My Supports

I have many supports for which I am grateful.  On a practical level, my family’s daily planning and scheduling of activities is coordinated through Google calendar, which allows us to edit our individual schedules and to keep track of each other’s schedules in one interactive format.  Without this tool, we would be far less efficient and effective at planning, organizing, and keeping track of the day.   In terms of physical supports, stools are found in most rooms of our house.  They help me in the kitchen by placing all items within reach.  They help us in the bathrooms by giving my young girls the ability to wash their hands and use the toilet without our assistance.  They help us in the bedrooms, by giving my girls assistance in getting in and out of their beds without our help, or reaching items on their bureaus without our help.  When a stool is misplaced, I need to rely on my husband to grab things for me, or my girls need to rely on me for every hand washing or for every item out of their reach.  My girls may also get hurt trying to get in and out of bed without a stool.  Stools make our home safer and provide me and the girls with the ability and the satisfaction to be self-sufficient.  On an emotional level, my husband provides friendship and love, which is constant.  Without this type of support, I can imagine being very lonely, sad, weak, and full of self-doubt.

In choosing a challenge, I imagined a debilitating disease affecting the use of my hands, such as rheumatoid arthritis.  This challenge came to mind because during the winter months when my hands are severely cracked and bleed, I have daily reminders of how painful it can be to use my hands.  It becomes painful to do tasks that require the tips of my fingers like buttoning shirts, flossing teeth, opening jars, or putting on jewelry.   With rheumatoid arthritis, it is my understanding that pain extends throughout the fingers and into the wrists and, of course, does not go away with the passing of winter.  To support such a debilitation, I would need physical support with medicine.  I would hope for emotional support in terms of my development of pain coping skills, and a friend to talk things through with. And finally, I would need the practical support of an occupational therapist to learn how to perform everyday activities.  Already, I have access to health coverage which would be critical in supporting this disease, though it is unclear to me if its support would extend to the work of an occupational therapist.  Here too, I view this practical support as vital because it would allow me to be to self-sufficient in my daily activities, but I am not sure if my health plan would see this as a non-essential support.  Finally, I would want to be supported emotionally to avoid depression, which by itself could offset the benefits of having access to and participation in a health coverage plan that supported and treated the disease on physical and practical level.   In looking at this imaginary situation, my sincere wish would be for all these supports to work together so that I could not just survive but thrive with the debilitation.  This interdependence of supports is something I want to keep in mind while working within a classroom of children with varying abilities in need of varying supports.