Wow, great stuff, Bobby! I enjoyed reading "The Epistle." Kat On Fri, 3 May 2002 12:05:01 EDT "BG Greer, PhD" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: --part1_89.17758b35.2a040f2d_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Deri, This is an update on the "Epistle" updated. Bobby <!--This file created by ClarisWorks HTML Filter 2.0--> <HTML> <HEAD> <META NAME=3DGENERATOR CONTENT=3D"ClarisWorks HTML Filter 2.0"> <TITLE>My Book 4.0 (HTML)</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY > <P><BR> <BR> MY EARLY YEARS<BR> <BR> <BR> Cerebral palsy(CP) is a generic term which encompasses many types of condit= ions. The term scares the hell out of some people, but, in fact, is a group=20= of disorders which affects the brain’s ability to control the motor fun= ctions of the body. Since about ninety percent of cases of cerebral palsy oc= curs as a result of damage to the brain before birth; functions other than m= otor functions can be affected. These other affected functions might, but al= ways, include mental retardation, visual problems, hearing problems, epileps= y and learning disabilities. These latter conditions are termed “associ= ated disorders”. I was born with cerebral palsy. When a new born is sus= pected of having cerebral palsy, physicians will often paint a “worse c= ase scenario” for the traumatized parents by telling them their newborn= “bundle of joy” most likely will not be able to walk, to talk, wi= ll be retarded, blind or deaf or both. This way the physician’s ass is=20= covered. And that is what happened to my parents when I was born. It has als= o happened to just about every individual with cerebral palsy I have talked=20= to about this subject. These same physicians later wonder why such parents a= re hostile to persons in the medical professions. In defense of such profess= ionals, often the case scenario they painted does not pan out and said paren= ts are grateful to have child who can talk, walk, is not retarded, etc. This= “cover your ass” method then pays off in a twisted sort of way.<B= R> The physician who delivered me was a family physician in rural north centra= l Texas who had been my mother’s physician all her life and had deliver= ed my older brother, Dan, with no complications. This is to say he was not a= total screw up. In fact,<BR> he took my dilemma quite personally. He even went to a medical conference in= Chicago to find out more about cerebral palsy in order to more competently=20= traumatize my parents with the nature of CP and its associated disorders.<BR= > Speaking of my parents, they met while going to high school in Milford, Tex= as.<BR> My dad was captain of the football team and my mom was the daughter of a dea= con in the local church. My dad’s was named R.L. and my mom’s was=20= Geneva Alice Goodman. One thing I learned after I went to school was never=20= give an off spring an initial name! The teachers would ask, “What is yo= ur father’s name?” and I would say “R.L.” and they would= asked, “Yes, but what’s his full name?” and I would response= , “R.L.”. They would then give me a look like I had one of those &= #147;associated disorders” I mentioned earlier, namely, mental retardat= ion.<BR> My parents married right out high school in 1928 in the beginning of the Gr= eat Depression. They lived on a farm outside Hillboro, right north of Waco.=20= Dad share cropped, tinkered with a few old farm tractors which would not run= and also worked at a cotton gin. In 1934, my brother Dan was born. He was a= hyperactive little bundle of energy who would “escape” and get lo= st among the cotton plants or climb to tops of windmills at 2 years of age.=20= In l937, I was born. Since my mom had had a kidney infection just prior to m= y birth and since her physician, whose name was Killian, expected her to hav= e a difficult birth, Dad drove Mom to Waxahachie which had a larger hospital= and better facilities. Killian used high forceps in delivering me and blame= d himself for my cyanotic(blue) complexion and both of my broken arms. He su= spect I had CP and that’s when he “covered his ass” by giving= my parents the worst case scenario speech. I had great difficulty breathing= on my own and a nurse who was said to have the “hots” for one of=20= Dad’s brothers, gave me contrasting hot and cold baths for about 18 hou= rs straight. She must have had it bad for Uncle Harry, but I will be forever= grateful to her, no matter=12what her motivation.