Health

When I was in school, you were either a teacher or a nurse and that’s pretty much it, that’s all there was. Now what can’t you do? You can go into anything, medicine, architecture… My little granddaughter, she’s only 3 now, so she can be anything she wants to be, and that’s really good.

I’m on the running team at the Y. I’ve been on the running team for—well they started in, when Worcester first had—Worcester has had a half marathon take place in June and it’s now coming into its third year. So I’ve been on the running team for a couple of years now. We trained specifically for that first half-marathon. And other than—I don’t have anything specific that I must do. I enjoy spending time with my friends. So, there’s a lot of—I love social activity and being around people with the same common interests. So I relish the relationships that I have and having relationships, it’s a lot of work. It’s maintaining those friendships through good and bad and it’s a two-way street.

I love what I do. I just have a passion. I don’t know, I guess God knew what He was doing. I have a passion and a way of talking to people that motivates them. I’ve been pretty good. I have had some sad stories, people that go back out and they usually get to me. But I don’t give up. They didn’t give up on me, why should I give up on them? What you’ve heard is just a partial part of my story and my life. It’s no story, it’s my life, reality. Sometimes it makes me sad, but it makes me happy to know where I’m at today. My goal now is to write a book.

I had 105 classmates, six of us were women. And I distinctly remember the interview where I was told that they did not like to admit women because they just got married, had a family, and quit. And that’s what I was told by the dean of the medical school.

She had two little kids.  And she happened to call me one day and said, “I seem to be having some kind of hemorrhage here.”  Anyway, you go to your gynecologist and they tend to pooh-pooh, you know, our female problems – “Oh, just go home and we’ll see how this goes.”  Well, it didn’t go well. She was 34. Her children were six and nine, just six and nine. And all the time this ends up being a serious problem.  She had cervical cancer.And through many operations, chemo, and radiation and all that, it just wasn’t working.  And at that time, I was taking the kids ‘cause her husband has to work. I tried to visit every single day, sometimes twice a day because after a while, after the operations and -- she wound up being at a nursing home. She went in around Thanksgiving and never came out. February -- she died on February 2nd.

It forced me to save heavily for my daughter’s college because I wasn’t sure if I’d be there to pay for it and I saved less for my own retirement because at that time I wasn’t expected to have one. So it affected me that way. I think I was more…it was stronger at first, that I would hear people talking about silly things like a bad hair day, and if you’ve been bald you never have a bad hair day again. If you have hair, it’s a pretty good day. A few times people made strange comments to me about “Oh, well, you’d just be happy to be here,” whereas they think they are entitled to some other level of activity and happiness, so that was always strange. For a few years you are very afraid to make plans for  fear that the cancer is going to come back and its going to be more heartbreaking because you can’t live up to your plans. But as time went on, I started to look more towards the future, get less afraid of planning.

I’m not yet an expert at sign language, I hope to be, but not yet.  I want to continue learning and improve my signing skills. But compared to most psychologists in the Massachusetts area, other places as well, I know a lot about the deaf community, and when other psychologists are dealing with deaf children it can be dangerous not to know anything about the community.  Because it’s possible that they could refer them to the wrong person, or give them the wrong recommendation, they may blame the deafness for their problems when really it’s a totally separate issue.

I have a lot of responsibilities. My daughter, one of my daughters has cerebral palsy. And, so, she requires a lot of attention and time because she can’t do things herself, that at four and half, almost five years old, she should be able to do. She’s come a long way, from where she was, but she still needs help, you know, most of the time. She can get herself dressed but she still needs help sometimes, not so much with feeding but getting on the toilet, getting off the toilet. Brushing her teeth, putting on her shoes, putting on her socks and walking. I may come home and work with her for a couple hours, spend a little time with Emily, her sister. Or have Emily do the exercises with us. Most of my time is either working, doing Meghan’s therapy, taking care of the kids, cleaning the house -- which is low on the priority list, to be honest with you -- and researching online, all the time, to see what’s out there. You know, like going into a chat room. I belong to a chat room for people who have CP (cerebral palsy). Could be adults, kids, parents. I spend a lot of time on there just kinda figuring out what is out there for people.