through my eyes my life with cerebral palsythrough my eyes my life with cerebral palsy

friendship and belonging when you have a disability

lifeofthedifferentlyabled — Thu, 31 May 2012 04:00:00 +0000

Have you ever stopped to think why your friendship is strong why it makes you feel like you belong? As humans we all have a need that I feel is often over looked, the need to belong. When you are faced with something that makes you visibly different that sense of belonging. that need to belong that in my opinion is one of the hardest parts of having a visible, physical disability.
So, how do we make the disability secondary to the person. How do we help our children understand their peers and classmates that may have limitations different from their own? I don’t expect to have the answers, or claim that I do. I just hope that some of the issues surrounding social exclusion that I faced, whether perceived or otherwise can be avoided for someone in similar situations now. The goal of this blog is to educate but it is also my hope that if something I say can make someone’s life that much easier then I have succeeded The need for friendship and to belong is important for all so how do we over come this? I only speak from my experiences of life I have always had one close friendship often someone who was able bodied which helped with my sense of belonging despite my disability This was the reason that in high school I decided to make that documentary about my life with cerebral palsy a disability that I feel gave me a unique perspective of the social fabric that makes up ones sense of belonging and contributed to how I perceived my peers and therefore probably changed how I went about forming my friendships
This is the first part in a series about ways to create social inclusion for people with a disability because we all have a need for belonging and the ability to form friendship. I know that for me though my close friendship throughout life although the number of them may be considered small they were strong and many of them are still in my life today

Now for todays poll Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Technorati Tags: able bodied, Cerebral Palsy, classmates, Disability, friends, friendship, school, Social exclusion

with cerebral palsy having a blog is nice because you feel equal

lifeofthedifferentlyabled — Wed, 30 May 2012 04:00:00 +0000

I have only had a taste of what some of my peers with cerebral palsy live with. Needing help all the time must get challenging I don’t take my ability to feed myself, dress myself (for the most part) independently and all of the other things. Spasticity for some makes hand eye coordination and other fine motor issues.

As with my physical abilities and limitations the one reason I really love what I do as a blogger is it levels the playing field. Yes, I blog about my life with cerebral palsy and all the hurdles I go through to accomplish the same as my peers. But with blogging there is no real adaption sure I have software and techniques to make my life easier but ultimately the final product is the same and generally so is the method of input. Yes from time to time I use dragon or I use readily available text to speech software to make the editing process. By hearing my posts I can hear when I have made an error. Having the computer reread your post back to you seems to speed up the whole process. I love that blogging doesn’t care about one’s physical ability as long as you have a means of inputting into the computer you can blog.

Now for todays poll

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

As I said I have had a tasted of limited mobility. My life with cerebral palsy and dislocated hips meant that when I was younger I spent eight weeks in a body cast to correct said problem. This meant that I was one hundred percent dependant on a caregiver. Even for me as someone with cerebral palsy this was a little weird to be stuck flat on my back despite life with cerebral palsy I was used to needing help to do EVERYTHING. I enjoy my blog because it gives me a platform to share with others. Because of this blog people’s gratitude toward fills my inbox each morning so to all of you I have yet to personally thank for your kind words: thank you!

walk on the beach

lifeofthedifferentlyabled — Tue, 29 May 2012 04:00:47 +0000

Capistrano Beach Sunset (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Have you ever stopped to watch people walk along the beach at dusk? Okay now before you think I am writing the start of some cheesy romance novel, I assure you that this post has a point that is relevent to the topic of this blog.

My family and I on occasion would go to public beaches and spend the day swimming, people watching and eating ice cream. Last time I check to my knowledge most wheelchairs and sand don’t mesh well together leaving the wheelchair user sometimes set a part from other beach goers. I know I have mentioned my rickshaw before and I decided to publish this post now being that, this past week around here at least we had a heat wave. My muscles for one, love the heat. I felt like much of what was written on my blog here last winter talked about how much I hate winter for the annoyance and limitations that winter and sub-zero temperatures. I love summer and I thought that this post was a good fit for now as I don’t know about you but I am thinking about activities of warmer weather!

