I’ll never forget the first time I saw this symbol on the wall in the lobby of an orthopedic clinic. Next to the picture of a crooked tree tethered to a board were the words, “Orthopedics, to straighten the child.” My mom, sitting next to me said, “Jenny, that’s you!”
Tree of Andry, Sculpted by Douglas Kiburz, MD
Image from http://www.orthopaediclist.com/articles.asp?ArticleID=26
While most babies learn to walk between 9 and 18 months, I learned to “walk” at age two. Both of my feet turned inward and I was always up on my tiptoes. My left foot dragged upside down behind my right. I often had to keep my hands in the air so I could simply balance, but I fell often. Something had to be done.
How I used to walk
Thankfully, my family didn’t have to look any farther than Gillette Children’s Hospital in St. Paul, MN. Their Website states that “In 1987, Gillette opened their Center for Gait and Motion Laboratory and at the time, was the only one available in the upper Midwest." In November of that year, I became a patient.
At Gillette's Gait and Motion Laboratory
November, 1987
Prior to the development of this diagnostic technology, a surgeon would operate on a child, cast, and observe a child post recovery, sometimes operating multiple times before gaining the desired result. While multiple surgeries are still often necessary for children with CP, the Gait and Motion Laboratory helps to provide accurate diagnostic information limiting the amount of necessary procedures a child must endure because the information helps to customize surgeries in order to address each child’s unique gait.
Waiting in my PJs to enter the operating room at Gillette
October 1988
Following my visit at the Gait Lab, Dr. Steven E. Koop performed a surgery where my both of femurs were severed and rotated out. My tendons were also lengthened so my feet would stay on the ground. I was in a body cast for six months while I recovered. Months of physical therapy followed and I now walk with only a slight limp. Amazing! The care I received at Gillette changed my life because it enabled me to become independent for a lifetime.
In my cast during Halloween
Learning to walk again during a physical therapy session at Gillette
I am grateful for the work that the professionals at Gillette Children’s Hospital continue to provide for children with cerebral palsy and other disabilities. That’s why I am asking for you to consider participating in the Dairy Queen Miracle Treat Day today, August 11, 2011.
Participating in Miracle Treat Day is simple. Go to a participating DQ today and purchase a blizzard. A dollar from each Blizzard sold will be donated to a Children’s Miracle Network Hospital. In MN, some of the proceeds will directly benefit Gillette and ultimately kids with CP.
Image Source: klax-tv.com
You can find a participating Dairy Queen location on the Miracle Treat Day Website. You can also peruse all the various blizzard flavors via DQ’s Website. The blizzard for the month of August is Nutter Butter with peanut butter crème filling. I tried a mini blizzard on Tuesday; if you love those peanut shaped cookies, that one’s for you! In years past, DQ has further shown their generosity to participants on Miracle Treat Day by giving coupons to their customers. Take a picture of yourself and your blizzard and I will post it on my blog. (Note: If you want to send a picture,
you can send it to jenniferchristinehill@gmail.com.
Include your name, blizzard flavor, and DQ location if you would
like and I will post that too. )
Every year I teach third graders how to use the World Almanac for Kids. They love it! It’s filled with pictures of popular movies, weird trivia, sports facts, and more! One day while flipping through the pages, I came across a list of lesser known holidays. Do a Google search, and you will be amazed at what you find! It would seem that every day of the year has been tagged with a theme. According to some sources, Sunday, August 7th, will be Friendship Day. Wikipedia claims that Friendship Day is a Hallmark Holiday. Still another site claims that the holiday has been moved by order of the United Nations to today, July 30th. At any rate, I’d like to take this opportunity to write a tribute to my friend Aaron Kurrell. We have known each other for at least eight years and we both have cerebral palsy.
Aaron and I first met while eating cafeteria food in the dining hall at St. Cloud State University. Introduced by mutual friends, Aaron and I quickly connected with each other because we both were studying to become educators. At the time, Aaron was pursuing a career path to become an English teacher, and I had dreams of becoming a school library media specialist. Our conversations often centered on our coursework, classmates, and shared perceptions of our professors, not our mutual disability.
