Deri,
This is an update on the "Epistle" updated.
Bobby
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MY EARLY YEARS<BR>
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Cerebral palsy(CP) is a generic term which encompasses many types of conditions. The term scares the hell out of some people, but, in fact, is a group of disorders which affects the brain’s ability to control the motor functions of the body. Since about ninety percent of cases of cerebral palsy occurs as a result of damage to the brain before birth; functions other than motor functions can be affected. These other affected functions might, but always, include mental retardation, visual problems, hearing problems, epilepsy and learning disabilities. These latter conditions are termed “associated disorders”. I was born with cerebral palsy. When a new born is suspected of having cerebral palsy, physicians will often paint a “worse case scenario” for the traumatized parents by telling them their newborn “bundle of joy” most likely will not be able to walk, to talk, will be retarded, blind or deaf or both. This way the physician’s ass is covered. And that is what happened to my parents when I was born. It has also happened to just about every individual with cerebral palsy I have talked to about this subject. These same physicians later wonder why such parents are hostile to persons in the medical professions. In defense of such professionals, often the case scenario they painted does not pan out and said parents 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.<BR>
The physician who delivered me was a family physician in rural north central Texas who had been my mother’s physician all her life and had delivered 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 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, Texas.<BR>
My dad was captain of the football team and my mom was the daughter of a deacon in the local church. My dad’s was named R.L. and my mom’s was Geneva Alice Goodman. One thing I learned after I went to school was never give an off spring an initial name! The teachers would ask, “What is your 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 “associated disorders” I mentioned earlier, namely, mental retardation.<BR>
My parents married right out high school in 1928 in the beginning of the Great Depression. They lived on a farm outside Hillboro, right north of Waco. 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 lost among the cotton plants or climb to tops of windmills at 2 years of age. In l937, I was born. Since my mom had had a kidney infection just prior to my birth and since her physician, whose name was Killian, expected her to have a difficult birth, Dad drove Mom to Waxahachie which had a larger hospital and better facilities. Killian used high forceps in delivering me and blamed himself for my cyanotic(blue) complexion and both of my broken arms. He suspect 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 Dad’s brothers, gave me contrasting hot and cold baths for about 18 hours straight. She must have had it bad for Uncle Harry, but I will be forever grateful to her, no matterwhat her motivation.<BR>
Let me say here, that as attorney say, everything I state about my early years is “hear say evidence”. I have very few memories of my early life. Most of what I am writing here came from my Mom. I am just now realizing 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 San Antonio. Dad got a job working on farm tractors and we lived in a small apartment across the street from where he worked. I have about three memories 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 remember was Dan running and crying and Dad chasing after him. In my mind I thought my Dad was hurting him, when in fact, he caught Dan and put the flames out with his hands. After that, Mom had to stay in the hospital with my brother and I went to work with Dad, since we did not have the money for a baby sitter 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 kept books and ran the office there. These women were my surrogate mothers while Dan was in the hospital. These surrogate mothers must have done a great job caring for me, since I’ve always associated the smell of a tractor shop with warmth and safety. <BR>
The other memory I have of that time was my brother rolling an old tire down a sidewalk and I got in front of it. The tire hit me in the back and having no balance to speak of I fell and landed on my forehead. CP’s don’t know how to fall since they can not reach out and break the fall with their arms and hands. In this department, I was a very slow learner. I remember getting up and blood running down my face. My parents took me to the emergency room and I got stitches(sutures) in my forehead. They say that afternoon after I had sutures I fell again and was returned to the emergency room for another stitching job. Throughout early childhood, I kept falling and landing on the same spot on my forehead. Later, a neurologist recommended that my parents buy me something like a football helmet, so I could wear it to prevent further damage to what my father called my “forward landing gear”! When I was adult with children, my dad told my children the helmet story much to my chagrin. My kids thought it was hysterically funny. They pictured their father wobbling down the street with a football helmet. Later my daughter got a Tabby cat, named it Bobby, and fashioned a small helmet for Bobby. <BR>