Now for todays Poll

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Technorati Tags: Disability, Home, Ice cream, People watching, sand, summer, sun, wheelchair

I am back

lifeofthedifferentlyabled — Mon, 28 May 2012 04:00:00 +0000

Hello I hope you all had a great week, I was away and thought I would have net and as it turned out I didn’t. So it was a nice break from routine but I am back in the swing of things.
I had a lot of time to think while away on some things about this blog and the direction of it and I hope you will continue to help be a part of the success I’ve created
I am just letting you know that this blog hasn’t been neglected

Now for the daily poll question

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Adaptive Musical Instruments

lifeofthedifferentlyabled — Mon, 21 May 2012 04:00:00 +0000

A komuz - one of the principal musical instruments of Kyrgyzstan. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Some years ago I was watching “moving on” a CBC program that was all things disability

One episode that comes to mind. it was an episode that showed a child playing music using a motion sensor and a tv screen that had coloured dots each dot either represented a note or an instrument and with some movement allows one to create music. Although I can no longer find information on that system it inspired this post.

Finding the joy of music despite physical limitations

In looking for information about the system mentioned above I came across a similar program in the form of an inspiration article that I thought was worth sharing

In case you missed it today’s poll is below

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Technorati Tags: art, Disability, Kyrgyzstan, limited movement, Music, Music and Film, Musical instrument, range of motion

cerebral palsy made my college classmates uncomfortable

lifeofthedifferentlyabled — Fri, 18 May 2012 04:00:00 +0000

Cerebral palsy makes me different. Different is a relative term here as many of my experiences were the same as my peers – I attended mainstream school and went to mainstream classes. But I was always keenly aware of the differences. When I was younger simple things like using the washroom meant that I had to wait for my educational assistant to become available and she only worked afternoons. Other academic differences for me was I was allowed in the later years the use of a calculator, early on they wouldn’t, the idea being I should be able to learn the multiplication tables: for the record I have some of them memorized but not all it just apparently doesn’t make sense to how my brain sees patterns. This being said, I am a human phone book. If I dial a number once it is committed to memory. Even numbers that for people that no longer have that number are still in my head along with their new one! I got to figure out where that delete button is!

Also the disability makes me invisible. I am not sure if people think that my cognition is impacted by the cerebral palsy but they take it upon themselves to often talk over my head to the person I am with. I will explain some examples of real life situations: when in college I went and did an additional certification in Microsoft office products at the training the receptionist talked over my head to my mom who was there acting as my ride home. I don’t know if I had a sign on my forehead that said yes I have a disability so feel free to treat me in a different way than you would others because clearly given my cerebral palsy I don’t a word you are saying to me.” Yet in order to do the tests I was there to do I had to attend mainstream school, college to be exact. Where did that woman learn it was an okay thing to treat me as different because of my disability? I went on to complete the tests and in September returned to complete my college education where the professor asked if anyone had gone and completed the optional testing I was the only one in my class that raised my hand the girl behind me turned to the girl beside her and said: “if Laura can do it, it must be easy!” Why do people see the fact that my disability makes me different and then because they clear don’t understand cerebral palsy choose to insult my intelligence? I must somehow magically have been smart enough to attend mainstream school despite my cerebral palsy. Do they somehow think cerebral palsy makes life easier? Life isn’t any easier or harder because of cerebral palsy the disability is all I know. I love that I had the opportunity to attend mainstream school

Technorati Tags: Cerebral Palsy, cerebral palsy child, childhood disability, Disability, school, understanding

New feature Polls

lifeofthedifferentlyabled — Fri, 18 May 2012 00:25:32 +0000

I am going to have a daily poll there is one up there now this one will stay until tuesday given the nature of the question and that it is a new feature that I am rolling out and I hope you will enjoy if you have questions you think I should include as a poll question let me know!

