🙂I came across an earlier writing of mine  - hence the sharing of it!

How do you fit a square peg into a round hole? With great difficulty!  A simple illustration - akin to the adaptions needed for a disabled person to fit into an able bodied world.  Our family learnt this with first hand experience.  Our youngest child was born profoundly disabled - we were told.  Incredibly naive - first thoughts were just that she live.  The disability created many challenges - eating - drinking - walking - running - playing - sleeping and talking.  To you and me these tasks almost managed automatically withy little thought or planning!  To drink - special teats, eye dropper, teaspoon, milk, soybean milk, controversy!  To eat food - most of us can eat any food - maybe with a few dislikes.  Her disability created huge challenges around food - everything mattered i.e. colour, consistency, brand - at times I pushed our boundaries THE RESULT vomiting  THE RISK  aspiration pneumonia.  Mealtimes for you and me usually 3 times a day - adaptions needed = 7 meals a day - often taking an hour at a time.  This really affected family life.  Thw success of the day was measured by the FOOD INTAKE managed / achieved!  Running never a possibility  Walking never like you and me but walk she did At about age 7 with INCREDIBLE determination - a walking frame -  a support person and a face of beaming smiles.  Playing for a child - the way of learning.  Imagine needing someone to help you to play?  Disability can cause dependence - dependence not always understood - PLAY for a child is usually all day long.  Our wee girl could only play if people could help - people were paid to assist her to play.  RESULT - a face beaming with smiles - Worth it? need I say more.

Sleep not like you and I.  The first 3 years it was unusual for her to settle before 2.30am - in later years that was to improve  - earlier than midnight.  It was the disability causing that.  Obviously huge adaptions were made by our family to accommodate this.  The whole family felt disabled.  Looking back I know we learnt a lot and taught a lot about accommodating disability in the able bodied world.  Fitting the square peg into the round hole. 

May this increase your awareness of the disabled as it did for us!  🙂

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