I purchased No Excuses by Kyle Maynard awhile ago because it looked like a great story and it seemed very inspirational. I had seen it previewed on shows such as Oprah and Larry King Live. It’s the true story of this twenty year old boy that was born a congenital amputee, meaning he was born with his arms ending at his elbows and his legs ending at his knees. This is a very rare disorder that has left Kyle Maynard standing only four feet high even at twenty years of age. This book is brilliant and really touches your heart. The book starts out with Kyle writing about when his mother was pregnant with him. When his mother was pregnant with him their were no signs of any problems at all. Then the day came for her to have him and everything went fine except when he came out the doctors and nurses took him away for tests , which wasn’t routine. Kyle’s parents soon realized their was something wrong and the doctor came in and broke the news to the new parents. At first they were shocked and scared of course. They had no clue what this disorder was and frankly no clue how to handle it. They made a vow to make the best of the situation and that’s exactly what they did.
Kyle talks about what it was like growing up with this disorder. It’s surprising to me that he somehow managed to stay so upbeat and have a normal childhood. At the age of one his family soon noticed that Kyle could no longer grow and develop like the other kids, he wasn’t going to start walking and he wasn’t going to be able to feed himself and soon after his father noticed how dependent he was becoming on everyone around him. His father was not going to have it. Kyle’s father wanted him to grow up as normal as possible and wanted him to be able to do things for himself. So they started making contraptions that would make things like eating easier for Kyle. As he got older and wanted to play sports like street hockey , his father and the other kids on the street made a special net that was lower then usual for him to play goalie. Kyle speaks about how nice and caring the neighborhood kids were to him despite his disorder. At a young age Kyle knew he was different and often wondered why people stared at him. So one day he asked his grandma why and she replied saying that god has made him special and no two people are the same, this would stick with Kyle the rest of his life. After that he learned if people were staring at him to just be nice and say hello so they wouldn’t be scared of him.
When Kyle was in fifth grade his family decided to move to Atlanta , Georgia, at the time this was horrible for Kyle and his little sister. They of course were scared of the new school and new kids and making new friends. Within months everything was fine and making new friends was not a problem. Kyle had always been a sports fanatic and he never went a day without watching ESPN. He soon was longing to play sports on a team like his peers. His mother was not thrilled about this but they soon let him try out for football. Kyle made the team and the coach told him and his parents that he made the team because of talent and for no other reason. This was the start of his sports career. He soon began lifting weights for football and when football ended Kyle wanted to try more sports to fill his time while waiting on football season to start again. In the sixth grade he went into wrestling and soon realized he was quite good. He never good have known that he would become a championship wrestler. Kyle wrestled through middle school and on to high school. In high school he had made it to regional and state competions.
Kyle loved wrestling so much that he decided to go to college and continue wrestling. He would do so at the University of Georgia. Kyle’s strong ambition that he could do whatever he wanted and whatever he put his mind too, had paid off. Kyle went on to win the 2004 ESPY awards and in 2005 he broke the world record in the modified bench press by lifting 360 pounds , which is three times his body weight. This is the greatest inspirational story I have ever heard and everyone should read this book.