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Back on Track I hope

lifeofthedifferentlyabled — Thu, 17 May 2012 04:00:56 +0000

Crazy Hair photo shoot (Photo credit: J Jackson Photography)

I have had the best of intentions this week of maintaining my normal blogging schedule but things had gotten a little crazy.

I am here now hopefully returning to my normal schedule pending nothing else comes up. I know that you all don’t expect me to be a work horse to this blog but I expect it of myself. This isn’t the first blog I’ve started I dabbled in it years ago without success at all. The success came from doing this routinely and it is something that I thoroughly enjoy! Thanks to my loyal readers and new friends who found something of interest here.

You may be wondering why I chose that picture I feel it sums up how I was feeling these days trying to manage everything I have had going on!

Technorati Tags: crazy hair, feeling, overwhelmed

The Little blogger that could

lifeofthedifferentlyabled — Tue, 15 May 2012 04:00:00 +0000

I am sorry I didn’t update yesterday it was a busy weekend so I figured you guys wouldn’t mind if I missed a day.
Today I am reminded of the children’s story: “The Little Engine that Could” I am struggling to generate content that I believe dangerous. (According to my Dragon NaturallySpeaking blog content is dangerous!) I intended to write interesting but thought that this error was hilarious so I left it in for your entertainment! This is one of the joys of using voice recognition software! Sometimes a sneeze writes out a whole string of text that I would never think to put together but it adds to the entertainment value of the writing project I am doing at the time. Today, I wanted to take the time and ask what you needed and/or wanted to see more of or added to this blog. I am a one-woman operation, and the thing I find hardest about all of this is content generation and this is why I am asking you your help is greatly appreciated!

Technorati Tags: blog, dragon naturallyspeaking, facebook, idea generation, Speech recognition, Speech Technology

family life doesn’t stop because of life with cerebral palsy

lifeofthedifferentlyabled — Fri, 11 May 2012 04:00:00 +0000

Mother's Day card (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I decided to write this as a way to say happy Mother’s Day weekend all. Spend some time this weekend enjoying family life. Just because it’s Mother’s day weekend shouldn’t change how you interact in terms of family life but simply acts as a nice reminder. Happy Mother’s day everyone

Now on to the bulk of my post. By sharing some of the things I have faced in my life with cerebral palsy it is my hope to help the children youth and adults that are going through things that I have already overcome: be it finding creative ways of creating social inclusion or talking about things that I feel could make daily life a little easier, or by asking a question in hopes of finding a solution to a current challenge I face; I built this site as a gathering place and I feel like my efforts are finally paying off.

This wish to help has taken me offline too, with the trip to Ottawa that I made to speak to a high school, I still find myself in awe that anyone finds any of what I have to say here interesting but than again people accuse me of being too humble about it as well. I started this two and a half years ago and as I stated in last Friday’s post I didn’t tell my offline world right away – even without people from offline knowing about it at all for the first year I managed to grow my blog to reach 20,000 hits. It was then that I decided to buy the domain and it is now what you see before you. I celebrate my difference and frankly the commonalities of life with cerebral palsy. We are all different and the fact that I use a wheelchair and live life with cerebral palsy only gives me a different perspective. People seem to think that life with cerebral palsy is hard. For me I wouldn’t say it is overly hard, this is the only life I know, a life with cerebral palsy. I offer this blog to the world remembering that my blog only reflects the life of one person and the people who impact my life. I blog as a way to share with people my story. I chose to blog because I love to write, I wanted a way to find out what I found creative in my life.

It is my hope that the family that has someone in it living with cerebral palsy realizes that their family life doesn’t have to stop because of the limitations faced by the person with cerebral palsy. Activities you may have once done as a family may have to be changed or simply adapted or new ones found that all can enjoy regardless of ability, family life is about family.

Technorati Tags: Cerebral Palsy, family, Mother's Day, Ottawa