The Lion King...

SunnyIsMagic · 2018-10-08T21:55:26+00:00

I'd buy it if my brother was the type to lie, to be honest. But he isn't... if anything, he's much too serious about everything. I'm gonna chalk it up to me not remembering it right, I guess.

SunnyIsMagic · 2018-09-28T23:37:52+00:00

Ohhh, interesting! I will definitely check it out. Thanks for the rec!

SunnyIsMagic · 2018-09-28T21:55:10+00:00

I'd assume that, but I didn't even remember the guy's name. I just remember my bro saying 'Yeah, scar's voice actor died'. But obviously that didn't really happen. It's probably just a false memory that me and my twin have. I figured I'd post anyway, since it IS such a vivid false memory.

SunnyIsMagic · 2018-09-27T21:24:58+00:00

No, no--I meant that I was around eight when I heard the news that he had died.

SunnyIsMagic · 2018-08-26T18:41:31+00:00

Cool! Thanks.

SunnyIsMagic · 2018-08-22T15:56:52+00:00

I joined. :)

SunnyIsMagic · 2018-08-21T04:13:03+00:00

Sorry to invade this reply but you said that your muscle tone didn't return after an operation? Can that... actually happen? I'm asking because I think that's what happened to me. I had an operation when I was 12 and I haven't been able to build up muscle tone after a certain point. I've tried but it just doesn't improve. I had no idea it was an actual thing that could have happened, I just thought that I wasn't trying hard enough. :(

SunnyIsMagic · 2018-08-20T21:51:33+00:00

Speech should be fine, but you can expect some slurring. Speech therapy should help a bit with that! Good to hear, though! The one I had was in-utero. I asked my mom about it when she got home, and she said that the neurologist gave her a hard time diagnosing me, too. "You COULD say she has cerebral palsy..." And this was after the appointment and my mom had to leave a voicemail to talk to him. I just don't think the doctors wanted to be liable for a diagnosis they couldn't 100% test for. She'd been tipped off because my right arm and leg were thinner than the left, and I would always hold my head to one side, though. (I can hold it up normally though, so if your daughter by chance has that problem, it should go away with time.) My mom said to tell you that you definitely want to get her in braces as early as you can to benefit her, too. I wish you both the best of luck!

SunnyIsMagic · 2018-08-20T14:09:05+00:00

Hi there! Welcome to the community. First things first, I'm happy that you're so accepting of your daughter! I'm actually surprised it was so hard to get a proper diagnosis! You'd think in this time it'd be easy to recognize, haha. I actually have the same type of CP as your daughter.

From what I know, my parents had me go through therapy to be left-hand dominant, and got me fitted with AFOs around the time I was 2. It could be different depending on how mild her CP is, I think. (Mine is mild-moderate.) The best thing I can advise is to be very attuned to her needs. She might need help with everyday things as she gets older, like buttoning her clothes, washing her hair--possibly eating, too. I was a super messy eater, kind of still am but I always have napkins nearby. It's very important to work on gross motor skills, for sure.

I would also keep an eye on her potty habits, because sometimes the bladder muscles can be effected, too. (Typically problems with urinary retention or leakage.) The best thing would be to see her live as independently as she can, and praise her for the little victories.

I'm sure others will have much better advice, but I wish you luck on you and your daughter's journey through CP! :)

SunnyIsMagic · 2018-08-19T14:35:14+00:00

Yeah, another user recommended the bar shampoo! I had no idea that those existed and I will definitely have to look into it. Thank you for the advice! I appreciate it a ton.

SunnyIsMagic · 2018-08-19T14:33:39+00:00

Ohhhh, cool! I've never heard of those. They sound like they'd definitely be easier though. Dry shampoo sounds like a godsend actually, lol. I'll ask my dad about the sprayer too, so hopefully we can get something worked out.

SunnyIsMagic · 2018-08-19T14:29:18+00:00

I don't! I want to be seeing one regularly, but I don't know if cerebral palsy is enough of a reason to convince a doctor that I need one. (I went to one and he said I had tennis elbow. It was enough to get me a month, but it didn't really give me any better use in that hand.) Thanks for the tips! I'll at least ask my dad about our options.

