Meanwhile， school was another story. In kindergarten， often bandaged， I endured lots of ridicule. I remember kids making fun of me and staring. I’d beg my parents not to make me go， but they always stood firm. Caring and amazingly supportive， they didn’t want other people’s meanness to drive me into isolation. Though I’m sure it broke their hearts to see me come home in tears， they always made me feel that they understood my pain.
By third grade my classmates had learned to get beyond my awkward appearance and to accept me， bandages， wires and all. From then on， I don’t think there was one birthday party I wasn’t invited to. After sixth grade， my surgery schedule slowed. My peers saw me as just one of them： I was voted president of my class every year. In ninth grade， after I had my last major reconstructive surgery， doctors still wanted to build up my chin and finish my ear. But by then I felt somewhere between comfortable and indifferent about the way I looked， and I decided against any further procedures. I’d have an obvious asymmetry in my face， but I had determined that it would in no way affect how I’d live my life.