Doctors Are Not Gods

I absolutely go nuts when I hear that doctors and other "professionals" give babies labels and sentences! They scare the heck out of bewildered parents, telling them their baby will only live to be a teenager. They tell parents their babies are severely disabled, and they can never achieve anything. But EXPERTS can be wrong and OFTEN ARE! Each child is an individual, and may just need more time to develop than what is considered to be "normal".

I can speak directly from experience of one instance, when I was in 4th or 5th grade; I wanted to learn to play the piano, And when my mother mentioned this to the OT (occupational therapist) the OT said; "Oh, don't waste your money, she won't be able to do it". My mom bristled and said, "Well, Lisa wants to try, so that's what we will do!" So, over the summer, I took lessons, and practiced a lot. My teacher was a woman who had taught blind people to play by having them put their hands on top of hers, to learn how it should feel and look. It worked with me as well, and by the time school began in September, that OT had to eat her words! I was now able to move eight fingers independently and rapidly learned to type on an old IBM using most of my fingers. These days, I use fewer fingers for greater speed and accuracy.

It was the same when I wanted to take horseback riding lessons. This was back in the 60s, before it was widely known that horse riding could improve a child's sense of balance, self-confidence and improve the gait of kids with cerebral palsy. I just knew I loved horses. I had every book I could get my hands on; I loved Black Beauty, I loved all the other stories too. One day the horse I rode got hungry, and broke from a trot, which I was just beginning to learn, into a gallop! I hung on for dear life, as Betsy made her way back to the stables where she launched into her feed bag. My instructor was not far behind. My rear end hurt for a few days after, but by the next Sunday I was ready to go again.

I was also interested in Girl Scouts, because my mom was a life-long scout, and my sister was in a troop. I became a Brownie, and my mom and several other moms were co-leaders. I had a pretty bad scissors gait, and my speech was very poor, but that never stopped me from fully participating in my girl scout troop. I became a girl scoot several years later, and I eventually passed my older sister in the number of badges I earned. I earned fifteen plus the sign of the arrow and sign of the star. There were only two that they had to modify for me; Hiking and Swimming. Instead of doing a full hike, I walked 1/4 of the way. For Swimming, I only had to do two full lengths in a pool with just my mom and Pat Burch my wonderful Irish leader.

Pat knew I wanted to go roller skating, so one day, she came over and put me in all kinds of pillows, and she put skates on me and helped me skate the whole way around my neighborhood. I was elated! I didn't care that I was wrapped in pillows, I was having fun!

BUT there was a time, that made me so mad I cried for days... It was halloween and the troop was going to go to a haunted house, and the people there wouldn't let me go because they were afraid I'd fall and hurt myself. I think that was the first time I actually experienced closed doors, or discrimination by adults first-hand. I wailed for days. My mom understood why I was crying, but hated it and wanted me to stop. She had endured my screams when I was a very sick infant for the first 6 or 7 months of my life.

Despite being a girl scout, I always felt lonely because I was bused to a school for kids with disabilities, so I did not interact very much with the girls in my troop outside of scouts, with the exception of a little girl named Dodie. She was just a wee little thing, yet she tried on my leg braces several times, which were way big on her. I wonder now, what she told her family of me... I know my mom tried to keep me busy, but I knew the other scouts were having birthday parties to which I was mostly not invited to. My mom tried to encourage other girls at my school to become scouts. I remember her bringing me with her to talk to Elaine's mom. They lived in a poor section of Los Angeles and were Catholic; I recall seeing Jesus figures all over their walls. Anyway, Elaine's family wasn't interested.