Why Do I have to Wear Braces
Yesterday morning my wife got the question. “Why do I have to wear braces?” I too got the question earlier this summer. It’s a very hard question to answer and not one we can take lightly. My wife was better than I was at answering the question and said well you just decided to come early and you weren’t fully finsihed growing so now you have to wear braces while you catch up. Haley responded with “I didn’t decided to come early G-d decided.” I’m not sure how my wife responded to that but when Haley got home she brought the subject back up and offered her the opportunity to be brace free one day per week when there is no Gym or PT. Haley was very excited about that idea and we’ll be moving forward with that. I’ll have to deal with the G-d question later tonight.
My biggest fear from the day we found out Haley had CP was how we would deal with the “why am I different question.” Everybody is different but most people are in their late teens or even full blown adults by the time they realize it. At a minimum most people are in High School. I personally was about 8 or 9 when I began to realize that I was different. That was when I realized that most people my age could read and write while I still couldn’t. From the time I was 8 until I was 12 it got worse and I really had a hard time and probably struggled with a bit of depression. The funny thing is that most kids never noticed my problems even though I thought they did. One of my friend on the other hand did have CP and had a truly difficult time walking. He was ostracized by the other kids at least some times and generally had a great attitude in spite of how the kids, sometimes myself included, treated him. It wasn’t until after I had Haley and asked him if it had affected him that I found out how hard the teasing had been on him. I guess I need to call him to see what he would recommend right now.
