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As I was saying: Christine: A special moment remembered
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Most retirees, I suspect, spend some moments in a reverie of memory from their pasts: family, friends, jobs, careers, etc. These years are, after all, a treasure of recollections, some painful, yes, but the majority pleasant reruns of scenes of personal joy and fulfillment.
I share in this column one such episode in my education career that today, some 30 years later, fills my mind, and especially my heart, with pride and joy.
I was principal of a suburban middle school. The call came in mid-summer from the Chicago Rehabilitation Hospital, a renowned institution for treating advance traumatic brain injuries. The head neurosurgeon informed me that Christine, a seventh-grader who had been in a deep coma since a bicycle accident six months earlier, had awakened. That was good news, of course. But he had more to discuss.
He shared that he wanted her to return to her school among her friends in familiar surroundings. He described that she still required a tracheal tube, could walk — but haltingly — and had speech difficulty. I replied, “Whatever our special education services can do.”
That was, he continued, the point of his call. He informed me that recovering, brain-damaged patients in isolated settings, even well-meaning school district placements, do not do as well as those who are immersed in familiar settings. He urged no “special placement,” then asked if I felt my faculty was compassionate enough to take on the added effort that Christine’s presence in classes would present.
I knew them well. They would. “Fine,” he responded, “However, there is something else we must talk about.” He went on. “Such patients in isolation often commit suicide. However, even in familiar former environments, they are, at first, welcomed, but soon are depressed when friends distance themselves — shunning them and their physical limitations. We find that suicides again are high.”
He suggested an experiment to meet this concern.
In brief, the hospital would provide all expenses for Christine’s 200 classmates and all her teachers to visit (in rotating groups of 50) the facility, receive instruction about the realities of traumatic brain injury and then a tour of the patient wards. He said that brain-damaged patients are sensitive, emotional and needful individuals who, despite visible limitations, must be treated “normally” by friends if permanent recovery is to proceed.
Neither I nor my faculty, nor Christine’s classmates, will, I am sure, ever forget that hospital visit. The doctors prepped us (before we visited the wards) that “normal behavior” with the patients we met was the key. That is, a greeting, handshake, smile, questions, whatever. The visible damages, though often pronounced, were not to be overreacted to.
Far easier said than done, but the students were super. Teachers who were anxious about the safety of Christine in their classes (a fall, stairs, stress in a P.E. game) were told unequivocally, “No need to pamper or show anxiety. A fall, a stumble, a ball batted in the chest — respond as you would for any other student.”
Christine returned to her school and the classes she expected to be in before her terrible accident. Her year was not without stress for her and her teachers. But the latent compassion of all had been reinforced by our understanding of her trauma recovery and our necessary training to respond warmly throughout the year to her presence.
What of that “treasured recollection” this retiree enjoys? The school’s gymnastics coach encouraged her to work out with the team. Timidly, unsure, she attended. With great care and patience, he and her “teammates” prepared for the spring gymnastics program assembly. I stood with Christine’s parents at the side of the bleachers, when after others had performed, she was called to the end of the mats. Applause and then a hush as she lifted her arms above her head preparing for her “run.”
This Christine, who returned earlier that fall, a tracheal tube inserted, her balance erratic, her speech labored, now months later, before her steadfast friends in that eighth-grade class, she slowly took her first steps on the mat. Resolutely, she stepped faster into a labored “run,” her balance challenged, but maintained by her pluck! At midpoint, her coach squatted, ready to break her fall should she falter as she threw her hands forward and attempted a cartwheel maneuver.
Over she went, no fall, and only a tiny stagger as she finished erect, arms extended in triumph! Her class jumped to its feet! Cheers and applause!! She smiled and accepted the hugs of her teammates.
Her parents and her principal hugged, too, as our tears flowed. This retiree relives that moment often.
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Ted Beranis, of Bonita Springs, is a retired educator.
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