Raising a Stroke Survivor

During these two weeks of Constraint Induced Therapy I've learned many things about myself, about my son, and about life in general.

One lesson I learned is that one of the most important things we can do in life is to overcome our human tendency to take the path that seems the easiest at the time. The easiest path for both Cope and I would be to not do CI at all. He has one good hand, he could simply choose to not use the other one. He wishes I would let him do that. The problem is I see that life will be easier later in life with the use of both hands. Although that means more work now, that will save him trouble later. In most peoples life they have something like that. Something that were they to work harder now, would make life easier later.

With Constraint Therapy I've learned two important things: 1) The constraint is the most important aspect. There are many things about Constraint Therapy that are just like normal therapy. They play in much the same ways. There are slight differences, like they don't care about his feet at all, or what he is doing developmentally. All they care about is that affected hand. They do a rating scale to determine a starting place, and then at the end of the two weeks the goal is that he has moved up on that rating scale. 2) It really depends on the child what they will do. With Cope his range of motion is very good and muscle tone is fairly good as well. He simply has learned that he doesn't need to use that hand, so he doesn't. A practice he has taught himself is having to be changed.

That is true in all our lives. Each of us have bad habits that are hard to break. Our brain tells us it would be easier to just keep on living as we are rather then improve. In some ways it would be, but once we have use of our affected hand, once those bad habits are no longer holding us back, we can see why the work was so important.

Raising a stroke survivor has been equally the best and worst experience of my life. Although I would never wish a stroke on anyone's child, I am so greatful for my son and the lessons I have learned on our journey. I've learned to understand and love those with medical and mental issues more then I use to. I've learned to appreciate and empathize with their parents. I've learned that to have a child, no matter how damaged their brain or other parts of their body may be, is an amazing gift. I am so blessed to have my son. He is healthy and now we just have improvement to look forward to. One day at a time is still one day with him. One day to love, one day to laugh, and one day to grow together.