A teen's tips on raising great kids

By Abdi HassanHi! My name is Abdi! I am 18. I have a disability called cerebral palsy. This disability causes my muscles to stiffen up and gives me back pain, which is why I have a power wheelchair to assist me wherever I want to go.I’m going into my fifth year of high school to upgrade some of my courses like English. I really enjoy writing stories and news articles. I love to exercise in school and have a great time hanging out with my friends.Here...

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The 'unwelcome' mat

By Steve Kean I love Toronto, I really do. But sometimes I just don’t feel the love in return. A few weeks ago was one of them. I was at St. Lawrence Market getting supplies for dinner with my wife and a friend when my favourite cheese guy told us that he was leaving to manage a new restaurant in the neighbourhood. But the new hot-spot-in-the-making—in a historic building—won't be wheelchair accessible, he said, so I won't be able to check...

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'In the absence of care, medicine is dehumanizing'

By Louise Kinross Medicine is made up of two things: treatment and care. But patients and clinicians alike are suffering from a devaluing of care in the health system, says Kristen Slesar, a psychotherapist who works with trauma survivors. Slesar, who supports child witnesses at the Bronx District Attorney's Office, was speaking at a three-day narrative medicine workshop at Columbia University in New York. “Treatment is...

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Why I chose a 'special' school for my child

By Anchel Krishna Having a child means making lots of decisions. When you have a child with special needs, you make decisions on top of decisions. Last year, as my husband and I prepared for our daughter, Syona, to enter junior kindergarten we had a big decision to make: Enrol Syona at our local school or in a specialized three-year program that incorporated the standard curriculum with additional supports and therapies. The local school meant...

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Stories are 'clearings' that unite patient, clinician

By Louise Kinross In a Buenos Aires hospital, pediatricians carry an unlikely medical tool: a transparent umbrella decorated with strips of multi-coloured chiffon that sway, forming curtains.  When doctors invite a child into this intimate space, “this little colourful cave, children will tell them things in the umbrella that they wouldn't tell them otherwise,” said Dr. Rita Charon, founder of the graduate program in Narrative Medicine...

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Help us BLOOM

Please check out the fall issue of BLOOM. I'm sharing my editorial below, which is about an amazing opportunity to donate to BLOOM and see your contribution matched by the Coriat family, doubling the impact. Please take a moment to read and share widely. Thanks! LouiseBLOOM is the voice of parents raising children with disabilities—a voice that’s missing in many mainstream parenting forums.Now Canadian parents David and Lynn Coriat challenge...

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Hope that high-fat diet will tame a little girl's seizures

By Stephanie Ly It was a sunny and glorious Muskoka morning when our daughter, Pepper, had her first seizure. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen a seizure, but it was alarming to watch my nine-month, otherwise perfectly healthy baby girl, drop and seize. We called 911 and had her taken to the nearest hospital. Since it was her first seizure, she was otherwise healthy and her vital signs all checked out as normal, we were sent home without...

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Joy and grief: The dance

By D. Christine Brown Three years ago today our son Lucas’s high fever and subsequent seizures sent us by ambulance to hospital where he suffered severe brain inflammation. Thankfully he survived and is recovering nicely, albeit with brain injury that includes significant developmental delay and autism. Every single day I juggle the intense feelings of joy I have with my son with immeasurable grief and resistance to the difficult reality...

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Furniture that fits every child

By Megan JonesDespite the many sights in New York, it was children’s furniture that stopped Jason Nolan in his tracks. While walking the city during a trip in 2008, the Toronto-based early childhood studies professor and some friends came across a striking Manhattan storefront. Behind the large window was a collection of kids’ furniture. Each piece was brightly coloured, each was different and individual. The group instinctively stopped and...

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'This is a love story'

By Louise KinrossThe Fall: A Father’s Memoir in 424 Steps is a book that will intrigue, delight and surprise you. Written by Brazilian author Diogo Mainardi, it’s made up of 424 short sections of text and images. Each marks a step his son Tito takes, with great difficulty, to reach a hospital in Venice where a medical error during his birth caused his cerebral palsy. As they walk, Diogo links Tito’s disability to great architecture, literature,...

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