<BR> Let me say here, that as attorney say, everything I state about my early ye= ars is “hear say evidence”. I have very few memories of my early l= ife. Most of what I am writing here came from my Mom. I am just now realizin= g how distorted that view point may be. I do have a few memories of selected= things when I was two or three. When I was two or three my family moved to=20= San Antonio. Dad got a job working on farm tractors and we lived in a small=20= apartment across the street from where he worked. I have about three memorie= s of this period. One was when my brother Dan’s pajamas<BR> caught fire and my Dad had to put out the flames with his hands. All I remem= ber was Dan running and crying and Dad chasing after him. In my mind I thoug= ht my Dad was hurting him, when in fact, he caught Dan and put the flames ou= t with his hands. After that, Mom had to stay in the hospital with my brothe= r and I went to work with Dad, since we did not have the money for a baby si= tter or day care for me. The tractor dealership where my father worked was a= small family business and the wife of the owner and her daughter in law kep= t books and ran the office there. These women were my surrogate mothers whi= le Dan was in the hospital. These surrogate mothers must have done a great j= ob caring for me, since I’ve always associated the smell of a tractor s= hop with warmth and safety. <BR> The other memory I have of that time was my brother rolling an old tire dow= n a sidewalk and I got in front of it. The tire hit me in the back and havin= g no balance to speak of I fell and landed on my forehead. CP’s don = 46;t know how to fall since they can not reach out and break the fall with t= heir arms and hands. In this department, I was a very slow learner. I rememb= er getting up and blood running down my face. My parents took me to the emer= gency room and I got stitches(sutures) in my forehead. They say that afterno= on after I had sutures I fell again and was returned to the emergency room f= or another stitching job. Throughout early childhood, I kept falling and lan= ding on the same spot on my forehead. Later, a neurologist recommended that=20= my parents buy me something like a football helmet, so I could wear it to pr= event further damage to what my father called my “forward landing gear&= #148;! When I was adult with children, my dad told my children the helmet st= ory much to my chagrin. My kids thought it was hysterically funny. They pict= ured their father wobbling down the street with a football helmet. Later my=20= daughter got a Tabby cat, named it Bobby, and fashioned a small helmet for B= obby. <BR> Around this time my mother discovered a charity clinic for persons with ser= ious<BR> physical problems. While taking me there, she found a neurologist, actually=20= a neurosurgeon named Lewis Helfer. Helfer was fresh out of residency in neur= osurgery in Illinois and was delighted to find a young CP who he could use t= o train interns and other medical personnel regarding what CP looks like in=20= a young child. My Mom says he would have me walk back and forth in front of=20= such personnel as he pointed out the characteristic of CP. He also told my M= om I had the spastic type of cerebral palsy; and that from taking history of= her pregnancy and delivery, told her that Killian probably did not injury m= e at birth. Rather, he concluded that my CP was the result of Mom’s kid= ney infection just prior to my birth.<BR> Spastic is the most common type of cerebral palsy. The other two “pure= ” types are athetoid and ataxic. Anatomically, they are different due t= o the area of insult(damage) is located in different parts of the motor area= s of the brain. They pretty much look alike to lay people, but they have dif= ferent relaxes and motor characteristics to a medical professional train in=20= neurology. Other than neurologists, some orthopedic specialists and physiatr= ists(trained in physical medicine); most physicians know less about CP than=20= the average lay person. This I have discovered as I explain CP 101 to some i= nternist, cardiologist, etc. What gripes me is after my explaining CP 101, I= still have the pay<I> them</I>. They should be paying me!<BR> Basically, spasticity results in a screw up in the brain’s ability to=20= get the right signals to the right muscles. Just about every voluntary muscl= e group has another muscle which performs the opposite function. For example= , in the upper arm, the biceps contract to bring the lower arm up. However,=20= in order for the biceps to do this in a smooth, orderly fashion; the opposin= g muscle group, the triceps, must relax. Technically, this procedure is call= ed reciprocal innervation. In spastic CP this mechanism doesn’t quite= work the way it is supposed to work. Innervation to contract go to both opp= osing muscle groups and the result is a jerky looking movement. The above is= , of course, an over simplification and someone trained in neurophysiology w= ho take issue with it. <BR> Helfer became my personal physician soon after this. He never did any tradi= tional medical procedures on me, lake surgery and/or fitting me with braces.