#243 - DN

This is a patient post.  One of my cutie kiddos that is now old enough to shave.  He is an only child who was born completely normal, but suffered brain damage when he was a young child.  It is really a sad story.  The child was eating, started to choke, and the babysitter panicked and shook him too hard which caused damage to the brain.  A terrible accident which resulted in the child having cerebral palsy and needing a lifetime of care.

When he was really young, I use to see him once a week.  He speaks, but sometimes he is hard to understand because his mouth doesn't work to correctly pronounce all the words.  I also should point out right now that one of the reasons that he stole my heart is because of his wonderful smile.  A full set of beautiful, white straight teeth and he is always grinning from ear to ear.  Anyway, I would always ask him, "What did you do in school today?"  He would always answer, "Cula." (aka Color).  I would always say, "Is that it?  You went to school all day and all you did was color?"  He would just grin.

One of the reasons that he stole my heart at a young age because his mom always dressed him so cute.  Matching shorts and tops and I swear, this kid has more pairs of shoes than me.  His mom is a shoe freak and she bought him a different pair of shoes to match each outfit.  Sad because he never really walked and his shoes never got dirty or worn out at all.  She also bought him coordinating bibs, even as he got to be a teenager, because of the constant drooling that he could not control.

Another thing that I remember is that his laugh is one of the deepest and most contagious that I have ever heard.  He is a very happy child and laughs often.  The downside of making him laugh however, is that all of the tone or tightness in his arms and legs kicks in when he laughs and anything we are trying to accomplish in therapy pretty much goes out the window.

His parents have tried just about everything for their child.  They work hard with him both on his therapy and in school.  They do not treat him as if he has a handicap, but they expect him to do his best always.  In turn, he works hard and never complains.  I see so many parents who make things worse by trying to protect their handicapped children from anything that is hard for them.  While I can certainly see their point of sparing their child any further difficulties, I have been doing this job long enough to know that tough love goes a lot farther.  #243 is a few short years away from graduating from high school.  I know his parents are proud of him and I am too.

Anyway, as I have said before, there are some patients that have touched my heart and I know that if I were writing this blog at 80 years old, I would still remember.  #243 is one of these.