Three years ago Carles and Merce came from the Catalan region of Spain to work with our special kids during the summer. Both professional teachers, they encouraged the children to paint, sing, make masks and costumes, go on field trips, and have lots of fun. They requested that the neighborhood teenagers also participate one on one with the young people of other capabilities. They repeated the same program last year with great success. This year Merce's father took sick and is nearing the end in his struggle with cancer. They had to cancel. Two of the teenagers who live three blocks from Canoa have taken over based on their previous experience. They organize games, create paper sculptures, make angels whom David says that look him, fashion clocks from paper plates with pipe cleaner lancets, and paint rainbows (David's native land).They have even managed to get Candy to stay within the drawn lines whereas before she struggled to color the sheet instead of the table. We also have gone to equine therapy, a cookout in the park, a trip to the zoo, a day of songs and crafts at a local ranch along with two other groups that work with the handicapped. For the final day we invited the kids from all the groups along with their families (those who have them) to a party at Tijuana's luxury hotel to display their artwork and see a video of the summer activities made by one of the teenagers. The owner of the hotel invited the television station with the intention of promoting the joy of those who overcome their disabilities and participate together. We had three hundred people in a space designed for two hundred watching the kids sing beautifully and dance to rival the National Folk Dance group. We even had an autistic boy dance splendidly in front of every one present, an extremely difficult task for anyone bound within the limits of his or her own world.
We also sponsored a summer program for the kids in the general community working out of the chapel designed for those between the ages of 5 and 12. The parents have commented how they enjoy the opportunity to get their children out of the house and away from watching TV all day and fighting with their sisters. Perhaps some of you have heard the same complaints in other regions of the world? Among the various groups, we have a couple of hundred kids and a large number of teenagers. One of the adult advisors wanted perfect silence in the chapel. I left the message that as long as the kids are having fun, God is pleased and does not count decibels. I confess that I really am in no position to know if God is pleased or not; but I detest overzealous defenders of pious foolery.
Work in the handicapable community requires patience, enduring hope, and an abundance of grace. Breaking the imprisonment of the self, offering a glimmer of expectation, and crawling out of despair demand considerable understanding and unending trust. I could never thank sufficiently the volunteer therapists. They live in improved shacks around the center but come straight from heaven. No one could be kinder and more pleasant, solicitous while at the same time genuine.
A family that used to live in front of the center moved to Mexicali to find work. They called me to see if we would take in a neighbor for therapy, a 39 year old woman who had been in an accident. They offered to drive her from Mexicali. I thought that we do not work with adults, that we have to be careful not to include cases that require special care resulting from serious spinal cord injuries, that the prospects of improvement in such cases are rare. Then I remembered Doctor Maryluz, the directress of the orphanage that we build in Peru. People always caution her not to take in more cases that what she has the resources to accommodate. The doctor always answers, “Where else could they go. Somehow we will manage.” After consulting the therapists, I told the family in Mexicali, “O.K., bring her over, and we will see what we can do.” I calculated that the new apartments are sitting empty waiting for a connection to the electrical grid. We could run a line from the main building to supply one apartment without significant voltage drop. As for her therapy, food, and living expenses, we always have enough. She arrived with her ten year old son who takes care of her. The apartment meets their needs perfectly. We started her on a program of lifting weights, calisthenics, and isometrics to facilitate transfers, the most difficult process for anyone striving for independence, She had to acquire the force necessary to lift herself in and out of bed, on and off the wheelchair, etc.
While we were getting her started, I met a wonderful man by the name of Oton who had suffered an accident while working as a drywaller when his scaffold separated form the wall he was framing. He tried to hang on to a bundle of heavy gauge steel studs that he was hoisting with one hand and drag the scaffold back with the other. If he let the bundle go, he would have decapitated his partner on then planks below him. He succeeded in righting the scaffold and balancing the bundle but wrenched his back at the same time. The ambulance took him to the hospital where after days of testing, they told him that he would never walk again as he had separated three disks. After major surgery and four plates screwed into his spinal column, while enduring pain that challenged his sanity, and month after month of therapy, he not only can walk but also work and do most everything but tie his shoes. While at the rehab clinic, he made mental notes of what he considered the most beneficial exercises and equipment. My drywall friends say that they can build anything. My finish carpenter friends call them “stinkin wallers who can't measure closer than a quarter inch.” But Oton, from his own personal experience and observation, fashioned an exercise machine that fits right on to her wheelchair. The apparatus works off a pulley system to strengthen both the arms and legs at the same time. She now does a thousand repetitions. We persuaded her to try the parallel bars. At first she could manage a single lap and now does 13. The therapists massaged and exercised her limbs. They have her walking with a walker, her first steps in four years.
The process however has included a mountain of unseen effort. She had been married for 23 years and raised 4 children when the accident left her paralyzed from the waist down. The husband stuck around for a year and then left in favor of a younger woman. The three older children seem to be more concerned about their careers. In the months that she has been with us, I have never seen them visit. Under the same circumstances I imagine that many of us would have eaten our last taco and jumped off the ship into the gulf of Baja California. Indeed, when she arrived, she wasn't inclined to do much to help herself. Depression had grabbed hold of her mind and soul. We have had to continually point to first base, reassert self confidence, and reconstruct her sense of personal worth. This process has been just as important as physical rehab.
