

For several years, I had a little sewing business going on the side. I created custom wedding attire, baptismal and first communion dresses and gowns for black tie events. Those outfits help pay the bills. My favorite project though, was the line of clothing I designed for medically fragile children.
It started with Sarah of course. Our initial hospital stay for her open heart surgery was projected to last seven to ten days. It turned into two months. During that time, I created a few outfits for her to wear that would accommodate all the various lines and tubes that she was attached too. She looked adorable and the nurses loved them. Then a few months later she was sporting a permanent trach. And that's when Jely Splats was formed. While the kids slept, I stitched. When I got pregnant with Matt I was concerned about not being able to complete dresses so I turned new brides away and slowly eased off the gowns and the fun clothes.
Then last year Sarah and I started blogging. We were meeting new families at rapid pace and we started to receive questions from families who had children with trachs. The day I read the email from a mom expressing her husband's disappointment that their four year old son looked like a baby because he was always wearing a bib, I cried. Most people would not understand the big deal that was. I not only understood, I felt the pain deep within my heart. I knew at that moment Jely Splats was about to get a second life. But today things are different. Sarah is not a little girl anymore. Neither are her friends. I have been in enough meetings over the past few months to know that jobs are tough to come by, especially for young adults who need some extra encouragement, some extra guidance. I started to wonder if they could sew? Would Sarah want to create garments for kids? Would her classmates?
Then a month or so ago I went to Sarah's job training site to pick her up early to get to a football game. Somehow I got to talking with her teacher about sewing. I just could not belive it when she told me she used to work at Bobbie Brooks. As a seamstress. She knows the industry. She also understands young adults with various disabilities. And she loves to go into New York City and shop for fabric in the garment district. The more we talked the more excited we both got. As I walked to the car that day I definitely felt this was another one of those By Chance or By Design encounters.
So for the last few weeks I have been frantically cleaning and organizing the studio. The machines have all had a tune up and we are ready to let the stitching begin...
Find ways to calm down before causing permanent damage
By: Doug Worgul
Knight Ridder Newspapers
You can nurture a relationship for years and ruin it in a moment if you can’t control your temper.
Here are some tried and true tactics for keeping cool when tempers get hot:
-Hold your tongue. When you’re angry, anything you say can and will be used against you. It’s better to just say nothing.
-Ask for more information. Many arguments are a result of poor communication. Clarification is better than confrontation.
-Avoid using inflammatory language. If you must speak, don’t curse, don’t insult, don’t question motives or intelligence, and don’t bring up past offenses.
-Take the high road. Admit you were wrong. Promise to try harder. Say you’re sorry.
-Get a second opinion. Talk to someone else about the argument to get a more objective perspective.
-Take a deep breath and smile. This will help you stay in control and drain away ill will.
-Consider what’s at stake. Maybe it’s your marriage, or your job, or your relationship with a child, sibling or friend. Ask yourself whether the expression of your temporary feelings of anger are worth the risk of permanently damaging a relationship you value.
-Work it out. Go for a walk or bike ride; play a game of racquetball; lift weights. Use exercise to exorcise bad feelings.
-Get a good night’s sleep.
a message from Joyce: Sarah and I have been blogging for over a year now. It has been an extraordinary experience in so many ways. I believe I have mentioned before that we never encountered another family in the Cleveland area with the significant medical issues that Sarah endured in her early years. We traveled that part of our journey alone, and it was incredibly lonely. What I have been so pleased to discover with the blogging world is we no longer have to walk alone. There are many wonderful families so willing to share their support and love. And to share their hardships. So that others may learn from them, but sometimes simply to vent because there are so few around our "live" world that understand.
For the most part, Sarah and I have stuck close to the issue of Down syndrome. But there are a few blogs that I have come across that so inspire me. The writers are blessed with a gift of expression that I envy. Most are moms. Moms like me who either during their pregnancy or shortly after giving birth, had their dreams of a perfect child shattered. They are learning to cope with a different set of circumstances than they originally planned.
Then there is Blogzilly. I first discovered this blog while posting a comment on Zoey and Heather's blog. I was intrigued by the name, and curious about the photo that accompanied it. Yet, what really struck me was the depth and insight of the comment that had been left. So I lurked on over to see just who was this creature. What I discovered shook me to the core. I spent the better part of that entire evening reading this story from beginning to end.
