by Michelle Poppleton Chumsae | disability, medical, parenting
Miles Smiles (My Heart Half Heals)Mothering a severely disabled child with love When Miles was a baby, we had so many struggles beyond just keeping him alive and safe. Even the act of finding our son the perfect gift was rife with heartache. At the age of three, our...
by Michelle Poppleton Chumsae | disability, health, inspirational
Miles Smiles (My Heart Half Heals)Mothering a severely disabled child with love After my firstborn child had received two devastating diagnoses, I started trying to get back out into the world to do “normal” things. This wasn’t easy, both because of the necessary...
by Michelle Poppleton Chumsae | disability, health, inspirational
Miles Smiles (My Heart Half Heals)Mothering a severely disabled child with love A year ago today, I awoke at 5 a.m., and vaguely remembered that it was my birthday. It was also Friday the 13th, and I was feeling lucky. I slid out of bed for some “me time” before...
by Michelle Poppleton Chumsae | disability, medical, parenting
Miles Smiles (My Heart Half Heals)Mothering a severely disabled child with love I’ll never forget that phone call as long as I live. The phone rang as I read a line from my water-warped pale yellow copy of “Desiderata*,” which I had uncharacteristically posted on my...
by Michelle Poppleton Chumsae | disability, medical, parenting
Miles Smiles (My Heart Half Heals)Mothering a severely disabled child with love I’ll never forget that week as long as I live. It was 6 a.m. on a Thursday morning in early June. I was up early to groggily nurse Baby Miles in the living room rocker. He was now almost...
by Michelle Poppleton Chumsae | disability, medical, parenting
Miles Smiles (My Heart Half Heals)Mothering a severely disabled child with love It was a whopping gut punch. At Miles’ eighth birthday party, I saw what I knew all too well was a return seizure. Quick and small, imperceptible to everyone else, it was a cruel visual...
