A Place To Start

It has taken a full year of friends and family telling me that I should write down my experiences to get to the point of creating a blog. At first, I thought I'd keep a journal, but I've never really been the type to write in a journal, although I've had several over the years. They all end up with three full pages of writing in the front and blank pages to the end. A blog is more my speed; it's more useful. I like useful. My hope is that this will be both cathartic for me and helpful for other parents who are dealing with the disability, disease or chronic illness of a child. And maybe just helpful for people who sometimes wonder how to get through this thing we call life.

I suppose, since this is the first post, I should tell you who I am and how I got to today.

My name is Genevieve. I have two children and a wonderful husband. I have done many things in my life: I've been an automotive engineer in Dearborn, MI, a project engineer in Portland, OR, and a winemaker, consultant and business owner in Healdsburg, CA. But my biggest challenge came the day that my youngest child, Matteo, was born on July 9, 2009. This was the start of my journey with a child with Cerebral Palsy. Cerebral Palsy is a motor condition that occurs because of damage to the motor center of the brain. It can happen before birth or after. In my son's case the damage was done in utero. CP encompasses a large range of disabilities from severely disabled, to mild disability. Matteo is blessed to be on the mild side of that scale.

It has taken visits to eight pediatric specialists over the course of a year to get to the diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy. But now all his physicians agree that his condition is most likely CP. I say most likely because the diagnosis can only be confirmed with an MRI of the brain which is done around the 18th month. There is some comfort in a diagnosis, though, because now I have some idea what we're dealing with. But what awaits us ahead is unknown. All the questions a parent would normally ask "When will he walk?", "When will he start talking?" become "Will he walk?", "Will he be able to talk?" And, the answers are "We will have to wait and see."

So, we are on a journey, Matteo and I. I'm sure the journey will have it's ups and downs and I'll learn a lot along the way. I hope what I learn can be helpful for others and that writing my journey down will help me get through the rough spots so that the ups can truly be enjoyed.