As it turns out, Blogzilly is a father. With an adorable little boy who has been diagnosed with Infantile Spasms. I've noticed more and more kids with Ds also being diagnosed with IS as it is referred. Anyway, Blogzilly and his family recently came to the Cleveland Clinic for surgery. As he wrote about their ordeal, I could picture many of the scenes he was describing. Sarah had often been in one of the rooms across the hall from M-35 where the children were taken after their brain surgeries. That's not why I keep going back to read the blog though.
I am enthralled, even mesmerized with the manner in which Blogzilly writes. It is raw folks, pure raw emotion written by a dad that has had the life sucked out of him. And he is not afraid to tell you. He has a way of letting his fingers reflect on the keyboard what is swirling around in his head. It is painful, yet it is so eloquent. It so encompasses the real story of a family dealing with the not so pretty side of life. Today, he is looking for a 50th person to follow his blog. I guarantee you will not be disappointed. Oh, and his pictures and graphics are outstanding. It's just too bad he hates our Cleveland Browns:)
An addendum: I forgot to mention...as you can tell from his comment to me today...he has a superb sense of humor too. Thanks for giving us a glimpse into your world Ken, you are a gem. All the best to you and your family.
Saturday morning my cell phone rang. Sarah and I had just arrived at the stadium and decided to sit in a campus bus shelter while we waited for game time. Parked in front of us was The Ohio State University Police Special Investigation paddywagon. Ironic for what I was about to hear. On the other end of the phone was RG's mom. She wanted to know if we had heard from the police. She had and was asked to bring RG into the police station to make a statement. I told her we were out of town, but I would call home to check our messages. This is what I heard...
But after looking at the situation with more rational eyes and reading the many wonderful comments from our readers - Thank You - I see this as more of a teaching opportunity. An experience to learn from and to share with others.
Yet as I sat in that bus shelter I started to wonder...will we ever really get the general population to understand? Just that morning when I signed into Yahoo a big headline popped up about Guy Richie declaring he still loves Madonna, "but she is so retarded." What does that mean? Then there is the new Chris Rock documentary released on Friday. Al Sharpton describes the fact that more black hair salons are owned by whites and Asians as "economic retardation." Lisa over at Finnian's Journey did a great post about it this weekend. If you watch the latest episodes of the Kardashian sisters that play over and over and over on the "E" network, you hear Khloe call Kourtney "retard" multiple times in just one half hour segment. The word is everywhere.
So how are we to get others to understand the pain caused to our families by the over use of this term in a hurtful, derogatory way? One small step at a time. I'm not sure what the motivation is for Gus's mom to turn to the police in this matter. Was Matt wrong to punch? Of course. But this was not just some streetyard brawl over typical twelve year old stuff. This involved something greater, far greater. Yet to the family that does not have a member with a diagnosis of mental retardation defined by the Stanford Binet scale, they just do not understand what we are thinking, what we are talking about. I get that. I really do.
Our first task though is to get Matt to the police station for an interview. My gut tells me we best involve an attorney in this matter. But how does one find a defense attorney that can see the bigger picture, that understands our mission? One who has worked with juveniles.
At this point, I decided to go back to watching the fans walk in front of us. No point in taking the fun out of the day. On football Saturday there are more than 105,000 fans all clad in scarlet and gray. It truly is a sight. An event one has to experience to really appreciate. The Ohio State University has become the largest college campus in America with 57,000 plus students. Yet to me, it seems as intimate as a big family. I recalled the time I had come down for a meeting in the middle of the week and as I walked out of the parking garage I heard, "Hi Mrs. Ely." I looked up and it was my next door neighbor. And that's when it hit me...
...our next door neighbor...Mr. D...the defense attorney. I called John to tell him the situation and suggest he call our neighbor. When I walked into the house on Sunday evening, John had just hung up from that call. Mr. D. he told me, he gets it. He totally understands about the "R" word and will take the case. Of course he understands. He and his family have lived next to us since Sarah was an infant. He has watched her grow up. He has endured the lights and sirens each time we summoned the ambulance in the middle of the night. He just happened to be behind the car that came dangerously close to hitting Sarah the time she ran into the street. He has watched our boys protect their sister. I started to get that feeling again, the one that questions was this all By Chance or By Design...