The Woman With Half a Body
Rosemarie Siggins from Pueblo, Colorado, is a car nut: she's been into cars, trucks and all things automotive since the age of three. She also has only half a body – but she doesn't let her disability stop her from rebuilding a 1968 Mustang which she plans to race. Born with a rare genetic condition that meant her legs were deformed and without sensation, Rose had her legs amputated as a young child. However, she is determined not to let this get in the way of living her life, even giving birth to a healthy son seven years ago. And when people ask her how she deals with her disability, she replies: "This is my reality. This is my normal."
Rose is determined to live as a full and normal a life as possible. She uses her arms and hands to get around, travelling on a skateboard at times and driving a specially adapted car which she manoeuvres using hand controls. She is grateful to her parents for making the difficult decision to have her legs amputated, rather than putting her in a wheelchair. Rose also chose not to wear the prosthetic legs her school wanted her to use, a decision which was supported by her parents.
Fiercely independent, she can't imagine life in a wheelchair, and enjoys the freedom of being able to get around by herself. "I can do everything everybody else can do," she says. "I just do it a little bit differently." Rose also explains how her parents avoided using words like disabled, handicapped and different to describe their daughter. "My definition of handicapped as I was growing up was someone who can't. I can."
In 1999 Rose married Dave, who she had met two years earlier. When Rose learned that she was pregnant, she received little support from the medical community since nobody with her genetic condition had ever given birth before. Dr Wolfson was the only doctor not to recommend an abortion, but did warn Rose and Dave that her extraordinary and ground-breaking pregnancy was putting her life on the line. A caesarean was performed at the top of her uterus, a more dangerous method of delivery, and a healthy boy named Luke was born. Rose recalls looking at her baby's feet and thinking: "He's complete; he's fine." Dr Wolfson considers Rose's pregnancy a miracle – as does Luke's proud mother.
The joy of Luke's birth was followed by tragedy when Rose's mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Rose's mother had held the family together, and Rose felt that her support system had disappeared. She and Dave moved back to the family home to take care of her father, who has Alzheimer's, the onset of dementia and schizophrenia; and her 29-year-old brother Jimmy, who has a mental age of eight and is prone to violent outbursts. "My mom didn't give up on me, and that's what she taught me," says Rose firmly. "So I don't give up on them."
Life at home is hard: Jimmy's outbursts have become more frequent as he struggles with his mother's death, and Dave is feeling the strain as his wife devotes her emotional energy to Luke and the family.
Trouble at home isn't the end of Rose's worries: her own health is now a cause for concern. Thirty years of walking on her hands has impacted Rose's arms, shoulders and joints and she is facing up to the fact that she may have to give in and use a wheelchair. "Your arms were not meant to do this," she explains. "My arms are my life-source; I rely upon them. I love feeling around me."
Rose has lived her whole life weathering the stares of strangers and tries to protect her son from the cruelty of children by talking to his friends about her disability. She's had to learn from a young age that not everybody is going to accept her as she is: "That's what I had to learn when I was very young: maybe I won't be accepted and be beautiful on the outside, but the one thing I can do is be beautiful on the inside. I'm a one of a kind, one in a million – and they won't forget me."