A few years ago we did a Cerebral Palsy101 for those reading our blog. It explained in very basic terms what Cerebral Palsy is. This is a refresher course!
What is Cerebral Palsy?
Cerebral Palsy is a muscle and brain disorder. It affects things like his movement, and coordination and even sometimes the ability to do simple tasks, like write his name, run, jump etc are impaired.
What type of Cerebral Palsy does Tyler have?
Tyler has Spastic quadriplegia cerebral palsy. That means that it effects every limb of his body. Ty’s legs are super stiff and his arms don’t rotate correctly. He can’t touch his shoulders and he has a hard time writing. The legs stuff is pretty apparent.
Is there a cure?
There is no cure. The only way to cure it, is to stop brain damage before or right after birth. However, there are some things that can help make the rate lower. One of them is giving the babies their full 9 months. There are some other things that we will discuss later in the month. But NO there is no cure.
What is life like for Tyler?
Tyler has a great and full life. He isn’t really at a point where he is WELL aware that he is different but he knows that he is a little different. He loves to have pretend birthday parties. He loves to bowl, he LOVES to ride his bike and the park is on his list pretty much every day. He goes to school. He is in first grade. He loves his class. He is in a cross category class and does the typical curriculum and he does other stuff with a typical class. We LOVE his school and his school teacher.
What activities of daily living does Tyler do on his own?
None! That is right. Activities of daily living include showering/bathing, getting dressed, combing your hair and brushing your teeth. Ty can’t do any of those things without assistance. He also can’t feel that he has to use the restroom so he has accidents all the time. He still wears diapers or pull ups to help with that. Other wise, it is me. His mom! That gets the chance to serve him, every single day.
What can he not do ?
There are only a few things that we KNOW he will never do. He will never play sports unless adapted for special needs, He won’t ever be able to drive and you never know how well he will make it out of childhood, because he rides his bike in the street!
Basically we try to not limit him in what he can and can’t do. As long as he is polite and follows directions he can do whatever he wants~
If you have any questions, We would be happy to answer them for you!
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