= Rather, he advised my mother on everyday things she might do to aid and ass= ist my development. For example, I had trouble coordinating my diaphragm in=20= relation to my speech. Helfer recommended singing lessons. Also, at the time= he was a big enthusiast of promoting good neurological development through=20= increased Vitamin B complex. One prime source was malt they used to brew bee= r with, so my good Baptist mother would make periodic pilgrimages to the Pea= rl Brewery for yeast malt to get me my Vitamin B complex fix. I don’t k= now if I ever really benefited from this regimen, but much later in my life,= I would cynically blame this good neurologist for my predilection to beer.=20= <BR> <BR> My dad got a better job and we moved to another place near downtown San Ant= onio. We lived in a private apartment for a while and then moved to a newly=20= opened public housing project called Victoria Courts. This was in the early=20= ‘40’s. This housing project was part of FDR’s New Deal and wa= s a nice place to live for a while. As with most housing projects in cities,= this one deteriorated into a barrio and a center for the crack trade in the= ‘80’s and ‘90’s and was torn down. I have many recollec= tions of this time. The apartments were in buildings containing about eight=20= family dwellings, four on each end of the building. On each end, there were=20= two downstairs apartments and two up stairs. The building were rather stark= in structure, consisting of concrete tiles, cement staircases and steel rai= lings and casement windows. I remember scooting down these stairs on my butt= , due to my poor balance. I had not recalled this part of my past until I sa= w the movie, “My Left Foot” where Christie Brown scooted down the=20= stairs in his family’s flat in Dublin.<BR> <BR> I learned several things during this time we lived in Victoria courts. Firs= t, I learned it is sometime very painful to be a “hero”> I lear= ned this by going to a playground football game with my brother. I pestered=20= the older boys to let me play and they relented. I was on defense and when t= he ball was snapped, I squatted and saw a bunch of legs. One pair came churn= ing at me and I reached and grabbed them. The body attached to the legs came= toppling down on me as did several other tacklers. I felt crushed and could= not catch my breath. Everybody congratulated and begged me to play as I hob= bled off the field. It is painful to be a hero. <BR> <BR> I also began to admire and acquire my Dad’s cynical sense of humor. A= s I said the buildings we lived in contained eight family. This was at the p= eak of WW II and soldiers were all over San Antonio. Most civilian men, like= my Dad, worked during the day. Some of the women at the other end of our bu= ilding :entertained the troops during the day. I didn’t get the full me= aning of it. but when Dad would ask my Mom how things went at the “USO&= #148; that day, Mom would get upset and Dad would laugh and I learned cynici= sm, could be fun. It was good to be twisted. My Mom was from a family of dea= cons and my Dad came from the “wilder” side. He had buddies from M= ilford living in San Antonio and they taught it was fun to get drunk, becaus= e Mom would get upset and I was learning quickly that most things that upset= my Mom were funny to me. There was one particular incident where Dad’s= buddies came by our=12apartment drunk. They had been, for some ungodly reas= on, to a Reptile Farm. One of Dad’s friend thought it would be fun to s= teal a poisonous snake so he puts in his pocket and come over to see his = 47;ol’ buddy R.L.”! I never figured out why the snake never bit hi= m, but all hell broke loose when he bragged about what he had done. R.L. was= terrified of snakes! I learned people do wield, funny things when drunk. <B= R> <BR> Unfortunately I learned of violence, too. San Antonio tended to break out d= runk on the weekends with all the military men in town. Our place was not th= at far from downtown and so the “fun” would often spill over into=20= out neighborhood. On particular morning I remember hearing yelling, cursing=20= and a “crack. crack” sound. One soldier was beating another’s= head against the curb out side our bed room window. I also remember a rabid= dog in the neighborhood , one day and a policeman standing over it shooting= several times.I found the would could be scary.</P> </BODY> </HTML> --part1_89.17758b35.2a040f2d_boundary--