a love letter to the one i work to forget

Last week we ran a poem called thoughts that live in the hole of my brain by 17-year-old Lexin Zhang. “When I was young, I thought about my disability as being a literal hole in my brain,” says Lexin (above), who has cerebral palsy. Following is a sequel poem Lexin wrote. At the end, she explains more about why she wrote this piece.a love letter to the one i work to forget (cp) By Lexin Zhang The moment I took my first gasping breath You imprinted...

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End the stigma

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Dear Everybody: It's time to end stigma

By Louise Kinross Check out this TV ad in Holland Bloorview's new anti-stigma campaign, Dear Everybody, which launches today. Dear Everybody is an open letter from children and youth with disabilities, and their families, that pushes readers to confront their own biases about disability and human value. The letter begins: "Every line of our letter helps people understand our lives, puts a little information into our world and takes a little stigma out of it." Some of the letter's points include: Not everyone with a disability looks like...

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thoughts that live in the hole in my brain

By Louise Kinross Lexin Zhang is a 17-year-old student participating in Holland Bloorview’s Youth@Work program. This is a poem she wrote about having cerebral palsy. Following the poem are some questions we asked her. thoughts that live in the hole in my brain By Lexin Zhang When I was a child, I’d fantasize a world of ‘what ifs,’ Like, ‘what if I was famous?’ ‘what if I could walk over lakes?’ ‘What if the hole in my brain Where the...

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How 'there's a new rule' broke me

By Louise Kinross Hoops. This is another story about the unnecessary hoops people with disabilities and their families are forced to jump through to get government supports. A year ago I wrote about the nonsensical, make-work project the Ontario Disability Support Program puts families through to get NEW documentation for long-term disabilities. At the time, I’d learned that we could get our son’s hearing aid batteries covered through...

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It's the little things, like shoes

By Louise Kinross A year ago I bought my son two pairs of the same New Balance training shoe—one in white and one in black. A colleague had recommended it as one that works well for people who need a lift added to one shoe, because of a difference in the length of their legs. There’s nothing wrong with this particular shoe, per se. But it’s boring. Before my son went off to camp this summer, I told myself I would find a new pair of shoes...

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A doctor reveals her hidden disability

By Louise Kinross Dr. Paige Church is a neonatologist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and a developmental pediatrician who sees children with spina bifida at Holland Bloorview. Last Monday, she wrote about what it’s like to be both a doctor and a person with a disability in a JAMA Pediatrics article. Paige has spina bifida, and she begins the riveting piece with her own medical record.BLOOM: You and I did an interview a couple of years...

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