Hi thank you for your interest, my name is Mike Greene and I have Limb-Girdle Muscular Dystrophy (LGMD). I was born in a very small town in Iowa, you know the type, blink your eyes and you passed right through it. My mother was a un-married teenager, which really seemed to be frowned on at the time. To start with' I was born with dislocated hips, which gave me double hernia at birth. Surgery was performed and I was put in a cast that went from my waist to my knees so, I guess you could say that it was a little bumpy getting started. My Mom and Grandma both say I was pretty fast in scooting around in that cast though. Of course driving backwards, I was also somewhat dangerous. After the cast was removed I progressed and learned to walk putting one foot in front of the other like any kid.

I started out as a healthy, average height, big boned little kid. It is kind of weird looking at pictures of me back then (2-3 years old), standing on a tree stump in my Red Ball sneakers, blue jeans rolled up at the bottom, white cotton tee shirt and of course a flat top hair cut. From the devilish grin on my face, I would have to say that I either just did something (and hadn't been caught yet), or was about to do something.

Things were pretty tight for my Grandma and Grandpa already trying to raise 5 children of their own, and Grandpa really couldn't financially afford another mouth to try to feed. Beans were our main course most of the time, so much that my Grandma said my first word was "shit" and my first sentance was "shit, don't want no beans!" To be honest, I still hate beans to this day. This was especially hard for my Grandpa since my father just happened to be his married best friend (my birth certificate stated father unknown to keep him out of jail). Grandma and Grandpa had known both my father and his wife for years and had watched my father’s kids grow up, so this was difficult for him.

At around 2 years of age, I got hold of a bottle off of the kitchen counter that contained concentrated fly poison and managed to drink a good portion of it before anyone spotted me. I was rushed to the hospital DOA. Resuscitated and stomach pumped, the doctors were able to bring me back but unfortunately for me, not before a good portion of the poison made it through my blood stream doing a bit of muscle damage in my chest. This was the last straw for Grandpa so when the courts asked, he was willing for me to be placed in an orphanage in hopes that I would be adopted by a family in at least a different county.