Learning to Love

In third grade at Hawthorne Elementary, kids who bought a hot lunch had assigned seats in the lunch room. My class sat on one side of a long table and sitting on the other side, facing us, was the special education class. Up until that time, I had had little or no exposure to children with disabilities. I sat across from the kids while they ate from their lunch trays. The food itself was disgusting and we weren't able to be excused from the table until we raised our hand and a lunch attendant came and dismissed us. Often they would make us eat more before we could go out to recess. The only thing that could make eating the lunch food worse was watching the green beans and mashed potatoes drip from kids' mouths across from me. I would try to look away but it was like a train wreck. Besides, there wasn't really anyplace to look other than down at my own tray. My appetite disappeared either way. At that age, I didn't eat much, but I would get hungry often. For breakfast, I'd ask my mom for half a pancake. That was all I could fit in, but then I would be hungry an hour later. It got to the point that my mom wondered if I had a parasite or something and decided she needed to investigate using a flashlight (I won't go into all that right now).

I admit that sitting with the disabled children at lunchtime filled me with fear and dread during those formative years. Negative first time exposures to impressionable kids are hard to erase. The kids who brought a sack lunch had their own table in the lunch room by the far wall. They also didn't have to raise their hands and get drilled about eating their food and they were able to leave when they wanted to. I started packing my lunch to school so I could get rid of all the traumatic events of lunchtime.

This started a fear of people with disabilities that I have had to face and overcome. It wasn't until high school that I warmed up a little. There was a special girl named Amanda that was a member of the church and went to my school. I saw her in the halls at Bonanza High School and every Saturday night at the church dances. She was well known and we all tried to treat her kindly. She would compliment any boy that walked by her saying "You look good in your shirt," or "You are hot in those pants." She would pull me and my friends aside to teach us how to get a guy. "Ladies, ladies! If you want a boy to like you, you have to tell him he looks good in his shirt!" We'd laugh with her. I genuinely believe we laughed with her and not at her. The LDS kids in Vegas were tight and we stuck together, no matter how different we were from each other. I should have listened to her advice. My boyfriend scene may have benefited.

My first few semesters at BYU I had to take the bus to and from campus. I didn't mind it much for a couple of reasons (except for standing out in the cold or when the bus driver saw me running to the stop but kept on driving). First, I could read a book and relax for 15-20 minutes and second, there was this girl with downs syndrome that often rode when I did. She was friendly. What I liked the most was that when she got off the bus, she would dramatically turn and wave to whoever (or often no one) to the right and then she'd turn and wave to the left. I'd watch for it every time, her wave to the world.

Even though I had a few positive experiences in my early adulthood with people with handicaps, I still had irrational fears, especially of their saliva. Once in a store, I could hear a young boy with downs on the next aisle talking through a mouth full of spit. I started to gag involuntarily. I needed to go down his aisle but when I tried, he'd start to gurgle and I'd gag. This happened a few times- me poised to walk down his aisle but paralyzed by the gagging until I finally left.

I got initiated into the world of suctioning secretions on one of my first shifts at the hospital as a new graduate and recently hired nurse. My patient was an older special needs patient who lived at a care center. She was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia and had huge, I mean HUGE oral and nasal secretions. She had a special talent too. She could seemingly unlock her jaws and open her mouth wider than any other human, all the while hocking loogies. I spent my whole shift with a yaunker in my hand (a tube to suction big loogies) suctioning her throat and trying not to get hit. I had several dry heaves throughout that 12 hour shift. After a few more shifts, I actually started to get used to it and it didn't affect me so much. I got my gag reflex under control but I still felt like I didn't know how to act around these kids. Other nurses would come in and joke around with the kids and make them laugh. They'd give them hugs and massage their heads and do their hair and paint their nails. I observed this and knew that I needed to learn it.

In nursing school, I worked at an elementary school as a student nurse with handicapped children. I didn't know how to act around them. In retrospect, I can see how ridiculous I was. They were just children and they respond typically like children. They need love and they usually like to play and laugh. Even non-verbal kids or severely handicapped children can laugh and respond in their own way. I didn't know this and I didn't know what to do around them besides the mechanical nursing stuff. I also worked at a recreation center for handicapped children. Some of the kids were severely autistic. That was a strange and unknown condition to me and I felt actual fear of the kids. I was pregnant at the time with my first baby and I worried profoundly about him being handicapped. I wondered how the miracle of a healthy baby could happen for me. I didn't trust my body to know how to do it. It is ironic to me that my first baby was a healthy baby (though premature) but that we also later found out that he was on the autism spectrum. I learned more and more about autism and went with my son on all of his field trips with the autistic kids in his preschool and I realized how absurd my perception of autism had been at the recreation center. My love for kids with disabilities started to grow as my fear dissipated.

As my experience as a nurse and a mother increased with the years, my ability to care for kids with disabilities has improved. I've learned from other nurses how to interact in a nurturing way. I have been deeply impressed by the pure love that I see from the parents of these kids. When parents are that involved in the day to day (or moment to moment) care of a child with special needs, a bonding occurs that is quite unique. I work every week at an elementary school with some kids in the special education program. Two of the girls need a nurse there in order to be at school (to help with things like when a tracheostomy tube comes dislodged like on last Tuesday). My joy in interacting with these kids has grown so much. I still don't like drool and slobber but I can deal. I have been able to bring my daughter Lou with me to the school a few times. Though she knows that the kids are a little different she seems to do well. I think it is good for her to have positive experiences with different children while she is young so hopefully she can have love and compassion earlier on and not have to learn it as I did.