If you *actually have* a physical disability, what is it?

[Minister of Gloom]

Not a physical disability per se, but I have Haemophilia B which is a blood disorder. If it got any worse, I could see myself being sent somewhere like Yamaku.

How is it different from "regular" haemophilia, if at all (I mean, I assume it is, since it has a special designation...)?
It's a condition where the blood can't clot properly, right? Making even small wounds far more threatening? Or am I confusing it with something else?

[Juno]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=haemophilia+b

Too lazy;didn't click: for blood to clot there must be a chain reaction in which one protein activates another, which in turn activates another, etc. The different naming comes from deficits in different proteins in that chain, which all result in blood not clotting.

[Red_Machine]

From what I understand, each different kind of haemophilia is a mutation of the gene that provides a particular type of Factor, mine affects the gene that creates Factor IX.

In a nutshell, any type of haemophillia will prevent wounds from clotting efficiently. I bruise very easily and a head wound would most likely kill me outright due to the potential for brain bleeds. Another of the standard symptoms is bleeds inside joints, which can cause intense pain as the joing swells due to infusion of blood. It only happened to me once that I'm aware of and it was fucking painful, couldn't move my arm for weeks. Then there was the time I slipped over in town and whacked my elbow on the concrete, I bled into my elbow and ended up with a lump the size of a ping pong ball on the end of it... :\

[MrKnives]

Paraplejia and Scoliosis from a car accident 11 years ago.

[Sheepdog87]

I have a special kind of hazel eyes that like to change color and generaly shift on me. unfortunately this has a toll on my eyes and I'm nearsighted and growing even more so. another problem i have is slight hearing damage from too many load noises when i was a kid and i often have trouble hearing anything

[Red_Machine]

Huh. I just noticed that Haruhiko has the same condition as me.

[Piratelingo]

I've got a bit of psioriasis. Basically, it's a skin condition where my skin cells are reproducing faster than they should, so my skin has scaly, red lesions that become peely and itch like hell sometimes. With proper topical meds and daily moisturizing it can be handled well. It's not at all serious for me becauseI've got it better than other people living with psioriasis. On days when it does get worse I just wear longer clothes to cover it.

[Onearmdude]

Non-genetic cogenital defect that left me with one hand. My left arm, forearm, and hand are normal if a little larger than average size. My right arm ends in a stump 2 1/2 inches below the elbow. Apparently, I got pretty well tangled in the umbilical cord while I was in the womb and the circulation was cut off to my right arm. I consider myself lucky though because it could have easily been my neck that got tangled. I also was diagnosed with Asperger's pretty early on, but I don't take that too seriously anymore.

[Shujoxa]

-Had a hole in a heart valve which required the valve to be replaced with an artificial.
-Scoliosis (rods and screws in spine to prevent it from progressing any further)
-Missing half a lung
-Like Hisao, I have Cardiac Arrhythmia, though mine is milder and less hindering. (props to the dev team for knowing some facts about Arrhythmia, btw, most people I've heard just throw whatever BS they want around and hope people buy it.) And no, I didn't know when I started playing this game/visual novel that the main character had this condition, which made me nearly burst into laughter.

[Leotrak]

Non-genetic cogenital defect that left me with one hand. My left arm, forearm, and hand are normal if a little larger than average size. My right arm ends in a stump 2 1/2 inches below the elbow. Apparently, I got pretty well tangled in the umbilical cord while I was in the womb and the circulation was cut off to my right arm. I consider myself lucky though because it could have easily been my neck that got tangled. I also was diagnosed with Asperger's pretty early on, but I don't take that too seriously anymore.

Huh, funny, the description of your arms matches that of a guy I used to work with. I almost asked if you were Dutch... except the guy I meant also had a prosthetic leg starting about 10 cm under his hip ">_>

[outbackshaq]

not that bad of a disability, but apparently it's less common to be far sighted. I can\t see things close to me but farther away is easy to see. I wear glasses but my prescription isn't too bad. I don't have to wear them at dances, but i cant see a monitor or words for too long. I also have a lazy eye to the point where I basically don't use it. I gotta focus to see out of both eyes. it's a hard concept to grasp for some people. I had 3 surgeries on it and in the past 2 years it is now good enough for me to have very basic depth perception. Sucky for me because both my parents were sports kids, and wanted me to go in. Needless to say I missed a lot. 2 years ago my lazy eye was bad enough that if I closed my right eye and then looked to the left, then opened my right eye and looked forward, I would have one eye looking all the way to the left while the other was looking forward. pissed me off when everyone would tell me to look at them >.<

I actually remember having surgeries. I remember wheelchairs and cool waiting rooms with n64. i thought it was great cuz we had nothing of the sort at our house. only last year did mom tell me that they popped my eye out of my skull and worked on the muscles in the eye XD.

[EDIT]I also had to wear an eye patch

[Ollielufti]

Years of being a drummer has given me severe Tinnitus. It's when one's ears have been damaged by loud noises, and the cells in your eardrums are slowly dying, resulting in a constant 'ringing' noise. Only now do I wear ear plugs hah but my friends seem to enjoy my misunderstandings. ><

[Yukimi]

They also, as someone has so graphically put it, had to pop my eyes out twice to repair my eyes's muscles to correct my estrabism although they never did much to correct my lazy right eye. Along with mild miopia, a nail distrophia and 3 years of brackets I wasn't the most popular kid around Curiously it was less that and more that I liked to read what made the bullseye of bullying for a long time making me develop stress-induced migraines, neuralgias, vomits and other psychosomatic symptons (although i never missed a single day fo class... I must have been masochistic ). Now I've discovered I'm also slightly deaf in the convesational frequencies... otorrinolaringology practices FTW I've never had it really tough like someone deaf, blind or in a wheelchair so I'm very grateful.

PS: At first I plyed rugby without contacts or glasses... I lsot track of how many time I've been hit by a ball or thrown the ball to somenone in the other team (in practices)

[toue]

Scoliosis
Prosthetic left femur due to cancer basically exploding the natural femur, which led to a surgery where they had to cut out a ton of muscle to put in the prosthesis. I use a cane most of the time but I'm trying again to build up the muscle so I don't limp as badly. I have very little stretching ability in that leg and get pains in the join when I overuse it.
Pretty bad vision, I can see clearly enough up to about 10 feet away.
Less then stellar hearing in my right ear.

[censuur]

Mine would be:

Near deafness (I only hear about 50% of spoken word, filling in the rest based on lipreading and context)
Very low vision (not sure about how its measured in English, i believe its something around 5/20 for both eyes)
Diabetes (born with the condition, living with its effects since I was 6 years old)
A variety of auto-immune disfunctions (not going to go into too much detail as it gets complicated)

basically when you have one auto-immune ailment (like diabetes) you're bound to have at least a couple more, but there's so many of them that describing each of them would end up being tl;dr

I do wonder if any of these things can be considered a disability, as each is perfectly manageable and doesn't disable me in any way, it certainly isn't the same as missing an arm or a leg >_<