I’m usually uneasy at the suggestion that I would really “hit it off” with another person because we both have a disability. I often view having cerebral palsy as a physical characteristic, much like the fact that I have brown hair. I’m not automatically friends with brown-haired people any more than I am automatically friends with people who have CP, but befriending Aaron has been different. We became friends in spite of our common gait, but over the years I have come to appreciate how valuable it is to have someone in my life who personally understands the experience of living with CP. Today I would like to honor Aaron by sharing three things I have learned from him through our friendship.
The first thing I have gleaned from Aaron is a model of of self-confidence. When we met in college, I was struck by the fact that Aaron was so comfortable in the “skin he was in.” At the time, I was quite ashamed of the fact I had CP, and felt I was “above” the need for help or admitting that I had limitations. By stark contrast, Aaron neither wore his disability like a badge of entitlement nor did he walk around defeated by his limitations. Aaron simply accepted the fact that he had cerebral palsy. Without shame or pride, Aaron graciously accepted help when he needed it, and accomplished tasks independently when he didn’t. This attitude inspired me and ultimately helped me to become more accepting of myself.
Another thing I have learned from Aaron is that sometimes it is helpful to talk to another person with CP when interpreting awkward social situations. I’ll never forget the night I was at a party where someone watched me walk across the room and then exclaimed, “What are you, limping!?” Not sure what to do, I stammered, “I have cerebral palsy.” He replied, “I’m sorry.” I responded, “That’s okay, I have a very mild case, so a lot of people think I’ve been in a car accident or had an injury. It’s an honest mistake.”
“No, I’m sorry you have that.”
Suddenly, I was floored and furious. No one had ever offered me pity in my life! As soon as I got home, I called Aaron and lamented about the evening’s events. It was comforting to talk to someone who truly understood my dilemma. Over the years, Aaron and I have talked about many things including our shared startle reflexes, hatred of risers, long periods of standing, and stairs without railings. We both can’t keep our eyes open in photographs and struggle to walk while carrying items in our hands. We’ve both had public and private encounters with people who assume the need to pray for us for healing from cerebral palsy without asking our permission, and both park in “rock star” parking spaces. Aaron has more guts than I do when it comes to online dating—he doesn’t tell his dates that he has CP until he meets them, I like to tell them ahead of time so they’re not surprised. (This may be a gender difference; I’d love to hear reader’s opinions!) These sound like quirky little nuances, and they are, but when I talk to Aaron about the little things that makes us different, it makes me feel normal.
Finally, Aaron has taught me patience. One difference between Aaron and me is that Aaron walks with crutches. This is insignificant except that when we walk together we have to move slowly so we don’t trip each other. I’ve also noticed that transitioning from sitting to standing positions takes a little more time with crutches; it’s okay not to rush when getting out of a car or standing to leave church.
In his book The Life You’ve Always Wanted John Ortberg was advised that if you want to be a spiritually healthy person, “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life” (p. 76). He even developed an evaluation tool to determine if you have what he calls, “Hurry Sickness.” You can print out a questionnaire in PDF format. I tend to be someone who rushes through life whenever I can, oblivious to the world around me. When I’m with Aaron, I remember to appreciate the moment, take a deep breath, and observe my surroundings. Slowing down helps me to notice people, listen carefully, and be more fully aware and present. Ultimately, Aaron has helped me to become a better friend. Happy Friendship Day, Aaron. I’m blessed to know you!
References
Ortberg, J. (2002). The life you’ve always wanted. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
Graduation Day from SCSU with my parents, Chris and Jeff Hill.
July 18, 2011
Tomorrow will be Tuesday July 19, 2011. Tomorrow's date may have little significance for you as a reader, but as for me, I believe that July 19, 2011 may turn out to be a landmark day in my life. You see tomorrow morning I will begin pursuing my doctorate degree at Bethel University in Education Administration.
When I think about the journey ahead a small part of me wonders if pursuing this degree might not be the smartest move I've ever made. There's a $300 monthly student loan bill that I will pay for the next decade upon finishing the program. I've been promised 12-15 hours per week of homework and am predicting that my free time and social life will evaporate as a result.