Our volunteers continually encourage, listen with empathy, joke, and smile. They promote interaction among all who come to the center making everyone feel part of a family. Visitors to Canoa have remarked how they can feel the caring, kindness and respect that envelopes the environment. This effect emanates from the kids' acceptance and inclusion of one another. Their concordance pushes ahead and ratifies a camaraderie of spirit. If you have ever heard David laugh, dance, and joke all at once while straining the retention straps on his wheelchair, you also would be inspired. After four months of David, Candy, Maricela, Memo, Emma, and Lidia, she has renewed energy and more importantly renewed hope.
Chuy recently celebrated his 11th birthday. Three and a half years ago, he climbed up on the back of a moving car to hitch a ride. He lost his grip, fell backward, and landed on his head. The doctors placed a valve in his brain to relieve pressure, but could not bring him back to consciousness. After eight months in a coma, the neurologist wanted to turn off the life support system. The family pleaded that if he had made it this far, they could wait until all the blinking lights on the monitors went off. His grandmother who accompanied throughout the ordeal had seen tiny signs of life unobserved by the medical staff. He twitched, fleetingly moved a finger, until one day two months later, he woke up.
When he came to us almost three years after the fall, he still could not walk. We put him on a program of limb manipulation, massage, and exercise until he developed strength and confidence. We then sent him to the parallel bars where he took a couple of steps. Again, our ladies have not only loosened his contractures but have instilled new spirit into him. We gave him a walker which he tried out with trepidation and a look on his face of dismay. After a couple of weeks, we prohibited him from using his wheelchair in Canoa. He now walks hesitantly with the walker or without it hanging on to his grandmother. He completes his laps in the parallel bars walking backwards or a tip toes. We have started him on a stationary bicycle to build up resistance and muscle strength. We are also teaching him to read and do basic arithmetic while in the process of enrolling him in a special program for primary school. He has already learned how to count. When he can number experiences, he will have come from getting 69th to potters field, all the way to the land of double plus.
We have two Davids. Our second David is now seventeen; born with hydrocephalia, he has lived from infancy at a local orphanage, Hogar Infantil La Gloria. When they first brought him to us, I didn't think that we would be able to do much for him. His legs had already deformed and twisted from lack of movement. I kept a copy of the psychologist's report, “no reaction to external stimulus.” Neither did he move his head, nor his arms. In David's case, movement restriction caused repetitive pain especially at night which impeded both his sleep and the sleep for those charged with his care. Our volunteers worked with him ever so gently. After two months, they restored movement in his neck which relieved the pain and let him sleep. After many more months, they have enabled him to gain full range of motion of his upper appendages. But just as importantly, he now smiles and laughs even reaching out playfully to grab the therapists' arms. He follows simple instructions. We will never get the legs to straighten out as the contractions have progressed too far. Just providing some measure of contentment and recognition makes the effort more than worthwhile.
At the other end of the spectrum, we have a 16 month old girl, Nicole, who was born with microcephalia. We have put her on the Philadelphia method of therapy also called “patron cruzado,” which involves complete movement of all limbs and the head in a rotating pattern. It lacks popularity in the rehab community because it requires three to five therapists all working in coordination. The only problem we have with her is that she steals the hearts of everyone. She has developed enough trust so that she passes from the arms of one to another of the volunteers. We even take her to equine therapy where she sits in exacting attention in the arms of one of the lady riders.
The Federal Electrical Commission has run three poles and the transmission line for the new apartments. A local politician, Catalino Zavala, made the arrangements, albeit two years after the promised delivery date. We did not have to pay anything. The same service for the main building cost $8,000 (dollars). But even then, we got the governor of the state of Baja California, Osuna Millan, to pay for it. We have been given the green light to contract the installation of the meters. When we went to make the arrangements, they wanted a list of details. Other friends who work in the Commission said that they would take care of it but to have patience. Yes, but not another two years, please!
Last week we hosted a day of recollection for the Fraternity of the Physically Limited of Tijuana. No one who attends comes on their own power. They exude a sense of having overcome, of confidence in the face of great obstacles. Two volunteered for the hot seat, a position of the accused at a trail. All those present have the opportunity to ask them any question what so ever. They answered with sincerity about the difficult times and the rejections they suffered, but also about those who have befriended and helped them along the way. When one of the ladies probed about the lovers in their lives, they replied, “God.”
In chapter 41 of Isaiah, there is a wonderful description of God in the coastlands where “everyone helps his neighbor, and says to his brother, ‘Take courage!' The craftsman encourages the goldsmith, and he who smooths with the hammer him who strikes the anvil saying of the soldering, ‘It is good.'” Isaiah has a vision of a society of workers, drywallers and carpenters, welders, metal workers all lifting one another up. The compelling spirit of cooperation is also the spirit of God.
But the prophet goes on to describe the task of God's servants: “I have chosen you and not cast you off; fear not for I am with you, be not dismayed for I am your God, I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you, I will help you. I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.” Having seen those who need to be sustained, those who rely on others to push them, those who have been driven to the limits of endurance , who have been soldered and pasted back together, who now readily admit that they are God's chosen people to reveal the splendor and the glory of the almighty one, I stand in silent admiration. How could they confess that the hand that holds them up is not their own determination but the very presence of God? Would it not be much easier to curse the day they were born with cerebral palsy, than to sing the psalm of hope in God? Later Isaiah tells of these God's servants being a light to the nations, to the islands, to farthest limits of the earth. Maybe our kids are there as well?
