I hope you understand

[catherinemarie42]

As the mother of five sons I never found myself the least bit interested in pediatric nursing care. I trained in every departments but...pediatrics. I thought that if I spent all day with other peoples children I would not go home and feel the enjoyment I wanted to feel when interacting with my own. So life went on and my boys are now men and have gifted me with six lovely grandchildren so far. My mother and father have long passed and I have a gift to share. My gift is to care for people. As many people as I can in my lifetime. I wanted to get to know people and their families, what makes them tick and put as many smiles on their faces as I can all the while tending to all medical needs that are within my scope of practice. I began In Home Care. My first client...a child. Whew, I may not like this I thought. Boy was I wrong. Cerebral Palsy, well my nephew is 21 now and was born 1 pound 11 oz and has cerebral Palsy. I know something about this. Well I now know more and more every single day and am loving learning sign language and exploring all types of communication. What gets me is the parent who says to me "you know, he/she does not understand you". Well I am here to say this. I do not know for sure, no one knows for sure, but I am going to try, keep trying and I am going to continue to talk to my clients as if they can understand me. I am going to teach them numbers and letters and that combined letters form words, that you have two sides and one is right and the other left. I know this. I was in a coma twice in my lifetime, the second time I remember darkness. It was pitch black and I could hear my ex husband tell my son, "talk to her, she can hear you", I tried so hard to move, to speak, anything. And there was nothing, my family left. I finally came out of it and here I am, but I do know how it felt to not be able to reach anyone. To say I can hear you and I love you and I appreciate your talking to me. I just had to say I have seen now, Cerebral Palsy on all different levels of disability, and I will never give up hope or stop trying to help and care and communicate and at the end of each and every night I can honestly say..."I did my best today". I am here to help not to hinder in any way. I wish for every family with a disabled child to never give up hope and never treat them like they cannot hear you, maybe understand you, because...they just may. And may all nurses always keep that in mind.