Living with CP: the early years part 16.

This is my second entry today, so please enjoy.

As I previously mentioned, the doctor at Children's Medical Center told my Mother and Grandma that I probably would have a hard time being around other kids. My Grandma knew that would not be acceptable, especially later in my life when I started school. She decided that I needed to be around some kids so I could get used to them. She began watching other children during the day and we had three kids at once. At first, I did not want anything to do with any of the kids.  Grandma had to have a schedule for the week of what we were doing that week. Once a week we had to go somewhere in the car.  It was a lot of work but it soon paid off. In about two weeks. I did not have any problems being around other kids. In my next entry I’ll tell a story about what happened on one of our trips!

Living with CP: the early years part 15.

Hello everyone. I hope you all are having a great day today and I really hope that this blog is helping someone.

I'm going to do two entries today. As I previously mentioned, I was beginning to do okay with some textures, but something like pudding would still make me gag all the time. So what idea would my Grandma come up with to help break me of this? Well, I had a whole set of those little Matchbox cars.  One day I was in my highchair and Grandma decided to try something. She made some chocolate pudding and then she actually put the pudding all over my table and sat down and put my little cars in the pudding. My Grandma spent all day running my cars in that pudding, trying to get me to put my hand in it. After all day, I finally put my hand in it and started playing with my cars. So there was another problem taken care of. 

Since the doctor told my Mother and Grandma that I probably would not ever be able to be around other kids because of my hearing and my nerves, I will tell you what my Grandma did to try to fix this problem in my next entry.

Living with CP: the early years part 14.

Hello everyone. I hope you all are having a wonderful day today.  Way to go New York Giants on their Superbowl win!

After about four hours of being on the beach I could finally stand to have sand put on my body without crying. I still did not like to touch different textures very much so my Grandma came up with yet another idea. Since she would go to the fruit market once a week, we would just walk around the market and Grandma would help me touch the different fruits. My Grandma got to know the manager real well, and every week when we went in the market the manager would have a little basket made up with all different kinds of fruit. After approximately a year, I was able to touch fruit without gagging. At that point, I was fine with now with most textures.  You will find that small steps like that is the best way to handle stuff when you have someone with Cerebral Palsy. I still had a problem with the texture of pudding and things that were similar. In my next entry find out what idea my Grandma comes up with to help me with this problem.

Living with CP: the early years part 13.

Hello everyone.  I hope everyone is having a great day today.  I also want to let everyone know this will be my last entry for this week.  As I said before, when I was very young I also had a problem with touching different textures.  Every time I would touch something I would gag, but before I tell you how my Grandma broke me of that I have another story.  When I was little my Grandma and Grandpa had a boat and fifth-wheel mobile home at Brookville Lake in Brookville, Indiana.  We went almost every weekend.  As you might imagine, they had the doors on the boat made wider so I could get my wheelchair on it.  It was a pontoon boat.

One day we were at the lake and we went to the beach. That is when my Grandma came up with yet another idea to try to break me of my gagging issue. She went and sat in the sand and had Grandpa bring me to her.  At first, I was crying like crazy. After about four hours I finally got to the point where Grandma could put some sand on me without me going crazy. This is the first step.  See where we go from here in my next few entries. 

Living with CP: the early years part 12.

Hello everyone. I hope everyone is enjoying the day today. Before I get started on today's entry I just want to say if you have someone with Cerebral Palsy or know someone that has it, please don't give up on them because I'm a example that hard work can and does pay off.

A circus.

As I previously mentioned, I had really sensitive hearing.  If we ever got tickets to the circus or anything that could possibly have loud noises, my Grandma would actually go the night before me so she could write down every place there was a loud noise so they would know where to hold my ears. Today, I can go to see fireworks displays and I still jump a little but not like when I was little. I also had a problem with different textures when I was little. Everything I would touch or sit in I would either cry or gag. Grandma knew I could not live my whole life gagging from everything I touched.  In my next few entry's, find out how my Grandma broke me of this.  

Living with CP: the early years part 11.

A vacuum sweeper.

Hello everyone. I hope everyone is having a great day today. Before I move on to another stage of my development, I want to relate to you a story about my sensitive hearing. I would cry all day, everyday. No joke! If the phone would ring I would cry. If someone came over and would ring the door bell I would cry. If someone would talk too loud or laugh when they came to the house I would cry. It would get so bad that Grandma would have to call her neighbor and ask her to come over and watch me while she got of the house for a break, but it all changed one day. My Grandma had me laying on the floor and I was crying as usual. Grandma got her sweeper out to sweep and when she turned it on to start sweeping I stopped crying. To this day we don't know if it was the motor or the vibration, but whatever it was it stopped me from crying! Sometimes you just have to figure little tricks like that out. 
 As a little side note, when we had tickets to go to anything that Grandma thought would have any loud sounds in it like a bang, Grandma always went the night before me so she would know when to hold my ears. I’ll write more about this in my next post. 

Living with CP: the early years part 10.

 

A car window down. 

Hello everyone. I hope you all are having a wonderful day today. I also hope everyone is enjoying my posts so far. Feel free to leave me any comments you may have. I would love to hear from you. When I was born they told my Grandma and Mother that they wanted to start training me on one of those computerized voice box machines, where when I pushed a button it would talk for me. I fooled them, didn't I! Here is a little side note. When Grandma found out I had Cerebral Palsy, she actually went to Sinclair College and received a degree for taking care of handicapped children. Now that I was talking, my Grandma decided that if we didn't get me used to different sounds I could not do anything. She decided to take me a ride in the car everyday. In the beginning she rolled the widow down just a little and I would cry like crazy! I would say it took over a year where I could ride in the car with the widow down without crying. Everything they broke me of took time. See what's next!