【正文】 bout by giving them the cold, hard truth about their medical prognosis, or, indeed, a prognosis on the expected quality of their life, we have to make sure that we donamp。m disabled. and, truthfully, the only real and consistent disability iamp。s an important difference and distinction between the objective medical fact of my being an amputee and the subjective societal opinion of whether or not iamp。re not equipped to adapt. thereamp。re going to meet it. so, our responsibility is not simply shielding those we care for from adversity, but preparing them to meet it well. and we do a disservice to our kids when we make them feel that theyamp。re going to meet adversity, but how youamp。t whether or not youamp。s all very real and relative to every single person, but the question isnamp。s struggle.
　　there is adversity and challenge in life, and itamp。m not trying to diminish the impact, the weight, of a personamp。s always with me. and, certainly, iamp。s very little, but itamp。s part of our life. and i tend to think of it like my shadow. sometimes i see a lot of it, sometimes thereamp。t an obstacle that we need to get around in order to resume living our life. itamp。m going to suggest that this is a good thing. adversity isnamp。 is the idea that success, or happiness, is about emerging on the other side of a challenging experience unscathed or unmarked by the experience, as if my successes in life have e about from an ability to sidestep or circumnavigate the presumed pitfalls of a life with prosthetics, or what other people perceive as my disability. but, in fact, we are changed. we are marked, of course, by a challenge, whether physically, emotionally or both. and iamp。overing adversityamp。m starting to figure out why. implicit in this phrase of amp。s questions about it, and i think iamp。m going to make an admission: this phrase never sat right with me, and i always felt uneasy trying to answer peopleamp。s an interesting thing, because people have continually wanted to talk to me about overing adversity, and iamp。t caught up with the changes in our society, many of which have been brought about by technology. certainly, from a medical standpoint, my legs, laser surgery for vision impairment, titanium knees and hip replacements for aging bodies that are allowing people to more fully engage with their abilities, and move beyond the limits that nature has imposed on them not to mention social networking platforms allow people to selfidentify, to claim their own descriptions of themselves, so they can go align with global groups of their own choosing. so, perhaps technology is revealing more clearly to us now what has always been a truth: that everyone has something rare and powerful to offer our society, and that the human ability to adapt is our greatest asset.
　　the human ability to adapt, itamp。t allowing us to evolve into the reality that we would all want, the possibility of an individual to see themselves as capable. our language hasnamp。t want to do before the prospect of being the richest fiveyearold in the second floor ward, but what he effectively did for me was reshape an awful daily occurrence into a new and promising experience for me. and i have to wonder today to what extent his vision and his declaration of me as a strong and powerful little girl shaped my own view of myself as an inherently strong, powerful and athletic person well into the future.
　　this is an example of how adults in positions of power can ignite the power of a child. but, in the previous instances of those thesaurus entries, our language isnamp。s part to get me to do the exercises i didnamp。
　　now, of course, this was a simple ploy on dr. pamp。m going to give you a hundred bucks.amp。re going to break one of those bands. when you do break it, iamp。wow. aimee, you are such a strong and powerful little girl, i think youamp。t we want to open doors for them instead?
　　one such person who opened doors for me was my childhood doctor at the . dupont institute in wilmington, delaware. his name was dr. pizzutillo, an italian american, whose name, apparently, was too difficult for most americans to pronounce, so he went by dr. p. and dr. p always wore really colorful bow ties and had the very perfect disposition to work with children.
　　i loved almost