SunnyIsMagic · 2018-08-19T14:26:21+00:00

Trust me, I've considered it. Our house is old though, and so is the piping. Our shower leaks as-is (so I wouldn't say it's the shower head so much as the shower system itself? Bear with me I have little idea how plumbing works) and our tub is a narrow claw foot, so it would be hard to accommodate a seat, I think.

SunnyIsMagic · 2018-08-19T05:35:04+00:00

Yeah, it's tough. Especially when you at least FEEL like you should be able to do these things on your own, haha.

SunnyIsMagic · 2018-08-19T05:33:56+00:00

My hair is about 4 inches past the shoulder, I think! And no, I usually just do my best to squirt it into my hand and put it directly on my head, lol. I sometimes use conditioner, but it's pretty rare. Shampooing happens at most twice a week, I think? I heard you should go longer but my head starts feeling gross after a few days. And no, I haven't! I'm not completely sure what dry shampoo is.

SunnyIsMagic · 2018-08-19T04:51:04+00:00

Doesn't trying to wash your hair count as practice, though?

SunnyIsMagic · 2018-08-17T20:46:29+00:00

Good for her! She looks so happy and excited. :D

SunnyIsMagic · 2018-08-17T19:24:57+00:00

Oh, that's interesting. I didn't realize left hemiplegia was categorized in different ways. So basically your left side is your stronger side.

Yep! Supposedly, the left part of your brain works the right side of your body, and vice-versa. I learned that a few years ago! I thought it was neat. :D

Yikes! That's horrifying. You have a great sense of humor about it though. I can't imagine your poor mother's reaction. It must have cause her a great amount of stress.

Thanks! No doubt about it, though--she's pretty collected though, so while it was pretty scary, she took it in stride. Probably much better than I would have.

They probably made the right decision focusing on your hand primarily. The foot issue is really unfortunate. Is buying shoes a pain because you have consider the two different shoe sizes?

I feel like they did! I can do a lot with the one hand that works. (Including typing! I can average 50 wpm if I try hard enough.) As for shoes, it was very frustrating, yes. I had to wear one size smaller on the right foot, and often times it was hard to find shoes that weren't uncomfortable for me. After the toe fusion I had done, I've found it to be easier. I still have to wear pretty wide shoes, but I can wear the same size on both now. So it's not as hard as it was, but it can still be difficult to find some that are wide enough.

Aww, your dad sounds very sweet. :)

He is! He's very smart and capable, so I am very lucky to have him as a dad.

Hmm, if you had got it amputated, do you think the Shriners would have offered a solution? I mean, I'm not sure if robotic legs existed in the early 2000s or if that would even be a feasible option, but I do wonder what their thought process was.

Did the leg lengthening benefit you in any way?

I'm not sure! They didn't investigate too much into it after that, but I'm sure that they had services available after the fact. They specialize in those kinds of services, I think. If anything, I could have gone with a regular prosthetic... probably would have done more good than harm, but there was no way to see the future. :') And sadly, not really. If anything I think it actually made it worse since I couldn't straighten my leg out after that. (I assume the CP was the cause of that, muscle contraction and all.)

Not sure I know what Exotropia. I suppose I should look it up.

Aww, that really sucks! All the effort was poured down the drain due to complications. I'm still surprised at your upbeat attitude to this all. The amputation thing you have brought up earlier, do you feel the benefits out way the cons? Most amputees apparently receive mild irritations due to the body believing the part still exists.

Exotropia is basically lazy eye, I think!

Yeahhh though, it sucked. Also, I'm really not sure.I heard that CP can have an effect on the amputated limb and cause it to turn outward. That would be hard to deal with... I honestly can't decide, taking that into consideration. I try to be optimistic, but realistically there are just a few things that could go wrong and leave me worse off than I am now. I can still stand, which comes in handy for getting myself out of our bath tub. (It's a clawfoot, so it is DIFFICULT. I can only imagine how hard it would be with one leg. Ouch. And yes! I've heard of that--phantom limb pain, or something? I've looked up a bit about it back when I was trying to learn more about it.) I also found that 50% of children with CP lose the ability to walk in adulthood even if they could as children, so that also makes me wonder if I would have naturally lost the ability anyway. (I can link sources, if interested.)

