A Deaf Mom Shares Her World » 2007

Connected to One Another

At the Hands & Voices Leadership Conference, we joined in on an icebreaker activity that consisted of tossing a huge ball of colorful yarn around the room. Once you placed your finger on your share of the yarn, you had to share a bit about yourself or your deaf/hard of hearing child. If you landed on blue–you shared a recent success–yellow, a phobia–green, a struggle you encountered, and so on.

As I was reflecting about the conference, I was thinking about all the wonderful people I’ve been blessed to encounter through the years via Hands & Voices. My own journey of raising three deaf and hard of hearing kids has had some twists and turns while dealing with their education and I’ve learned so much in four short years of being with Hands & Voices.

I wanted to share an article written by Holly Thomas-Mowery which was a presentation at the 2004 Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EDHI) conference in Washington, D.C.:

Honoring Each Family

I think article sums up beautifully the icebreaker activity–we’re all connected and we need each of us (parents, professionals, deaf and hard of hearing adults) so that every deaf and hard of hearing child can reach their fullest potential.

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Hands & Voices Leadership Conference

I spent four days at Peaceful Valley Ranch for the annual Hands & Voices board meeting and Leadership Conference. The photo above was taken from a bridge right outside the dining room. The area is incredibly rustic and simply beautiful.

Four full days of workshops and connecting with parents, professionals, deaf and hard of hearing adults from all over left me quite exhausted, yet uplifted. Just four years ago, Hands & Voices had only three chapters. Today, 36 states are involved and committed to “What works for your child is what makes the choice right.”

Every year, we show a short, but very powerful video, “The Time is Now,” which is a collection of individuals sharing a message: Now is the time to make changes for every deaf and hard of hearing child.

After the video, Leeanne Seaver, the executive director, asked each of us to stand up and give the names of the individuals that we are working together for.

One by one we stated them: “This is for Dane, Maddie, Sara, David, Lauren, Steven, Joshua, Danielle, Elizabeth…” and around the room we went until we were all standing together–

“And for every deaf and hard of hearing child in this world.”

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Muscle Spasms, Tendonitis or Whatever the Heck is Wrong

Last week, I was having some intermittent leg pain. I complained to the hubby and he tried to get me to go to the doctor. I decided to wait it out, because I’ve had various pains in the past that go away after some time.

On Friday night, after my son’s baseball game, we were heading to the van to go back to the in-law’s house and my leg started to really hurt. By the time we reached the van, I was limping.

A few hours later, the pain was pretty bad. My mother-in-law had some Darvocet left over from a dental visit. Neither of us is into medicine and we rarely have any in the house. “Give it to me,” I told her. The pain was intense at that point and I was ready to down a bottle of tequila.

I went to bed and tried to do some hypno-breathing to work through the pain. I figured it was a charley horse of some type and would subside soon.

It didn’t. The pain became worse, a sharp searing pain. I couldn’t bend to get out of bed. My leg was numb from the hip down to the knee and knotted in pain. I’m no wimp when it comes to pain– heck, I birthed my youngest kid at home and that pain was nothing like this. I crawled to the van and we headed off to the hospital.

Joe and I debated whether or not to get an interpreter. I was in so much pain and I figured if we asked for one, they would delay treatment until the interpreter arrived. So we decided not to. The staff at Palos hospital was really indifferent to providing pain relief. X-rays and an ultrasound ruled out thrombosis and clots. It took hours to be seen by a doctor, who gave me all of two minutes and proclaimed it a muscle spasm.

While in the bathroom, I tried to get up and fell to the floor. I was doubled over in so much pain and couldn’t get up. I hit the nurse call button and waited. And waited. And waited. No one came. I finally hollered out, “Can someone please help me!” and then the door opened. Several nurses helped me up.

I ended up with a shot, Vicodin, Motrin and Valium and was still in pain. “There’s nothing more we can do for you” they said as they gave me crutches and wheeled me out the door. On the way out, I tried to explain that I was extremely thirsty and quite dehydrated. Maybe an IV with fluids would help, I inquired? They rolled a finger over the veins in my hand and said, “No, you’re fine.”

So for two days, I took three different pills and didn’t get much relief.

At home, looking up “muscle spasms” I discovered that they can indeed be triggered by dehydration as well as low calcium and potassium levels. A follow up visit to my regular doctor had him guessing tendonitis and admitting that he really didn’t know what was wrong. He prescribed more powerful pain meds. My purse now looks like a hypochondriac’s collection of orange bottles.

I jokingly told my husband that I should have stuck to the idea of hitting the tequila instead.

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