Appareo Bipennis

I recall quite vividly how it all started. My first symptom was an itch, an irritating burning prickle between my shoulder blades. After a few days, I could feel two bumps under the skin but being oblivious to their significance I merely thought they were symptomatic of my constant chafing. But as my skin began to split and buds emerged, I sought out my mother in a panic. This was the defining moment when life as I knew it would alter forever. Never in my wildest childhood fantasies, could I ever have envisaged this twist of fate and its shattering repercussions.

The condition was appareo bipennis with bipennis being two winged and appareo, to become visible.

To put it bluntly "We grow wings".

Everybody has them. Try to think back to a time when you felt really excited or sexually aroused and remember that fluttery feeling you had. That was your wings frantically flapping in a direct response to your emotional level. Or recollect a near-miss on the motorway and the subsequent hammering in your chest and inability to catch a breath. That thumping is not your heart but your wings. Under extreme stress, the span expands momentarily inhibiting your capacity to breathe with the pounding sensation of their sweeping motion often mistaken for a rapid heartbeat.

But in the case of "The Alatus" – the winged ones - nature slipped up slightly and at the onset of puberty our wings grow on the outside instead. It's a simple miscalculation to do with chromosomes and genes. When you visualise the complexity of the human reproduction process, it's a miracle it doesn't happen more often. The odds are reckoned at about 500 million-to-1 but as I was to find out, these reduce significantly for the offspring of a sufferer.

I can remember sitting in an aged, brown leather chair as the specialist attempted to put appareo bipennis into plain words. Mum was clasping my hand so tightly that when eventually released, one of my fingers bore the imprint of her eternity ring for several hours. As the doctor talked, my fingernails picked and worried away at a crack on the weathered armrest. I was aware of the drone of his voice but I couldn't focus on the words. There were far too many details and implications for me to absorb. I fought to keep my hands down, resisting the urge to clamp them over my ears.

When we arrived home, I locked myself in my bedroom refusing to respond to Mum's frenetic knocking. I spent countless hours trawling the internet for information, performing searches on any key word I could think of that could possibly relate to wings. My persistence paid off and just as the sun was rising on the next day, I was elated to discover that there was a procedure available for the removal of wings. Armed with this news, I ran downstairs to find Mum but to my profound desolation, she wouldn't even entertain the idea. This was the point when I learnt my father had been an Alatum whose wings had been surgically removed when he was a teenager. Her justification for refusing permission for my operation was her belief that Dad had become emotionally deficient as a direct consequence of the amputation.

I collapsed into a hysterical heap on the floor. Looking back, I think this was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. Dad had died when I was three years old and now, despite all my energies being channelled into my attempt to come to terms with my wings, I was being asked to deal with the harsh thought that my Dad might not have loved me in the way of my dreams and imaginings.

Over the next few months, I really tried to understand and listen to Mum but the bigger picture was just too large for me to comprehend. All I cared about was myself and the immediate impact this diagnosis had on my life. Being petrified that someone would notice the distortion in the shape of my back, I ostracised myself and began to live a life of self-imposed exile. I became increasingly angry at Mum's steadfast refusal to sign a consent form and more and more frustrated with her apparent disregard for my feelings. To add fuel to the fire, this was then compounded by her seeming denigration of my father's memory. Needless to say, our relationship disintegrated rapidly. I left home at 14, putting myself into voluntary care and refusing all access. She persisted in sending me letters describing how much she loved me and how she wanted me to experience that unconditional love with my own children. Her writing continually stressed that all emotions were essential to my fulfilment in life, be it the depths of sadness or the dizzying realms of joy. She insisted an amputation would inhibit my ability to feel these highs and lows. But I couldn't see past the abomination on my back and it seemed that she was condemning me to life as a freak on a mere theory!

The day I turned 18 and officially reached adulthood, I went ahead with the operation. For the first time in years I allowed myself to form friendships and even started to date. I was so overcome with the relief of finally leading a 'normal' life without the constraint of hiding my monstrous appendages, that I thought myself happy. I was nearly 23 when I met Mike in our local café and 24 when we married. I did admit to being slightly bemused by the hearts and flowers way of love songs and greeting cards but prided myself on not succumbing to such blatant commercialism. We took our vows in church with the minimum of fuss. I had remained calm whilst making all the arrangements for the celebration myself and wasn't particularly bothered by my mother's absence on my big day ... or indeed by the lack of any person from my past.

It was the birth of our daughter Emily, that brought awareness home. When I saw the look on Mike's face as he cradled her in his arms, I felt the first glimmer deep inside that perhaps Mum had been right. As we sat late into the night and talked about our hopes and dreams for Emily, I listened in increasing despair as he described the conflicting emotions assailing him – pride, amazement, joy, hopelessness, possessiveness, fear. It was as if his very words were drenched in love. After he had left the hospital for some much needed rest, I forced myself to honestly appraise life since my 18th birthday. I did feel, I did care ... but the feelings were numbed and disconnected as if viewed through a thin layer of cellophane. I could remember the anguish of my teenage years, the torment of my emotive state which until now had been a relief to leave behind. With hindsight, the range of passions I felt during that time had gone some way towards reinforcing my belief that elimination of my wings was the way forward. I could not and would not deny that I was delighted with my beautiful baby. But if brutally honest, the delight was no more than that akin to the purchase of a much sought after pair of shoes.

I phoned Mum at 4am that morning. This was the first time we had spoken since I left home, but not a word was uttered in recrimination. When she came to visit I tried to explain how sorry I was. How I should have trusted and believed her heartfelt pleas. It was so clear to me now that she hadn't wanted to ruin my life but instead had tried to save it. But she dismissed my apologies and refused to dwell on the past. There was no need to look back she insisted. It was the future that mattered.

But first of all, my husband had to learn my secret. Having spent most of my teenage years in care, Mike had never doubted my story about being orphaned. As for my scars, I had simply explained these away as birthmarks. But even more of a betrayal was the fact that in my apathy and state of denial, I hadn't even considered the increased chance of Emily inheriting my legacy of appareo bipennis. Once again, Mum came to the rescue. She had spent our years apart documenting all she could remember of life with Dad and creating a journal filled with her memories of my childhood and our subsequent estrangement. To my eternal gratitude, she was able to persuade Mike to understand and forgive my behaviour and apparent indifference for our child and instil within him the belief that we must not give up hope of finding a treatment for my stunted emotions.

The doctors were more difficult to convince. They insisted my present condition was simply due to post-natal-depression and that not every parent experienced an instant bond with their newborn. But we persisted and finally I embarked on a course of regression therapy combined with intense counselling. Then, the week before Emily's 2nd birthday, the medics finally acknowledged the link with the amputation of my wings and I began a course of hormone treatment.

The rest, as they say, is history. There is of course no cure, no sudden happy-ever-after. For every silver lining there is a cloud and mine was depression. But whenever I slip into that sense of despondency and dejection, I simply remind myself that this is proof of my ability to once again experience the full range of human sentiments.

However, despite the need for continual psychotherapy and daily injections, I believe the main factor in my successful rehabilitation was love; the previously disregarded hearts and flowers love bestowed by my husband and the unconditional love of my mother. Love breeds love and in turn I reciprocate it in abundance to them and our beloved daughter Emily.

We opened a website dedicated to our theories on 'the winged ones' and were stunned by the response. Due to this increased awareness which is thankfully now supported by new medical research, the stigma is lessening.

As for Emily, she is 9 now and growing more beautiful with every passing day. We don't yet know whether she is an Alatum but if she is, we hope and pray that our angel will choose love and keep her wings.