What I've Learned From a Down Syndrome Diagnosis....

Yes, this is an odd title for a blog post.  Selfishly, it was meant to get your attention.  With that being said, I do not mean for it be a negative thing.  I want to express how things have changed for me, for the better, since we first received that diagnosis almost 4 years ago.  I want to let people know that it is not just the parents who teach the children; we, as parents, can learn lessons from our children, too.

This blog post is intended to express those things that I have learned from my daughter.  It is meant to convey the lessons that I have learned and the truths that I have learned.  I want to express those things that I already knew in the back of my head, but then were made real to me since she came into my life.  It is meant to be an encouragement to others who feel that their world has been turned upside-down due to a similar diagnosis.

It is so very hard to express the roller coaster of emotions over the first few days, weeks, and months of finding out that our daughter had Down Syndrome.  It's not something that you ever dream would happen to you.  You question why it happened to you.  You contemplate what the next years of your life are going to be like, now that you have a child that requires special attention.  You wonder how difficult your life is going to be.  You wonder how much this is going to cost you, physically, mentally, and monetarily.  You don't know where to turn to for help. You don't know who to turn to for help.   How are her brothers going to react knowing that she will be different?  How do you tell other people that she has Down Syndrome?  What will they think about it?  It really was difficult for several months.

But what we found was the loving support, first and foremost, from our families.  Just because she had Down Syndrome did not mean that she would be loved any less than any other member of the family.  Her brothers are more than understanding, and they give her special attention and are sure to include her in many things that they do.  We experienced the love from our church family: their many kind words, their thoughts and prayers, and the special attention that they showed to Hannah (and still do to this day).  [Granted, there are continuing issues that we are working on with Sunday School classes and the like, but the teachers have been great.]  

And then there were the Social Services that my wife worked with to help understand and aide in Hannah's development.  They were very instrumental in helping Pam know how to work with Hannah to help her in her development (I say they helped Pam because she was the person at home with her through all of the therapy sessions.  I was occasionally able to be there, but all of the thanks goes to Pam on this.).  Pam then got Hannah involved with CATRA (Capitol Area Therapeutic Riding Association).  It was there that Hannah learned to ride horses, which helped build muscle tone and helped with posture.  There were so many services available to us to help us, when we had no idea how to move forward.

And I cannot forget to mention the benefits of social media in all of this.  Yes, you can read books, which contain a more academic look at Down Syndrome and development.  But the wealth of first-hand testimonials on social media have been a tremendous blessing.  It's great to be able to read stories from others about how their child is developing.  It's great to be able to share stories about Hannah with them.  It's just a very good resource for information sharing.  And it is helps us to understand that we are not the only ones who are facing this situation.

So, what have I learned through all of this, you may ask?  The answers are many, and I can probably not name them all, or this would go on and on and on.  But I can tell you that I have not stopped learning.  I continue to learn new lessons, new truths, and new things about myself through all of this.

1.  Hannah is a gift from God.  Yes, I knew that anyway.  But the issue is that I need to continue to remember that.  We may not understand why God chose us as parents for Hannah, but she is God's gift to us.  Psalm 139:14a says "I will praise Thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made:"  Yes, even though, at times, we may focus on the imperfections, Hannah is fearfully and wonderfully made, too.

2.  All life is precious.  Again, I knew this.  But I was alarmed to see the statistics on the abortion rate for unborn children who were diagnosed with Down Syndrome.  Depending on the survey that you read, somewhere between 75-90% of all children diagnosed with Down Syndrome before their birth are aborted.  That is sad.  Life is precious.  And people choose to play god with these unborn children because they do not fit into what they think is "normal."  Shouldn't we, as Christians, be glad that God does not do away with us because we do not conform to what He wants us to be?  A few months ago, a man by the name of Richard Dawkins said that it would be immoral NOT TO abort a child with Down Syndrome.  How can a person possibly be so depraved to even let a thought like this go through his head, much less actually say it out loud?  Life is precious.  Just because someone does not fit into our idea of normal does not make that life any less precious.

