Pigs

Thank God for conductive education because, without it,this morning's preparations for school would have been impossible. Why? My back, of course! That little muscle attacked me again; the one about kidney level. It tweaks, tightens, and tries to lay me out on the floor for the day. Roxy almost didn't go to work because I was so pathetically bound up.

ANYWAY, some good, hard, back-pain drugs and a few stretches later; I was mobile enough to at least get up and move around. But then there's Blue; waiting for me to help him get up, hit the bathroom, be fed, dressed, loaded into the van and make the trip to school some 14 km distant. That seemed a daunting task today; but it went off well, only because Blue is accustomed to using his legs, sitting and standing with a modicum of assistance, and carrying his own weight in walking.

I gladly admit that these skills would have never occurred as something to be taken for granted if he & I hadn't started learning it in 2000. That only happened because a splendid Hungarian woman, Gyongyi Schweigert, moved to Kelowna, B.C. when she did. We couldn't have afforded to bring my son to a CE program somewhere else. The proximity of the conductor, that simple thing we know as "availability" was the only requirement.

I sadly admit that not one of Blue's B.C. professionals have suggested, even once in 12 years, that the kid should actually learn to walk. Keep that bar nice and low, otherwise some kid with CP is going to trip over it.

ONE RESIDENT CONDUCTOR in the Lower Mainland (the suburban Vancouver area) will do amazing things. This I know. We just need one here to live, work, and build on what a handful of families have garnered from temporary programs.

My boy hasn't been enrolled in a formal CE program since 2003; but the time we had with a conductor up to that point was all we needed to lay out a useful foundation. Here it is, seven years later, saving my bacon. Well, technically, Blue saved my bacon; because he was able to help himself. Of course, that would be Canadian bacon; but I'm sure pigs are pigs the world round.