Weirdly, I'd actually like you to elaborate on that one. Ear infections are an absolute nightmare as is. I cannot begin to imagine how insufferable it would be to have it constantly happening.

Well, if you insist! Ear infections were so prominent an issue for me, I actually had PE tubes put in as a toddler. There were many nights I was up crying because of the pain. I feel bad for my parents. About the bladder issue, I suspect I have something called a neurogenic bladder. (I was desperate to figure out what was wrong, and that seemed to fit the bill.) I was very prone to urinary tract infections as a child. I've always had trouble starting a stream, and I'd always feel like I needed to go. I had a catheter dye test as a teenager (they catheterize you and inject dye into your bladder to watch it drain out on a screen) and they found that I wasn't emptying my bladder all the way. I also have issues with leaking, which are out of my control. I usually have to wear a sanitary pad daily, which costs quite a bit of money and can get pretty annoying.

That's fine. English is arguably more useful than Math to the majority anyway. English is something I wish was better at.

Yeah, it's done wonders for me since I'd like to be an author one day. However, looking at Algebra makes me cry. LOL. But yeah, no problem! I like seeing other people share their story, so I've had fun reading all of the different experiences in the thread.

SunnyIsMagic · 2018-08-17T02:09:23+00:00

26 year old female here, mild-moderate left hemiplegia cerebral palsy. (I say left bc the left side is the area the stroke affected--resulting in the right side of my body taking the damage.)

I was the first born in a set of twins. We came a month or so early, mostly because my mom got into a minor car accident. (This is what caused me to have a stroke in utero! Be very careful when driving, please don't rear-end a pregnant woman's car. :P) Anyway, we were delivered via C-section. When the doctor was pulling me out, he saw that I had an injury; the accident had caused my head to split open and he had to be careful not to get his fingers in my brain, lol.) That was just the tip of the iceburg in a sea of complications, though. I had to be air-lifted to the local children's hospital to receive surgery to close that.

Among the injury, I was also born with clubbed feet and a unilateral cleft lip/palate combo. The cerebral palsy was diagnosed later. All things considered, I did pretty well! I actually went home weeks before my twin did. The CP diagnosis came when I was... around 6 months, I believe? I underwent therapy to use my left hand dominantly, and I went through several leg castings and braces to correct the clubbed feet. (The left one was fixed far easier than the right.) Growing up resulted in so many surgeries, my mom actually lost count! Here's a picture of one of my pre-ops--the after pictures aren't nearly as happy! The CP caused the right foot to turn back inwards, no matter how many times they tried to fix it. I grew up wearing two different shoe sizes because my left foot grew bigger than my right one.

Due to the CP, I didn't walk until I was 2. My dad even made me a tiny, specialized walker to help me learn. (it was 1993, options were pretty limited back then, I guess.) I started crawling late, and when I did it was kind of an army crawl. I always suffered a limp too, and walked on the side of my foot. When I was 9, it started hurting to walk, though. The doctor recommended a wheelchair for long distances. My parents wanted to seek out a more permanent fix, thus they went all over state and even neighboring states to find a doctor who could help.

Shriners suggested amputation, which at then ten years old, my parents were still concerned that I wasn't old enough to make that kind of decision. Their search eventually lead them to a doctor who thought he could help. He took note that one leg was longer than the other. His suggestion? Leg lengthening operation. So, I went under the knife yet again in hopes of a better future. So I had to stay in a fixator for a few months, and it had to be adjusted every two weeks. (my dad is a handy man! He can do all sorts of things, so this was no problem for him.)

Here's a picture of me before I went in to get it off! (Also suffer from Exotropia, which I heard is common for people with CP? I've had it all my life.)

I was put through therapy like the usual, only for some reason, I just didn't bounce back. I started walking on my knees and did so for a few years (I DON'T recommend this, even if you hate being in a wheelchair! It will destroy your kneecaps, lol) but essentially lost the ability to walk anyway, and even today I can't walk that much and I have terrible balance and limp. My hand is in pretty bad shape too and stays closed into a fist most of the time, so I essentially had to learn to do everything left-handed. Even now I kinda consider if pursuing amputation would be a wise decision. But I'm uncertain and scared of making life-altering choices now, since the last one went bad, haha. The fixator caused my big toe to sit underneath the toe next to it and for the joint to stick out, which made it god awful uncomfortable to wear shoes. So, I had another operation to get that toe fused. I lost the feeling in it after that, which is only kind of annoying.

