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Archy is a turtle, but, as you can see, he's not just any turtle. Archy joined the CMTA in April of 2009, when he became the mascot for the kids' page. Since then, he's been working really hard to help make it easier for kids to understand CMT, and also to give parents some ideas when they talk to their kids about CMT.
You can use these links to read more Adventures of Archy:
Archy Gets a Diagnosis
Archy Visits the Orthotist
Archy … the Hero?
And, if you have a question for Archy, you can email it to him at archy@charcot-marie-tooth.org.
P.S. It's okay for parents to write to Archy, too, with comments or story suggestions.
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I could hardly sleep last night. I was so excited about today’s trip to the zoo. I wasn’t sure how hard it might be for me to walk around all that space, but I really wanted to see the other animals. I go to school with lots of different animals, but not the kind you see at the zoo. My classmates are rabbits and deer and skunks and raccoons and tortoises and snails and others like that. But, we don’t have any lions or tigers or monkeys or polar bears. I’m most excited about seeing polar bears because I love to swim and when I see pictures of them, I think they love swimming even more than I do! My other favorite is the otters. They are swimmers, too, and they look so sleek when they slide down rocks and play among themselves.
So, I woke up extra early this morning and spent lots of time deciding what to wear. It’s pretty warm out today so I had to decide whether to wear shorts or not and if I was going to wear shorts, was I going to wear my orthoses. I love my orthoses, but I hate for other people to see them because I think they make me look crippled and that’s not how I see myself. But the reality is that I walk much better when I wear them and I don’t get as tired—at least not as quickly. So, I decided that it only made sense for me to wear my braces and skip the shorts. That’s sort of the best of both worlds. I might get hot, but no one will know about my braces and I will walk a lot better.
The school bus came right on time and we kids all piled in. The buses are made special to accommodate the different sizes and shapes of us animals. I was seated near the front where they have dirt and small pools for the animals that need water. My friends were there with me and we talked the whole way to the zoo. We were making a plan for where we wanted to go first and what we wanted to see. The first grade teacher is a rabbit, but she is very nice and said she would walk slowly so we could all keep up. One good thing about being a turtle with a slow walk is that all turtles move pretty slowly, so I don’t stand out too much.
We piled off the bus and got special badges to show we were with the Greenwoods Elementary School. That was so, if we got lost, we could be returned to our group. We knew we had to stay with our little group, though, because it was much safer that way. We’ve heard stories about how little ones get stolen from their families and none of us want anything like that to happen, so we’re going to stay close to our teacher.
By a vote of five to one, we decided to go to the otters display first. They were brown river otters and they looked so cool and so athletic. I can swim pretty well, but they are amazing as they practically slide through the water and up and down over rocks and waterfalls. I was doing pretty well, because I could sit down occasionally and that kept me from getting too tired. When I go on trips with my mother, she gets a special sort of wagon that I can ride in when I get tired of walking. But I didn’t want to have to use anything on the zoo trip that would make me seem different from my classmates.
My best friend Timothy, who is also a turtle, knows about my problems, but he doesn’t care. We can still do all the things we really like to do. We love word games and chess and I’m as good at that as Tim is, so we get along great together. He’s not a real athlete, either, and so roughhousing and running around isn’t his idea of a fun time. He always walks really slowly so that I can keep up and no one thinks much of it because they figure we are just busy talking and not thinking about moving fast.
When we left the otters, we went to the polar bear enclosure. They just love to swim, but they also like to play with balls and roughhouse with each other. I think I would make a better otter than a polar bear, although I think I’m best at just being myself.
We ate lunch after the polar bear exhibit, and that’s when I really relaxed and didn’t worry about keeping up. I can eat as fast as the next turtle and my mother always packs my favorite things for lunch. So I enjoyed some vegetables and a thermos full of delicious water from our local pond. It was getting pretty hot by lunchtime, but I stayed under the trees and reminded myself that it was worth being hot to have on my braces so I wouldn’t fall.
We saw lions and tigers and bears, oh, my, and they were impressive. They are really, really big and sort of scary. Then we went inside to see small mammals and reptiles. They have their own “houses,” but I like my house much better. I know they are well taken care of and all, but they don’t get to leave and go on field trips like we do. I think it’s good to see how other animals live so we can appreciate our own lives more.
We left around 3 o’clock, and I was really glad to get home and see my Mom and my sister. We all went in the pond and cooled down and just floated around while I told them about my adventures. I had bought my sister a stuffed turtle so she could add him to her collection of stuffed animals. We always laugh at how they make the turtles seem so perfect, which we aren’t in real life, but I think they are like dolls are to people—not very realistic, but sort of fun to pretend with.
I was tired from my day at the zoo, but I felt good. I had made a good decision to wear my braces and I had managed to do the whole trip without needing any special help. I also felt good because being at the zoo reminded me of how lucky I am to have a nice family and a comfortable home.
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