The Four Walls of My Freedom: Lessons I've Learned from a Life of Caregiving

The Four Walls of My Freedom: Lessons I've Learned from a Life of Caregiving

Donna Thomson

Language: English

Pages: 262

ISBN: 1770894799

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


A riveting and redemptive family memoir, The Four Walls of My Freedom is Donna Thomson’s account of raising a son with cerebral palsy and her passionate appeal to change the way we think about "the good life." Donna Thomson’s life was forever changed by her son Nicholas. A former actor, director, and teacher, Donna became his primary caregiver and embarked on a second career as a disability activist, author, and consultant. Here, she vividly describes her experience in treading delicately through daily care, emergencies, and medical bureaucracy as Donna and her family cope with her son’s condition while maintaining value and dignity. She brilliantly demonstrates the vital contribution that people with disabilities make to our society and addresses the ethics and economics of giving and receiving care. Featuring a new introduction by John Ralston Saul, and two new chapters, The Four Walls of My Freedom is an ardent argument for changing to the way we think about the “good life” that touches anyone who has ever cared for the life of another.

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An adult, the extent to which he pursues interests and enjoys a life that he values is wholly dependent on the assistance of caregivers, together with technological support. Nicholas is reliant on technology to eat, breathe, speak and remain pain free. He is tube-fed by an electric pump and uses an oxygen-saturation monitor at night to alert the carer if he stops breathing. Nicholas has used a switch-operated speaking computer and has used adapted software to learn at school. Recently, by.

Support after Jim and I are gone. I know that other friends or family members can never replace Jim and me in Nicholas’ life, and I also know that Natalie cannot shoulder that responsibility alone. The letters in PLAN stand for Planned Lifetime Advocacy Networks. What do network members do? In the early years of PLAN, the status quo for people requiring care in their community was to receive services and participate in programs funded by tax dollars. No one imagined that people with.

Home to find Nick had fallen asleep, exhausted. The surgery held for two years, until Nicholas’ hip dislocated again. I did not think that any nightmare could be worse than the bleak time after Nick’s first hip surgery, but I was wrong. In 2003, when Nicholas began to show signs of pain again and the x-ray showed that his hip had begun to come out of the socket a second time, I asked our surgeon about treatment options. His response was that a second major repair was out of the question. A.

That Nicholas’ significant needs could be much better met elsewhere.” I tried to reason and then plead with the head teacher, but to no avail. I was angry and desperately worried about our future without a plan. I hadn’t counted on being turned away. Carol Greenaway, our educational psychologist and kind co-strategist, came with me to visit a couple of special schools on offer. In the parking lot after the visit, we looked at each other over the car roof and shook our heads simultaneously. When.

Out!” I circulated a celebratory photograph to the family showing Nicholas munching on the baptismal order of service. I called it “Nicholas trying to digest organized religion.” By that time, Nick and I were already regulars at the local rehabilitation centre where we attended physio, occupational and speech therapies every week. The speech therapist was a kind, enthusiastic woman from New Jersey. I joked with her that when Nicholas learned to talk, he’d be taken for a Yank. In her small white.

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