I suspect that at times I will be discouraged. Even though I absolutely love school and my endorphins seem to fire at the mere thought of studying, I am sure that pursuing this degree will not be a pleasant experience all of the time. In her wonderful book Expecting Adam, Harvard graduate Martha Beck articulates her feelings about pursuing her doctorate in such an accurate way:
“You might assume...[that] I found Harvard pleasant. Oh, how wrong you would be. Actually, I don't know if I ever met anyone at Harvard who found it pleasant. It seems to me (although I may well be projecting) that all the people there scurry anxiously from one achievement to another, casting wary glances over their shoulders, never quite sure that they've managed to throw failure off their scent. To me, being a student there was heady, exciting, even thrilling, but these sensations came laced with heavy doses of fear and misery. It was like having lunch with a brilliant, learned, witty celebrity who liked to lean across the table at unpredictable intervals and slap me in the mouth—hard. Was it interesting? Very. Stimulating? In more ways than one. Pleasant? I don't think so.”
What I have found pleasant was the excuse to purchase a new MacBook Pro and finally have high-speed internet installed at my house. My old laptop was purchased in 2002 and has a floppy disk drive, if you can believe that! When I purchased that computer, wireless Internet access wasn't widely used and no one had ever heard of Facebook. It feels good to have new technology at my fingertips!
What I have also found pleasant is the thought of how many doors this opportunity will open for me. I'll be able to increase my earning potential, meet a new cohort of people, and someday pursue career positions as a K-12 principal or make the leap into the world of higher education. I can't wait to crack open a book, engage in a lively debate, and write a research paper!
It's the sheer anticipation of this “heady, exciting, thrilling” experience that has lead me to reflect on how thankful I am to be moving in this direction of pursuing a doctoral degree. I'm thankful that I was raised in a family that values education. I'm also thankful for numerous people in my college career who frequently encouraged me to pursue a doctorate. I'm ultimately thankful that I found a program that fits my needs and I'm even thankful for the student loans that are making this journey financially possible!
First Day of Kindergarten, 1989. I'm looking up to my older brother Jeremiah who was starting 3rd Grade.
Today has given me pause to reflect and discover that I thankful that I wasn't born a generation earlier, or this opportunity may never have happened. It sounds inconceivable in 2011, but the reality is that had I started kindergarten in 1969, instead of 1989, I may not have had access to the public school system because I am a person with a disability.
Martha Minow, Harvard law professor, published a thought-provoking book last year called In Brown's Wake discussing how the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education continues to impact education today. Minow (2010) writes, “Compulsory education laws in the United States for many years exempted students with mental and physical disabilities, and many such schools excluded students or assigned them to separate institutions well into the 1970s” (p. 69). In 1975, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (now known as Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, better known as IDEA) mandated that all public schools educate students with disabilities. In 1990, the language of this act was updated to include help for people with disabilities who wished to transition from high school to college. (See a complete special education history timeline).
Granted, I only have mild cerebral palsy, so the accommodations I have needed over the years have been limited. An Individual Education Plan (IEP) gave me access to adaptive education teachers who helped me stretch my hamstrings a few times a week during study hall. I worked with these professionals from kindergarten all the way through HS! It's challenging to keep a straight A student on an IEP, so eventually I transitioned to a 504 plan in HS so that my locker could be centrally located in the building and I could keep an extra set of text books at home so I didn't have to worry about carrying them while maintaing my balance.
While in college, I was able to receive much needed accommodations including extended time on tests in a quiet environment where I could concentrate, and priority registration so that my schedule allowed me to get across campus with as much time as I needed.
These are small things, but so often it is the little things that count.
Graduating on May 14, 2006 from SCSU was the best day of my life. My G.P.A. started with a 4, and my career ended with a speech. (Need some inspiration? My speech is posted above.) My professors gathered around me with my family in a private lunch reception prior to the ceremony to share their sentiments and wish me well. After graduating, I continued on to earn my master's degree before entering the field of education. It was the family tradition (I am a third-generation educator and one of over 10 family members who teach) and the love of learning that inspired me to become an educator, but it is the students I have met that will keep me in the field. They truly have expanded my capacity to love!
I look forward to the years ahead toward becoming Dr. Hill.
Author's note: I found some follow up videos that you may be interested in looking at:
Team Hoyt (Related post: Team Hoyt, June 19th) sent me a recent video of an interview conducted by "HBO Real Sports With Bryan Gumbel" Watch the interview below: I also found a young man with cerebral palsy named Gregg Mozgala, who certainly has the courage to dance. Enjoy! (Related post: The Courage to Dance, June 6, 2011).
