Andrew's Hope: Welcome to HOLLAND

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Welcome to HOLLAND

Pertaining to raising a child with a disability, this is a quote from Emily Kingsley. I feel she sums it all up:
When you are going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may even learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting! After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later the plane lands. The stewardess comes on and says "Welcome to Holland." "Holland?" you say. "What do you mean Holland? I signed up for Italy. I'm supposed to be in Italy." But, there's been a change in flight plans. They have landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing is that they have not taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place. It's just a different place. So, you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. You will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met. It's just a different place. It's slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy; but after you have been there for a while and catch your breath, you look around. You begin to notice that Holland has windmills, Holland has tulips, Holland even has Rembrandts. But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they are all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life you think, "That's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned." The pain of that will never, ever, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss. But, if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special , very lovely things about Holland. *This describes, for me, very well how it feels and if you have ever wondered what it may be like......well there you go.*

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About Andrew

Andrew is a very handsome wonderful 6 year old boy. He gives us so much joy to have him in our life and, just like any parents, we want to do everything we can to make his life better.

Andrew has bilateral hearing loss and a difficult to control seizure disorder. Andrew also has a visual processing disorder which essentially makes him "blind". While he can visualize objects, he can not process and identify what he is seeing. On top of this, Andrew also has a swallowing disorder which makes it necessary for specialized feeding.

The seizures Andrew has been diagnosed with have also included Infantile Spasms, which is a very serious diagnosis in a child. Due to the severity and frequency of Andrew's seizures, he is termed as "Global Delay" because of the interruption they cause in his daily learning and processing of information. This is despite of being on multiple medications and therapies.

At 3 years of age, Andrew took his first steps. We are still waiting for the day he says his first word. Andrew has come a long ways in the last 3 years. Having Carina enhance her training to include tethering will be wonderful for Andrew. We have fought long and hard to get him walking, including fighting the school when they wanted to put him in a wheelchair. Andrew should be indepdendent as safely possible and noone should ever hold him back.

Carina has improved Andrew's long term quality of life by alerting and providing comfort before, during and after seizures. She can also help to be Andrew's eyes and ears and provide a much needed source of support and comfort to him as he meets the upcoming challenges in his life. We heard about a great organization that places highly trained dogs.

4 Paws for Ability is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping children and adults with disabilities. The dogs are specially chosen and trained specific to each individual's needs. Our previous fundraising was on behalf of 4 Paws For Ability in order to minimize the wait time and allow us to participate in the process of placing a dog with Andrew.

Why 4 Paws For Ability?

4 Paws For Ability specializes in training service dogs for children with special needs and has a very high success rate. We encourage you to visit their site at http://www.4pawsforability.org/ to learn more about this wonderful organization. 4 Paws For Ability is a 501(C) Non-Profit Agency and all donations are tax deductible. 4 Paws for Ability's mission is to "Enrich the lives of people with disabilities by the training and placement of service dogs to provide individuals with companionship and promote independent living." and "Assist with animal rescue whenever possible by obtaining many of our animals from shelters and rescue groups." Through a family friend, we heard of another family currently undergoing the training and placement process of a seizure response dog for their 4 year old daughter Caitlin. 4 Paws For Ability is very highly recommended and has placed over 500 service dogs!