 Paper Recycling Project
 Medical Pedagogical Institute
 Youth Center, Los Pipitos Estelí
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“It was hard to accept the disability of my son”
“My name is Martha Martínez and as the mother of Holvin Antonio, it was hard to accept that my son has a disability, and above all, having to struggle for the rest of the people, society and the family to regard him with normality. At first, I was bothered, because people called him “the little sick boy” and I tried to explain to them that it wasn’t a sickness but a disability and that cost a lot.
My first pregnancy was with twins and it was a premature delivery. Heiner was born first and without any problems, but Holvin Antonio suffered from asphyxia and the doctors couldn’t guarantee his life but my son reacted. After three days I finally got to see them and from that moment on, I noticed that Holvin did not move like his brother and that he was asleep all the time.
The time went by, and I saw his little head growing bigger without being able to hold it up like his brother’s. I went to see a pediatrician, who told me that the child would have a big head, but he also diagnosed that he showed a retarded psychomotor system – all these terms were new to me and I didn’t understand them. Distressed I asked myself, how I could cure him and what I could do. I talked to Holvin to see if he would react but he kept on without moving.
When Holvin was eight months old, two doctors of the health center examined him and it was until then, when they told me that my son has cerebral palsy. I got very frightened and the doctors told me that they hadn’t any medicine to cure my child. They recommended that I should go to Los Pipitos, that there they would give me a better orientation/guidance.
I wanted to go to find cure for my son, but at the same time I did not want to accept that my child had a disability and kept asking myself what people were going to say, if I went to Los Pipitos. But I decided to go anyway and so I went to the Early Stimulation Center of Los Pipitos in Palacaguina, the place where we live, and which is about 200 kilometers away from Managua.
I arrived full of sadness but that changed, when I saw, that in that room were a lot of mothers with their children, making therapy with them and I saw, that I was not the only one having a child like that. There, some physiotherapists attended me and I integrated him in the early stimulation therapy, immediately. But first of all, they told me, that we should treat him like any other family member, that we had to stimulate him and that within one year we would see some progress.
I wanted to do all, learn how to make the therapy with my son. I read books and brochures and they trained me how to make the therapy. I worked with him, in the hope that he would learn to speak, to control his head and to walk.
Now I think, that the best decision I could make, was to break the limits I had imposed on myself, and take my child to the Early Stimulation Center because there, they showed me how to stimulate him as a mother. Today, with his ten years, I can see the things he can do, even though they told me, that he would hardly learn to speak because his type of cerebral palsy is severe.
HIS FIRST WORD WAS “YES”
He was two years old, when he said his first word, which was “yes”. I cried of happiness when I realized that he was reacting. This success we reached thanks to the language therapies and the motor exercises of the articulation. He doesn’t speak fluidly but he already says more words, with difficulties, but he says them, like “Mama, I love you”. My son is going to school. So far he can hardly write, but his twin brother always helps him.
His brother and sister wish that Holvin could walk, but he has a lot of difficulties to lift himself out of his chair because his kinetic system is affected a lot. But he made progress with everything, with which we have helped him. Hence it is important, that we as parents accept our children with disabilities and that we join an Early Stimulation Center so that they prepare us, train us and show us all the necessary means in order that our children learn to develop skills.
Currently, he moves around in a wheelchair, which helps him a lot because it is a special one, which keeps his body straight. Now he is able to bend forward. I have explained to Holvin what disability he has and why he has it. He now puts more effort into his therapies and can hold himself standing for longer periods. I believe that with the strength of God, the strength of Holvin and ours, someday he will be able to do a lot more things.
Since I joined Los Pipitos, I have helped not only my son with his therapies, but I have also helped a lot other mothers as promoter of Los Pipitos. Today, I share with other parents that have the same disability as my Holvin, all I have learned about his disability, how to rehabilitate him, how to stimulate him.
all testimonies
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