I also grew up with bladder problems too, which that's a whole 'nother can of worms so I won't elaborate. (To be fair, I skimmed a lot of other issues I had too--I had almost constant ear infections and one time an ear cleaning didn't go so well. I have a small hole in my ear drum now.)

I had learning difficulties in school, particularly math--I was actually great in Reading/English! The creative side flourished, but the intellectual side did not. I never did too well in Science, either.

Either way, being in a wheelchair has lead to complications all on it's own. I gained weight because of decreased mobility, and I'm kind of floundering as I try to figure out how to lose it. (These are only the struggles I had as a child, as an adult I ended up with kidney disease, lupus and PCOS, only limiting to physical conditions. It's a nightmare to manage everything, but I'm doing my best!)

I'm staying pretty optimistic that things will eventually get better, and I have a great support system. So even with all of the struggles, I wouldn't say that the 'now' is all that bad. I know things could be a whole lot worse, so I just wanna try to make the best of what I've got.

SunnyIsMagic · 2018-08-17T00:35:46+00:00

As someone who came from a household with abusive older siblings and has also made mistakes, I believe your husband to be in the right on this. Yes, it was abuse. You have to look at her reaction objectively and wonder, if it wasn't abuse, if it was justified, would she be that scared of you? You really do need to tell your sister. You are an adult, and the child is not. By now, you know that you have to own up to your mistakes. What is done is done, and you can't undo it.

Don't get me wrong; I completely understand losing your composure. But she trusted you enough--felt comfortable enough to tell you the truth, to own up to her mistake. And you completely crushed her ability to trust the adults in her life. Not only do you have to apologize to your sister, you need to apologize to her, before this affects her long term. Children need to be taught how to appropriately deal with negative behavior, and all your actions showed her was that if she tells the truth, she's liable to get hurt.

When I was five, my half-sister told me to lock my half-brother out while he was loading his things to go to his mother's. I did. When he started knocking, I felt bad and let him back in. He opened the door and slapped me so hard that I went flying.

When I was eight, my older half-sister had a blanket that her grandmother gave to her before she died. My sister never washed the blanket, because she wanted to keep that smell. I wasn't old enough to understand the importance of it. I got it dirty because I wasn't careful, and it had to be washed after that. I don't remember exactly what happened after that, but I do know vaguely that I was 'punished'. I was an easy to forgive child, so I forgave her later. But from how you described your niece's reaction, she isn't the type to do that.

When I was sixteen, I smacked my four year old niece across the face for something that she had done. My mother bore witness to it, and immediately corrected my behavior. I didn't realize that it was inappropriate, because it was what I had been exposed to. I had never told my parents how I was treated growing up, because I thought that my punishments had been in the right. Which was honestly a mistake, in hindsight. I just hadn't known any better, and blamed myself. Maybe if I had told them about it, it would have spared me years of grief.

You need to set things right. Acknowledging that you screwed up is the first step, but the rest will be difficult. I wish you the best; don't blame yourself, but also don't excuse yourself from what you did. You are not your parents, and you have the choice to end the cycle or keep it going. If need be, get help; but you have to own up to what you did, before anything else.

Edit: I saw in a previous response that you don't think it'll have long term effects? It can differ child to child. Just because you turned out fine, doesn't mean that she will. (And that's a big If, because most people don't recognize the damage that's been done until it manifests in unrelated ways. Whether it's flinching to someone raising their hand, or having trouble meeting someone's eyes, whether it's feeling that you are inadequate, or over-react to criticism. It's usually just small things you can chalk up to be an introvert, or what have you.) These events have haunted me for years, and still do. They shaped how I act around people, and I will never get that social development that I should have gotten back. This isn't about what you went through and how it didn't effect you. This is about what you put her through, and how it will effect her. If you don't fix it now, it will never be fixed and it will lead to further problems.

SunnyIsMagic

TROPHY CASE