3.  Down Syndrome is not a death sentence.  Many years ago, the outlook for people with Down Syndrome was not good.  They were basically written off as members of society.  They were not viewed as people who could contribute to society.  They were viewed as a drain on society.  They had a rather short life span, because they did not receive the necessary care.  But over time, that viewpoint has changed.  The average life span for a person with Down Syndrome has nearly doubled.  We've learned that people with Down Syndrome can learn and can be productive.  Tremendous advances have been made, and continue to be made.  Last week, I read an article about a woman that wishes she would have had an abortion 47 years ago, had she known her son was going to have Down Syndrome.  I wonder if she knows that people with Down Syndrome do have the ability to understand.  I wonder if she ever told her son (who she says she loves) that she wishes he had never been born.  You know, nothing says "I Love You" more than wishing death on that person.

4.  People with Down Syndrome have the ability to learn.  This was one of those things that I might have known, but didn't know that I actually knew it.  There are so many stereotypes out there for people with Down Syndrome, many of which are just not true.  Yes, they learn more slowly than others of their own age, but they definitely have the ability to learn.  One only needs to see Hannah with our iPad or with my smartphone to realize that she can outdo many adults on one of those devices.  She has learned sign language, which she uses as a means of communication.  She knows more sign language than me, that's for sure.  You can find many stories on the internet about people with Down Syndrome who have found success in life, whether it is as a business owner, a teacher, or even an MMA fighter.  We cannot simply write-off people with Down Syndrome.  They have a tremendous capacity to learn and grow.  We just need to give them a chance to do so.

5.  The love of a child is incredible.  First, let me say that this does not mean that the boys do not love us.  But love is expressed in different ways.  Hannah will give me a hug before I leave for work.  When I get home, she will greet me with a hug.  When I pick her up as school or after Junior Church, she'll run to me and give me a hug.  That's an incredible feeling that I just do not even know how to explain.  When she does something that she's not supposed to and gets punished in some way for it, sure she's sad for a little bit.  But in a few minutes, she'll come right back and give you a hug, forgetting that it ever happened.  Wouldn't it be great if adults had that same sort of short-term memory?

6. There are people who are ready, willing, and able to help us when we need it the most.  Again, something I probably knew, but just did not care about.  As I said earlier, the family members, our friends and neighbors, people from church - they were incredible in helping us deal with the initial shock.  We found out that several in our church had worked in environments with people with special needs.  They were able to give us good information and advice.  Our Pastor's wife read many books about Down Syndrome and gave us some much needed advice and encouragement in those early months.  We were truly blessed to have a network of people who were there for us, to pray for us, to encourage us, to simply be there to talk to when we needed it most.

7. We are blessed.  Hannah has not had many of the physical problems that other kids with Down Syndrome have.  She wears glasses, she has tubes in her ears, and she had to have her tonsils removed.  But these are things that many parents of children who do not have Down Syndrome have to go through, too.  We constantly hear stories of children, whether with Down Syndrome or not, who are stricken with life-threatening diseases and injuries.  We have not had to face anything like that, and for that, we are truly blessed.

I could probably go on and on.  But you get the idea.  We are blessed to have a child that we love, and who loves us back, unconditionally.  The diagnosis of Down Syndrome did not bring the world, as we knew it, to an end.  Instead, it opened up our world to opportunities that we never even knew existed.

Today's Establishment GOP - The "New Coke" of Politics

Let's go back to 1985.  Coca-Cola was losing some market share to Pepsi.  Coca-Cola, in order to try to regain market share, came up with what is considered to be one of the biggest marketing mistakes in the history of marketing - they re-formulated the ingredients in Coca-Cola to try to make it taste more like Pepsi.  Needless to say, it failed miserably.  The people at Coca-Cola thought that since Pepsi had gained some market share, the best way to get it back would be to change your drink to have it taste more like the competition.  Well, the Pepsi drinkers were not going to change their drink of choice.  Why should they?  If they liked Pepsi, why would you change over to a soda that was trying to imitate what you already liked?  Coca-Cola drinkers were mad, and would not purchase the new product because they liked the old formulation.  If they would want to drink Pepsi, they would buy Pepsi.  The last thing that they wanted was for their favorite drink to taste like the competition.

