 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
KaDoKits =^o.o^= Dottie's Page
| Welcome to Dottie's Page! This is mom authoring most of the content here. Dottie has her own page "Dottie's Diary", where she shares her thoughts for you all. I wanted to dedicate a special section on our site to Dottie, who now goes by her more formal name, Dorothy. Dottie is a very unique, special, and precious person and I would like to invite you to learn more about her. There are three things Dottie has always loved her entire life: animals (mostly cats, dogs & horses), babies (dollies when she was little & real ones now that she's a teen), and chocolate!! Dottie helps me with the cats, mostly with socializing and keeping an eye on things. She helps with feeding & some grooming, but never touches a litter box! (I wonder why?) Dottie has been present for every birth and is getting quite good at knowing what to do. We both share a love for Pugs and plan on adding a pair to our household someday. She has ridden horses and loves the exercise. Dottie loves babies so much that she wants to be a pediatric or delivery nurse. She loves to watch the birthing shows on Discovery Channel and TLC. She can watch a c-section with no problem. Now that Dottie is a teen, the Barbies have been put away and a stereo sits on her dresser. She loves music and likes Contemporary Christian and pop & rock songs. Her brother, Marc "hooks her up" with the music. Like most girls her age, she likes clothes and jewelry and the mall. She has a great sense of humor and gets jokes most people don't pick up on. Dottie is active in our church's youth group and attends the winter and summer camps there. She helps me out in the preschool Sunday School class and sneaks over to the nursery every chance she gets to play with the new babies. Dottie has a disability called Cerebral Palsy. Before she was born, in the beginning of the third trimester, she had a stroke. This caused damage to the left side of her brain leaving the right side of her body partially paralyzed and taking from her the ability to speak. Dottie walks with a limp since her right leg doesn't work very well. Her right arm and hand are not able to do much work and she often slouches a little on her right side. She often cannot control the movement in that right arm, so look out! We call it her "Renegade Arm" because it sometimes swings out and hits people without warning! Dottie gets tired easily so she now has a power wheelchair she uses to get around school and anywhere else where we might have a lot of walking. Dottie's oral muscles (her mouth, tongue & throat) do not work very efficiently. She has some difficulty eating and swallowing. This makes it hard for her to eat and she is not always neat at the table. She also cannot control her saliva and it often drips from her mouth. She cannot feel it when her chin is wet and needs reminders sometimes to keep her face wiped clean. The neat thing about Dottie's communication is that she uses sign language to "talk" to people. She can hear fine and understands everything that is said to her. Dottie has interpreters at school who help her talk to her teachers and classmates. She also can write notes and has a tablet lapbook computer with tons of neat software programs on it to help her with her school work. Dottie recently got a TTY machine, which is a special typewriter telephone for communication impaired people (deaf, hearing impaired, speech impaired, mobility impaired). Now she can enjoy phone conversations with her friends without needing me or her brother to translate. One thing I would like you to take away from this... when you meet a person with a disability, always think about the person first, not the disability. Every person is a multifaceted human being and our disabilities, or inabilities, do not define us. We are not defined by our crutches, braces, splints, wheelchairs, walkers, prosthetics,hearing aides, or thick glasses. We are defined by our interests and the activities of our lives. Those of us who are not accustomed to being around people with disabilities can often feel uncomfortable. We feel afraid to ask questions because we do not want to offend the person. Most people with disabilities are fully aware of this. They see it in the prolonged stares. Please, when you meet someone with a disability, smile, wave, say hello. Talk to the person as you would to an able-bodied person of the same age. Do not talk down to them, or talk to them as a baby or small child if they are not that age. If you are curious about the person's disability, strike up a conversation with them. They just might tell you themselves. Ask. What is your disability? Be an example to your children so they learn to smile and say hello instead of staring. Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope it gives you a little insight into who Dottie is. |
