Independence!

Our main goal, now that we're home from Montreal, has been all about independence.  Before the surgery, walking with the walker was difficult for Ben and he couldn't last for long...but now?  Well, now, he does great and can go for longer and longer periods.

At home now, we expect Ben to get everywhere on his own.  And not crawling, but walking.  Even though our house is multi-level, we mainly hang out on the main floor that is pretty much completely accessible for him with his walker.   Not only is he expected to walk everywhere, but we also want him to do all transfers too.  Sometimes we do have to help him, but he needs to put some effort in.  We don't just carry him anymore....well, except for to and from the car...until NOW.

This week, we finally had a ramp installed in our garage.  Before there were 4 steps down to get from the house to the garage.  They were very steep steps with no railing so we had to carry him to the van.  And then of course come back to carry his walker to the van. 

Not anymore!  The ramp is pretty much finished and Ben got to try it out tonight.  So from now on, he can be independent to and from the van and will just need a bit of help to climb up into his carseat.

Check out the video!

A pretty huge realization

Lately my husband and I have been focussing on making our house and yard as accessible as possible for Ben. We plan to put a ramp to the side door so that Ben can go in and out independently with his walker. We are going to redo our deck (which right now has a step up in the middle of it) so it too is accessible to Ben. We plan to get rid of the step (or add a small ramp) as well as add a ramp off of the deck to the backyard. We also need to do some work on our backyard so it doesn't slope so much. My vision is that Ben will be completely independent to go in and out as well as play outside on his own.

So needless to say, we've been having alot of discussions about Ben, his abilities, and how to help Ben be as independent as he can be. It's rather all-consuming.

And then the other night when we were out for dinner on our own, we started talking about retirement. When we think that might be and what we might do once my husband no longer has to work for a living. The first thing we knew for sure is that we will not be staying in Canada for the winters. We'll probably buy a place in California or some other warm place and winter there. And we'll likely sell our house that we live in now and build a smaller place on the ocean (just 15 minutes away) for summers.

So as we were having this conversation about the future, it dawned on me.

Ben will not live with us forever and his disability will not affect our everyday lives forever. His disability will affect HIM for the rest of HIS life, but it will not affect us on a daily-basis like it does now.

WOW.

It was a pretty huge thought. That kinda threw me for a loop.

And don't take me wrong. This doesn't make me happy. No. How could it? It was just something that I hadn't thought of before.

Ben's abilities are such that there is no reason why he won't be able to live independently. Ben will pretty much be able to do whatever he wants (well, except play in the NBA). So no, he won't live with us forever. He'll likely go off to university, get an apartment, get a job and probably even marry and have children.

It's kind of changed the way I look at things. It's given me a bit of perspective. Like, this CP thing happened to BEN. And not so much to ME.

I'm not really sure what this all means...maybe it doesn't really mean anything. I guess that's why I'm blogging about it. But I'll let you know if I have any further insights.