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A non sequitur? Bear with me. It’s not a secret that making friends is a challenge for most people with disabilities. This is especially true for those with communication issues. Whether it is discrimination, stigma, a lack of understanding or just a simple awkwardness, many people don’t see the disabled as people with whom they … Continue reading
Happy New Year! Our family celebrated New Year’s Eve in our son’s room in the orthopaedic unit of the rehabilitation hospital that will be his home for the next couple of months. He fell asleep about 11:30. Our daughter watched a live streaming of the count down with us. Unlike other years, there was no … Continue reading
Today was a day about building on gains. The medical establishment isn’t happy with a spark here and peek there of the person before surgery. It wants you on solidly on the road back to your regular self with your regular routine. So today was about eating and drinking more. There really wasn’t much else on … Continue reading
I am not prone to happy dances. But then again, it’s been a rather unusual 10 days. What had me grooving by myself in my son’s hospital room was the sight of Deane slowly, stiffly raising his cup to his mouth and sucking back some milk. After a rough night in which Deane had been … Continue reading
“Now the hard work begins.” I couldn’t believe I was saying this to my son who had just spent the last week struggling to breathe with a collapsed lung. He has had tubes stuck down his throat and up his nose to suction the secretions out of his lungs at all times of the day … Continue reading
Deane transferred out of the ICU today. He went more than 24 hours without any assistance breathing so as far as intensive care was concerned, their job was done. At about 1:30, Deane rode his bed through the back halls of the hospital up to the orthopaedic floor. This is the goal for which Deane … Continue reading
My first encounter with disability was in elementary school. My school was in the same building as the Metro School for the Deaf. For the most part, the schools – as far as I knew – functioned independently. The “deaf kids,” as we called them, played mainly in the south end of the school yard, … Continue reading
I woke up yesterday morning to a story on the radio about a man in a vegetative state – a term that makes me uneasy – who had been able to communicate with his doctors through brain scans. The man had been left “severely brain damaged” – more uneasiness – after a car crash. He … Continue reading
I’ve been asked this innocent question many times in the last couple of days. My standard answer has been that it was good. Why wouldn’t it have been good? I was lucky enough to spend most of it at the cottage with the kids, getting lots of time with my extended family, eating way too … Continue reading
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