Her Cane

My daughter uses a cane to help her when she’s in unfamiliar places.   If you’ve seen a blind person with a cane before hers is like that, only it’s shorter and has a roller ball at the end instead of a tip.   It collapses into four segments and has an elastic wrist band that can be used to hold the cane in its collapsed state.  

We have multiple canes because as she gets taller we need to get one a few inches longer.   Currently her newest canes are thirty-six inches.   They’re inexpensive and you can order them in a collection of mix-and-match colors.   She doesn’t use a cane at home or in familiar environments, but when we’re out, she will bring it from time to time if she thinks it will help her.  

It’s more of an inconvenience for her than a help as she relies on the adults around her to guide her safely.   But it’s nice to have and she does like the color options she has.    As we get newer, slightly longer, canes, we put the older ones in the trunks of our cars in case we find ourselves out without a cane.   I think we have five canes in multiple lengths right now.  

My son has been interested in the canes in the last few days.   There are rules about using them because it basically is a stick with a hard plastic ball on the end which can look a lot like a make believe light saber or other weapon if the expectation on how they’re suppose to be used isn’t firmly set.

This morning I asked him after realizing he didn’t want to give his sister’s cane back to her as she was leaving for school if he wanted to bring one of her canes in to show his classmates for sharing time.   He nodded and looked pretty excited.  I showed him how to collapse and then open it and talked to him about why his sister used the cane and what it did to help her.  

He’s seen her use the cane for a while now, but he wasn’t connecting why the cane was helpful to her.   It’s hard to imagine a world in which you can’t see when you’re an adult but I think he understood fairly well what the cane did after a demo or two.   We talked about how she put her hands in front of her body if she didn’t have the cane sometimes and he remembered how she had run into walls in the past.   It seemed to connect with him.

This afternoon I asked where the cane was because it wasn’t in his backpack.   He said he would bring it home on Friday.  Friday, I asked him?  He said it was there in the classroom for the other students to look at and try out until then.   We asked his sister if that was okay, and explained why.   She said, “sure”.  I suppose it’s a good thing we have extra canes.

The Big Boy Update:  The trash smelled bad in the kitchen the other day.   My son has a sensitive nose.   So sensitive in fact that he told us, “I’d rather not have a nose than to smell that garbage.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  After OT today we were driving by the chiropractor’s office.   I asked my children if they needed to see him because in the past if they’ve said yes, they do have something that needs to be addressed.   My daughter said yes, that her neck and shoulders were hurting.   Then she asked if he could help her cheeks?   I asked her if she meant her jaw?   She said yes.    She was subluxated on the right at the C3 vertebra and left at C4.   Her jaw was tight on the right, her doctor said.   He also said C3 issues can be a contributor to TMJ.   It’s so interesting the children can tell us something like, “my cheeks hurt” and there’s something specific causing it.