Sydney
13 July 2003

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Conversation: Ryan Macalyk - student at St Ignatius College, Riverview - Great days and good knights for ‘Wheels’

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Conversation: Ryan Macalyk - student at St Ignatius College, Riverview - Great days and good knights for ‘Wheels’

By Marilyn Rodrigues

Ryan Macalyk (pictured) is counting the days until he finishes Year 12. It is not that he cannot wait to leave his school days behind; he wants to make the most of each and every one.

It is just that he is anxious that, with just weeks to go, he might get sick and have to go to hospital.

If he is going to fall ill, Ryan, a boarder at St Ignatius College, Riverview, would rather it happens during holiday time.

He took the stage before his fellow high school students recently to give an account of his amazing life, explaining why he loves the college and giving his peers a message to carry for life.

“I remember the first day I came to this school,” Ryan told them.

“No one passed judgment on me.

“I felt that I could lower my defence and, for the first time in my life, I felt relaxed.

“Everyone was very welcoming, but my first year was cut short when I had to go to hospital.

“This was when I realised how good Riverview really is.

“Within the first week, I had more than 20 students visit me.

“You might think this is not a big deal, but, when you’re lying in bed and the only thing you can see from your window is the morgue, it means everything.”

Ryan is known to his friends as ‘Wheels’, because he uses a wheelchair.

The 19-year-old, who has spina bifida, has spent less than two-thirds of his life in the world at large.

He was born with level three spina bifida; level four is the worst (spina bifida results from the failure of the developing foetus’ spine to close properly during the first weeks of pregnancy).

As soon as he was delivered at birth, Ryan was rushed into surgery for the first of many operations.

That was the start of seven years of living in hospital, except when he was allowed home for special occasions.

Ryan has had 70 operations. Each time his parents were told that he might not survive.

But survive he did.

The hospital was often “ugly and unpleasant’, but it was also his playground, he says.

It has made him appreciate life, including moments as mundane as attending classes.

He has faced so many obstacles that it is no wonder that it annoys him to hear his fellow students give up on their goals too easily.

“I often hear boys say: ‘I didn’t make the First XV’ (the college’s top Rugby team).

“I want them to realise that they are lucky they got to play; they got to try. I would love to have that chance,” he says passionately.

“They’re great guys, but some of them quit straight away.

“If I did that I know I would not be here today.

“I made that speech because I wanted to say they should never give up.”

Ryan moved to Riverview in 2001, first as a day student, and then as a boarder.

His instant relief had a lot to do with the hellish three years he had suffered at another school.

His mother, Trish, says that since he began at Riverview he has “never looked back” but has gone from strength to strength.

Ryan says that Kevin Fagan House, where he resides during the school term, is “more wheelchair friendly than most hotels”.

His gratitude towards the headmaster, Shane Hogan, and the matron of the infirmary, Leanne Neal, is boundless.

So is his appreciation for his ‘knights’, his best friends who are also college boarders.

He has too many good friends to mention, but they include John Tuxworth, Tim Harrington, Simon Walsh, Jack Meagher, Nick Porta, Michael Roche, Toby Anderson, Sam Montgomery and Ian Murphy.

They have given him a great gift; a normal 19-year-old’s life.

They monitor his health and take him to the college infirmary when necessary (sometimes despite his stubborn protests that he is fine); take him the medical equipment he needs every night; make sure there is wheelchair access wherever they go; and keep his spirits up when things get on top of him.

Every couple of weeks they go out together, to pubs or to parties.

“Because of them and the school I have everything I have craved before, especially popularity and normalcy,” says Ryan.

Now he is looking forward to his first Year 12 formal, as the partner of Matilda Brown, daughter of actor Bryan Brown.

And like every 19-year-old who has not yet got a driver’s licence, he plans to get one.

“Here I’m not disabled,” he says. “I don’t stand out here.

“I’m just another person who wears this uniform and blends in.”

Ryan’s schooling began in hospital. He then went to Year 4 at Truscott St Primary School, North Ryde, where he was in a unit for students with disabilities.

He was fully integrated into the main school in Years 5 and 6 and mixed with able-bodied students for the first time.

For a time he took up wheelchair sports such as basketball and participated in sports carnivals.

Then he entered an inner western Sydney public high school where he experienced vicious bullying from other students.

He says the only good to come out of that was that it made him ‘streetwise’.

Ryan and his parents found out about Riverview and its openness to students with disabilities and he entered as a day student in Year 10.

“My family are great,” says Ryan, who has two sisters and a brother.

“They are always there for me.”

The family lives in Roseville.

In his speech to the college assembly Ryan told the students that lack of independence has been one of the most frustrating aspects of his multiple disabilities.

“And at times it feels as if I am a prisoner trapped in my own body,” he said.

He has been somewhat protected at Riverview because he has been surrounded and supported by great friends, but he is not afraid of facing the “harsh realities of the outside world” again.

Rather, because of his time there, he feels much better equipped and prepared than before.

When he had his chance to speak to the students from the heart about his life’s story he finished with a piece of advice.

“Throughout your life there will be many challenges and obstacles you will have to face, some easy, some hard and some that, no matter how hard you try, you feel like you haven’t got a chance,” he said.

“But remember what US president Franklin D Roosevelt, who was also in a wheelchair, said: ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself’.”