Cerebral Palsy is a brain injury that occurs either during pregnancy or shortly after birth. There are many causes: problems during pregnancy, infection, brain bleeds, traumatic birth, and as in Atti’s case, oxygen deprivation. Whatever the cause, the damage inflicted to the brain is in the area that governs motor skills.
The brain works like a big electrical circuit board. Messages go from the brain through a system of neurons, like electricity through wires, until it reaches the muscle and tells it to move. When the brain is damaged in this area, it’s like the wires are cut and there’s a blockage in between them.
Because the brain is a marvel, as these kids grow they can often develop new pathways. So to continue our analogy, it’s like the wire can snake around the blockage and repair itself. But this requires more work than I can find words to describe, a staff of dedicated therapists, constant stimulation, a very determined kid, just the right kind of injury, and a whole lot of luck.
I give thanks every day that so far, I have all that.
Atti loves his therapists. He loves physical therapy. He wants to move so much. He talks like crazy and I can usually tell what he means.
He is the happiest little kid. Tenderhearted and affectionate. He loves animals and music, I think he’s going to grow up to be my little poet. When we go horseback riding he spends half the time patting the horse on her fuzzy rump. He’ll crawl over to me and press his forehead against my lips for a kiss, and then lift it up and drop it back over and over and over again, making me give him kiss after kiss after kiss.
He is the light of my life.
Cerebral Palsy makes life complicated, but it’s no tragedy.
For more information, check out the CDC’s site.