This marketing failure of almost 30 years ago is now being repeated by the Republican party.  Over the past several years, Republicans have viewed it in their best interest to think like and act like Democrats.  Instead of standing on the principles and the beliefs that got them into power, they have sought to compromise those principles in order to gain "market share" in the political world.

Amazingly, Republicans used to win elections based on their principles (just go back to Reagan, as well as the Contract With America).  But somewhere along the way, Republicans saw Democrats gaining ground, and thought that they needed to become more like them in order to win elections.

Here is the problem that the Republicans now have.  They are trying to become more like the Democrats in order to try to curry favor with the Democrat base.  But those Democrats are not going to vote for Republicans.  For one thing, they probably don't trust the Republicans.   But why would they vote for someone who is trying to be like them?  They will just vote for the real thing.  In this example, the Democrat Party is like the Pepsi fans.

The other problem is that the conservative, Republican base will not vote for them.  They do not like the fact that these officials are so willing to give up their principles in order to be like the competition.  They do not like that these officials are willing to sell them out in order to try to gain a few more votes.  The Republican base are the Coca-Cola diehards.

So, when will the Republican establishment leaders learn from this terrible miscalculation?  The problem is that they are deaf to the complaints coming from their own party.  They listen to the media and the Democrat Party when trying to "fix" the GOP's problems.  They continue to push deficits and spending and amnesty and other liberal issues, even while their constituents are loudly protesting these actions.  At least the Coca-Cola management relented, and went back to the original drink formulation, because they started to lose even more ground to Pepsi.  I am not sure that the GOP establishment leaders are smart enough to do the same thing.

Just ask John McCain how well this strategy works.  When he ran against George W. Bush in 2000, he was the media darling on the Republican side.  He catered to them and moderated his views, and the media wanted him to be the Republican candidate.  They couldn't get enough of him (even thought the rest of us has more than enough of him).  Fast forward to 2008 when McCain ran against Barack Obama.  He was not the media favorite any more.  In fact, they did whatever they could to sink him.  So much for being a fan favorite.

This is just one of the reasons that Republicans need to stop trying to be like the Democrats.  People that you think are on your side really are not - they'll stab you in the back at a moment's notice.  Also, there were many, many Republicans who did not vote in the 2008 election (even though I believe McCain might have been a slightly better President than Obama) because they felt that they were sold out.

Now, the Republican Party continues to push amnesty.  Some may be doing it out of the pretense that it is the right thing to do, regardless of politics.  But the overwhelming majority of them are doing it because they see millions of potential Republican voters becoming citizens.  This idea is foolish, because that is one thing that is not going to happen.

The Tea Party was established several years ago as a grass roots movement to protest the way that the government was headed and to show that there are indeed a lot of conservatives in this country.  It was also to protest the Republican Party, which was leaving their base behind in order to try to be more progressive.  Apparently, the leadership of the GOP has yet to understand this, as they continue to brush aside the Tea Party.  Why would they brush aside those same people that helped them get into office in the first place?

The answer to the GOP's problem is that they need to do what the Coca-Cola management did after they made their near-fatal mistake - get back to the original formula that made you the leader you were in the first place.  Otherwise, they will continue down a path to eventual destruction.

Let the Blog Continue.....

I have not posted much to my blog over the last year.  I can't exactly pinpoint any particular reason for it.  Some of it is due to laziness on my part - I just didn't feel like taking the time to do it.  Some of it could be the fact that I was annoyed with our nation's leaders that I didn't know what to post and what to leave alone (after all, there was so much to comment about).  Some of it is due to the fact that my posts do not automatically post to Facebook, and I did not want to take the time to write a blog post and then link it to Facebook (it seems so self-centered, I know). Some of it is due to just being able to post a link to a news story on Facebook and then making a couple of snide comments about the article.  The truth is that there were just a variety of reasons that I could give for not posting anything.

But I would like to get back to posting more about what is going on today, whether it is just local news, politics, sports, celebrity news, or just anything that garners my interest.  So often, we complain that out voices are not being heard.  Well, this is a chance for my voice to be heard, even if only by a small audience.  Maybe, the right person will see my blog someday and that will vault me into some sort of popularity.  Who knows.  In the meantime, enjoy my thoughts and opinions on what is going on the world around us.  And feel free to comment if you see fit to do so.