The Skunk Got It’s Stench. It was a reiteration of a small storyline found in the children’s movie The Labyrinth starring Jennifer Connelly and David Bowie. In the movie, there is a scene in which all the puppets and Jennifer Connelly are on this trek, in search of her kidnapped baby brother. They encounter many obstacles on their journey, but one in particular was the Bog of Eternal Stench, which they have to cross. However, their challenge is to cross it from a series of small, slippery rocks covered with moss; and it is said that if you so much as dipped a toe into the bog, you would smell bad forever.

      This was my theory, and my explanation for how skunks acquired their unpleasant odour. That story was found to be such a favourite among my classmates that our teacher decided to conduct a lesson in book binding, so we could treasure our compositions forever. I still have that book, and yes, I did treasure it. However, I later learned from my first job as an assistant animal groomer, that my story was incredibly untrue. Animals smell bad for much less romantic reasons!

      When reading, I enjoy biographies, historical and current. One of my favourite authors, Philippa Gregory, creates stories relating to real medieval characters. From her, I have read about Napoleon and Josephine, The Boleyn Girls, Queen Katherine of Aragon, and the most interesting in my opinion, was reading about Queen Marie Antoinette.

      When reading about Marie Antoinette, I found something about her to be very intriguing. It is such an obscure thing; to find something in common with someone who lived hundreds of years before you. Or rather, something in common with a family member of someone who lived hundreds of years before you. It was Marie Antoinette’s son. He was born very deformed, with severe curvatures in his spine. He later died as a small child of lung and intestinal collapse due to complications from his deformities. But he, too, was born with Scoliosis.

      Introduction

      I have written about a hundred poems during the course of my life, some are featured in my first book. I felt this current book I’ll Never Wear a Backless Dress was warranted because I needed to express my experiences, both good and bad, in the best way I know how.

      In my opinion, Scoliosis has changed my life significantly since the moment I learned I had it. One of the main frustrations in having this deformity has been feeling alone; Scoliosis is not very widespread. My hope in publishing this book is that I can reach out to some who have Scoliosis and feel that same loneliness. At the same time educate their families and friends about the emotional side of the deformity, rather than simply focusing on the physical/medical aspects.

      I feel I can reach many audiences; any person who has a physical ailment that affects their daily life can relate to my experiences. You would be surprised how many people in this world suffer from something that causes them pain or discomfort every day. Some issues have either very little or no treatment available. The same is true for Scoliosis.

      I had heard, while doing some of my own personal research in the past, long before starting this book, that there was a procedure some elementary schools performed in

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