This is such a pain that even morphine doesn’t work. So you either go crazy or get used to it.
26-year-old Sara Otto from Żnin is a born businesswoman. Founder of a restaurant, club and kebab bar. She achieved everything with her own hard work. And a determination that many entrepreneurs could envy her.
– I am such a local mascot: a girl who has been doing her own business since the age of 20 and at the same time – from birth – has been struggling with a disability. The problem is, I never felt different. I hate that word – cripple. Look, we have similar dimensions when it comes to the size of the head and the length of the torso. If I had healthy arms and legs, we would probably be of the same height. Oh yeah, I’m just short. That’s it, says Sarah with a smile.
Sara was born in February 1987. She is – as she says about herself – a child of Chernobyl. When her mother was pregnant with her, there was a nuclear disaster in Ukraine. Who knows if this tragedy left its mark on the child’s health. Sarah was born with a genetic defect. She was diagnosed with achondroplasia, i.e. abnormalities in the development of the skeletal system, resulting in limb deformation and dwarfism. The girl’s body was growing, but her arms and legs were not growing. Nobody in the family had similar problems.
– When I was little, my parents came with me all over Poland in search of medical help. Grandma even took me to the quacks. It took some time for the correct diagnosis to be made at the clinic in Poznań. Previously, doctors saw, inter alia, hydrocephalus, says Sara.
Today, an adult woman looks at the past years with a distance.
– Those were difficult times. Medicine now and today is an abyss. My parents found out that I could stretch the bones of my limbs using the Ilizarov method. In short, wires are screwed into the bones, and with the help of screws that protrude outward, they are stretched a millimeter a day. I turned up these screws myself. Four times a day. The usual key, ten, was enough – the girl laughs.
Sara emphasizes that she made the decision about backbreaking treatment herself. She was 16 at the time.
– It took three years to stretch the limb bones. I was in bed all through high school. In addition, 13 stays at the Poznań clinic, complications, and above all excruciating pain, which was most painful at night. The bones with embedded wires did not hurt as much as stretched soft tissues; muscles and skin. The morphine did not bring any relief. Pain has become an inseparable part of my everyday life. I had no choice but to accept him. I thought: If the drugs don’t relieve him, I’ll just get used to him.
Effect? Lengthening the legs by 24 centimeters, arms by 9 cm. From a height of 1,24 m at the age of 16, Sarah managed to grow to 1,48 m.
– You know, I already learned then that in order to achieve something, you have to be patient and bloody determined. I was also helped by my innate optimism and a group of friends. They visited me every day. When I got over the head from sitting at home, they put me in a car and drove me around town. They were with me. Always.
Sara notices that willpower and psyche play the first fiddle in the fight against the disease.
– Parents of sick children sometimes make such a mistake – they burden them with their fears and fears, with their difficult emotional states caused by the child’s illness. They do not make it easier for a child to be himself. I never felt different, or God forbid, worse. From elementary school, the head of the class. Group leader. I went to normal school and I had no problems with my peers. I accepted myself 100 percent and demanded it from others. I thought that I was a child like everyone else – who has to go to school, learn, have his passions, friends and colleagues. He has his own loving family. The time of treatment was difficult for me, because it excluded me from the mainstream of normal, active life. For several years I was stuck wired at home. It wasn’t the feeling of loneliness, but rather the lack of a vent for my innate energy that was exhausting me. Fortunately, sitting at home also bore good fruit. I have made important personal decisions that in my adult life I want to be independent, earn my own money and enjoy life to the fullest.
Sarah started her first business at the age of 21. She founded a drink bar with the significant name Feniks.
– I came to life like a Phoenix from the ashes, and the bar was like my first child, born of great love, because I put it on and led it with my boyfriend, Piotr. The bar ceased to exist, but I started my restaurant shortly after. Then there is a dance club, a kebab bar, and I also dream of a pizzeria.
The girl assures that the disease has never stopped her from doing business. He has the nickname Bismarck among his friends and employees and laughs that it fits her perfectly.
“Anyone can achieve success,” says Sara. – It is a matter of purpose, decision and consistency in action. I am so that I do not let go. There were complications when they stretched me. Once I broke my leg right after leaving the clinic, another time I broke my arm after removing the wires because I decided to lift a kettle full of boiling water to make tea for the people in the ward. Like it or not, I had to stay in the hospital on the verge of a hot summer. Another vacation without traffic. However, after such experiences a person becomes richer in experience. I have learned that the results must be earned with patience and determination, and that unforeseen circumstances are embedded in human life. That we must not be allowed to slow us down.
Sara emphasizes that what she is and what she has achieved, she owes largely to her family. She values her parents for respecting her choices. Despite their disability, they were able to trust her fully.
– In the ward, I noticed the suffering of sometimes very young children. The parents subjected them to painful treatment at all costs. As a little girl, I didn’t think about the fact that I was too short, that my arms and legs were too short. Most of all, I accepted myself. This is the basis. Nowadays, it happens that I have calls from the clinic from old doctors asking me to talk to this or that broken person. She came to cheer the wired and suffering kids. So I go and tell them: Look, you have arms and legs. So you are won because you can walk and you can work. Look at me, this can all be held up.
Tekst: Joanna Weyna Szczepańska