Around this time my mother discovered a charity clinic for persons with serious<BR>
physical problems. While taking me there, she found a neurologist, actually a neurosurgeon named Lewis Helfer. Helfer was fresh out of residency in neurosurgery in Illinois and was delighted to find a young CP who he could use to train interns and other medical personnel regarding what CP looks like in a young child. My Mom says he would have me walk back and forth in front of such personnel as he pointed out the characteristic of CP. He also told my Mom 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 me at birth. Rather, he concluded that my CP was the result of Mom’s kidney 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 to the area of insult(damage) is located in different parts of the motor areas of the brain. They pretty much look alike to lay people, but they have different relaxes and motor characteristics to a medical professional train in neurology. Other than neurologists, some orthopedic specialists and physiatrists(trained in physical medicine); most physicians know less about CP than the average lay person. This I have discovered as I explain CP 101 to some internist, 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 get the right signals to the right muscles. Just about every voluntary muscle 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, in order for the biceps to do this in a smooth, orderly fashion; the opposing muscle group, the triceps, must relax. Technically, this procedure is called reciprocal innervation. In spastic CP this mechanism doesn’t quite work the way it is supposed to work. Innervation to contract go to both opposing muscle groups and the result is a jerky looking movement. The above is, of course, an over simplification and someone trained in neurophysiology who take issue with it. <BR>
Helfer became my personal physician soon after this. He never did any traditional 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 assist my development. For example, I had trouble coordinating my diaphragm in relation to my speech. Helfer recommended singing lessons. Also, at the time he was a big enthusiast of promoting good neurological development through increased Vitamin B complex. One prime source was malt they used to brew beer with, so my good Baptist mother would make periodic pilgrimages to the Pearl Brewery for yeast malt to get me my Vitamin B complex fix. I don’t know 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. <BR>
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My dad got a better job and we moved to another place near downtown San Antonio. We lived in a private apartment for a while and then moved to a newly opened public housing project called Victoria Courts. This was in the early ‘40’s. This housing project was part of FDR’s New Deal and was 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 recollections of this time. The apartments were in buildings containing about eight family dwellings, four on each end of the building. On each end, there were two downstairs apartments and two up stairs. The building were rather stark in structure, consisting of concrete tiles, cement staircases and steel railings 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 saw the movie, “My Left Foot” where Christie Brown scooted down the stairs in his family’s flat in Dublin.<BR>
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I learned several things during this time we lived in Victoria courts. First, I learned it is sometime very painful to be a “hero”> I learned this by going to a playground football game with my brother. I pestered the older boys to let me play and they relented. I was on defense and when the ball was snapped, I squatted and saw a bunch of legs. One pair came churning 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 hobbled off the field. It is painful to be a hero. <BR>
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I also began to admire and acquire my Dad’s cynical sense of humor. As I said the buildings we lived in contained eight family. This was at the peak 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 building :entertained the troops during the day. I didn’t get the full meaning of it. but when Dad would ask my Mom how things went at the “USO” that day, Mom would get upset and Dad would laugh and I learned cynicism, could be fun. It was good to be twisted. My Mom was from a family of deacons and my Dad came from the “wilder” side. He had buddies from Milford living in San Antonio and they taught it was fun to get drunk, because 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 ourapartment drunk. They had been, for some ungodly reason, to a Reptile Farm. One of Dad’s friend thought it would be fun to steal a poisonous snake so he puts in his pocket and come over to see his “ol’ buddy R.L.”! I never figured out why the snake never bit him, 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. <BR>
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Unfortunately I learned of violence, too. San Antonio tended to break out drunk on the weekends with all the military men in town. Our place was not that far from downtown and so the “fun” would often spill over into out neighborhood. On particular morning I remember hearing yelling, cursing 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>
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