First let me thank you all for your words of encouragement and hope. Betty and Trisha, your words in particular give me hope. But I do confess that most days I'm okay with this whole thing. The posts the other day touched a cord for some reason, I guess. :-) Anthony is quite a little charmer and flirt and wins friends wherever he goes. In pre-school (integrated - he is the most physically limited child there) he is very popular with all the children - even more so than his able-bodied brother, lol. He seems to inspire the others to play with  him when most at this age are into solitary side-by-side interactions. One little girl in particular has become his special friend and they are inseparable. 

I believe that most people are basically good at heart and most don't willingly mean to hurt. That said, there are those few who can be mean or cruel. And there are plenty who are thoughtless or clueless, as I think Laura mentioned in another post. As a Mom I want to protect my kids and that makes it harder to know what lies ahead.  

My husband and I try to do our bit for disability awareness where we can. We talk openly about Anthony (and our son Joseph) to those who ask. We have done 2 interviews in our local newspaper and an article about the boys was published in our local and national newsletters for multiple birth parents.  We belong to a Foundation to raise money for research and education re HBOT for kids with CP. We have spoken as part of a panel discussion to help parents of newly diagnosed children at our local Children's Treatment Centre.

I am an outpatient psychiatric nurse and I work with people living with severe chronic mental illness. I spend a lot of time advocating for the most basic rights and privileges. I love my job and the reason I do is that I love working with my patients. They are among the most creative, brilliant, INTERESTING people I have ever met. Many are artists, poets, musicians, writers. Yet when people ask me what I do and I tell them, most often I am greeted with shudders of revulsion, or bad jokes or " I couldn't do that!"  Most people will never  know the special people my patients are nor be able to appreciate their gifts because they will never take the time to even see them as human beings. That is a tragedy - and their  loss.

I just hope I can instill enough self esteem in Anthony (and Robert) to be able to deal with whatever life throws at them and keep it in perspective. Discrimination in whatever form is really the discriminator's problem, isn't it?

Yvonne

Mommy to 3 year-old triplets: 
Robert (NDA), Anthony (mod. spastic quad CP)
and our angel, Joseph {April 14 /97 - Dec. 31/ 98}
(cerebral atrophy, sev. CP, CVI, Infantile spasms, spina bifida, BPD...)