By 10 Year Old Student, Grant Dewey

I was born with a mild form of spina bifida with my spinal cord tethered to my spine. I had my first surgery when I was 7 months old to remove the tumor around my spinal cord...The doctors told me that I should not play sports like soccer and baseball as I could break my leg. They did say that it was OK for me to learn how to ski on a bi-ski as my legs should not break if I was sitting in a chair on skis.

I learned to bi-ski with the Disabled Sports Eastern Sierra gang at Mammoth Mountain 3 years ago. They always told me that I could do it. And I learned, after falling a lot at first, that I actually could and that I was pretty good at it.

Last year I graduated to a mono-ski. That was very hard...What's great about skiing on the mono-ski is that instead of people pointing and laughing they are pointing and clapping. Instead of feeling like I can't do the things that most of my friends are doing, I feel like I am doing something that I can do and do it well.

I can experience the cool rush of adrenaline that all my friends feel when they ski and snowboard. It means that I am almost the same as my friends and everybody else and I don't have to feel completely different or left behind. Learning to rip-it-up on a bi-ski and mono-ski with DSES at Mammoth has been one of the funnest things I have ever done.

This year, I can't wait to get much better on the mono-ski. Mono-skiing with the great friends at DSES is all about my future of possibilities: in sports, with friends, with family and for myself.

Thank you for letting me have fun! Thank you for letting me be a wild kid on a ski!