Grief: an unlikely friend

This post is dedicated to Erika at The Flight of our Hummingbird. When my son with disabilities was younger, I often felt a failure because I still grieved for him. Why did I feel sad, mad, guilty and anxious – when I adored my son and he brought me such delight? Here are some of the reasons. I couldn’t give him a clean slate in life. When I shared the joyous news of his arrival, I had to mention his suspected genetic condition, and worry...

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For the love of Annie

By Louise Kinross When Barb Farlow learned the baby she was carrying had Trisomy 13, her decision to continue the pregnancy "was immediate and innate, and in complete contrast to what I thought I might do," says the Toronto mother and engineer. She was told the syndrome was lethal, but through online support groups met families whose children were living with Trisomy 13. "It was very important to us that she not suffer unnecessarily, but we...

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Sweet dreams

I recently heard about a family with two children with disabilities. Dad sleeps with his son with autism in one room, and mom sleeps with the child with a physical disability in another room. Sleeping with a child past the time considered normal is part of life for some families of children with disabilities – for a number of medical, behavioural and developmental reasons – although it’s rarely talked about. Maybe your child has seizures or...

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The politics of funding

By Louise Kinross I was putting together the science roundup for the December issue of BLOOM magazine and couldn’t help noticing that six of eight recently published research studies about childhood disability focused on autism. Given autism affects one in every 150 children, it wasn’t surprising that a large chunk of research dollars would be invested in treating this disorder. But I wondered whether funding to develop treatments for, or improve...

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