Hello, My
name is Susanna and I have Cerebral Palsy.
That doesn’t quite have the same ring as at Alcoholics Anonymous. It is not require routine like diabetes, it
is not as disabling as some wheel-chair-bounding back injuries or chronic
conditions. I see people with CP
everywhere. If it is severe they just
exist, if it did not impact the brain they are usually in sedentary and
academic professions.
The American philosophy is “let’s make them comfortable.” Despite the contrary school slogans of inclusion,
it is not let them participate. For the
most part, services and programs concentrate on children. Adults with CP seem not to exist. That is, until you are face-to-face with
those didn’t sink but swam.
My personal Cerebral Palsy meant that I was doing physical therapy
exercises my entire childhood. My mother
stuck to a scheduled routine of massage therapy, specifically prescribed
workouts, and dance and music lessons suggested by medical professionals.
It mattered little to my mother if I like music or dance, we were
doing it to make me like all the other
“normal” children. I had other
interests as well, but a lot of times they didn’t matter.
Aside from that, I was regularly pulled out of school for a moth to
undergo other therapy. Sanatoriums in
Soviet Union were resorts with medical treatments in the morning. Here most of those things are spas for the
rich. Only Lewis Litt enjoys a
good mud bath, right?
Well, in the Caucasian Mountains I enjoyed mud baths, underwater
massage, Black Sea water 6 months in a year, mineral spring water baths, and
much more.
By every reasonable standards,
my mother succeeded to make me normal.
By the time we came to America, my CP was only on paper.
I had no physical symptoms of CP to speak of. The doctors said they can’t do anything for
me and told me to go to a gym. Most of
the people around me thought of me as a girl with a limp. Some have asked me if one of my lets is
shorter.
Yet, the brand of CP came back to bite me on and off, over and over
again. At some point in my college
years, I had a delusion of singing in musicals.
Two auditions were enough to kill the dream. It wasn’t even what people said, but the
glances enough were enough to let me see,
that those born to crawl will never fly.
My lack of flexibility or limited field of vision did not matter
until I ended up in a classroom full of first graders for my student teaching
at the end of grad school. They say a
teacher should have eyes in the back of her head. I didn’t, and I couldn’t control the
classroom. I didn’t graduate and
straight As didn’t matter after coming 9 credits short.
In 2006, at the age of 30, I
had a 70-year-old big toe with a bun sticking out on my left foot. Left is my CP affected side, it is weaker and
off balanced. That toe carried the
weight, did the job of the heal and by
30 became a problem. Thank G-d I was
employed and had insurance at that point.
I had an operation to put a nail in the toe and make it straight.
When I was 13, doctors foretold the issues with the toe, with
muscles, and with hip joints by the age of 40.
It didn’t matter much to a thirteen-year-old.
I am 42, I have a toddler who weighs 23 lb. My strong right hip never came back in the
right place after giving birth. The
forecast is true and it’s here.
Sometimes, it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning. My supportive husband is showering me with
Deep Blue cream, TENS unit. Vibration
Plate, and Tylenol Arthritis. Unfortunately,
mud baths are still only for Lewis Lit, and a trip to the Dead Sea is not on
the schedule so far. The medical options
are not present for adults with CP.
Other support series are available for those that have it a lot worse
then me. To be honest, my only true
disability is that I don’t drive. There
are people that have it a lot
worse. That is something I tell myself
to get through the day.
Physical limitations aside, it is funny to recall some of my prior
failures or shattered dreams today. My
husband doesn’t see my limp. He finds my
wobbly duck gait sexy because he can focus on my hips.
He doesn’t see a woman over weigh, he sees the mother of his
child. When I attempt to do my physical
therapy exercises, he sees the Mother of Dragons. I have to forget that I am in pain, because
the husband saw a come on in my stretching.
My daughter finds me hilarious and loves unconditionally. Something tells me she is destined to do all
the things I couldn’t, because she is “normal” and beyond.
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