The player

There is a tall, gangly teen on the basketball court outside my window.He carries his right forearm up, his arm bent at a 90-degree angle against his body, his hand partially fisted. Sometimes that hand flaps.His whole right side is stiff, it doesn’t move the way his left side does.He bounces the ball with his left hand, shoots with the strength of his left arm and hand alone.Sometimes after sinking a hoop he claps jubilantly.He keeps shooting....

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The trove of other mothers

Sandra Stein’s life was upended when her healthy toddler fell ill with an autoimmune encephalitis, a condition in which the immune system attacks the brain, and was hospitalized for 15 months. In this poem, Sandra invokes and honours the many other mothers she has met in hospitals and in cyberspace who every day are caring for children with complex medical needs. The trove of other mothers By Sandra Joy SteinI.Cradling her sonAs his body thrashedLegs...

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Let's play 20 questions

By Cheryl Peters Last week with my daughter Jillian at my side a store clerk asked: "Can I ask what's wrong with her?" Seems like an honest question, right? When you're raising a child with a disability, you'd be surprised at the questions that are lobbed in your direction. Normally they're innocent, but whenever we go out as a family, we're regularly asked a barrage of questions. My daughter Jillian is five-and-a-half years old...

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They are us

Last year I heard Dr. Paul Browde speak about how marginalized people are often reduced to one story, one stereotype, one dimension. Browde is a psychiatrist and assistant clinical professor at the New York University. He's also HIV-positive. Decades ago, as a newly qualified psychiatrist on an AIDS hospital unit, he remained silent in a meeting when a doctor referred to patients as SHPOS: "subhuman pieces of shit." It...

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Where everybody knows your name

By Louise Kinross Ben's done an amazing co-op program at Variety Village this year. He works at the club two to three days a week, cleaning equipment in the cardio room, counting inventory and helping members get set up on machines.   Anyone who's been to Variety Village knows it's an exceptional place. There's a sense that everyone belongs: young and old, those who walk and those who wheel,...

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'Why do you love Jacob more than us?'

The Boy Who Can is a story about my friend Marcy White’s perseverance, creativity and courage in the face of her son Jacob’s life-threatening genetic disorder. The book begins with this “Letter to my Daughters,” Marcy’s twin daughters Sierra and Jamie (all above) who are not affected. It describes the natural hurt siblings can feel when so much of their parent’s time is taken up attending to the child with disability. An important message...

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Chronic pain on campus: 'It's a silent, daily battle'

By Louise Kinross Judy Sookehan Woo is a part-time student studying sociology, linguistics and women’s studies at a university in Western Canada. Judy has fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. Fibromyalgia causes constant musculoskeletal pain and problems with sleep, fatigue, memory and mood. “If someone comes up and gives me a hug, it hurts,” Judy says. “Every day is unpredictable.” Chronic fatigue is a condition where the person feels exhausted...

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A children's rehab doc says goodbye at age 18

In children's rehab, unlike in acute-care, kids and families develop long-term relationships with clinicians. Dr. Golda Milo-Manson, a developmental pediatrician at Holland Bloorview, talks about what it's like to work with a child from the toddler years through age 18, and the emotions she experiences when she has to say goodbye. Thanks Golda! ...

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Parents at centre of online training to bring Zoey Faith home

By Louise Kinross Home. It’s Thunder Bay, and it’s where Amanda Mintenko has always wanted to care for her 15-month-old daughter Zoey Faith—along with brother Liam, 2, and Dad Mathew. But Zoey Faith was born with spina bifida, paralysis of her vocal chords and apnea, so she requires a breathing tube attached to a surgical opening in her neck to keep her airway open. “When she gets anxious her vocal chords close, so she would suffocate,”...

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'I loved my grief because that was my brother'

By Louise KinrossFamily Life by Akhil Sharma is a semi-autobiographical novel about a family’s journey to two new worlds.In 1978 the Mishra family from Delhi, India moves to New York, a place that’s fairy-tale like to the Mishra boys with its hot-water taps, elevators and wall-to-wall carpeting. Then, just as the older son, Birju, is accepted into a prestigious school, the family is upended by a catastrophic accident: Birju...

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'Disability was home:' From big sister to anthropologist

By Liz Lewis There's an old adage among anthropologists that you have to spend time in another culture to truly understand your own. As an undergraduate researcher in Ghana, I knew I'd encounter different practices and beliefs about disability, and see firsthand the struggles of people who lacked basic resources. I remember vividly the first time I saw adults with physical disabilities crawling on sidewalks, flip-flop sandals positioned carefully...

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