Skip to main content

Here's your pasta...it's Cerebral Palsy right?

Friday night I went out to dinner with my parents. As I sat down in the booth I thought it would be like any other night out to dinner. Our waiter came and we ordered drinks. After I had given our waiter my ID then things change. I expected the typical "I will be right back with your drinks" instead I got, "it's Cerebral Palsy right?" 

WAIT! What? Wasn't expecting that one.

He then went on to say that he was a caregiver for a man that had severe Cerebral Palsy. The man couldn't talk but he had a device where he could type what he wanted to say with his forehead.

As the waiter left my dad proceeded to ask me "isn't it nice for someone to just outright say it. I mean you know he was thinking it".

The answer is YES!. It rarely  happens that someone just outright says it and I think that is why I was caught off guard. We tend to keep the obvious to a quiet. Like "I don't wanna say anything for fear of it offending her even though I really wanna know". Society just loves to think that staring or wondering is better when it really is not.

If you ask me I would rather you be upfront like that waiter because it makes everyone feel more comfortable. That waiter probably knew from working with the man that he didn't like people staring and would rather have people be honest. I mean it might be different for others but for me go ahead I love it when people are curious and bold enough to ask. Boldness is where you find beauty and where you jump into the unknown just to learn more.

So thank you to that waiter for your boldness and compassion for the disabled population.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Does It Mean to Have CP?

You know this month is CP awareness month so I thought it would be fitting to write about what I feel everyday..So here we go When you wake up and get out of bed and think man my leg muscles are tight. When you walk into a store and you get the looks. The looks of curiosity, looks of wow that girl sure walks different, looks that make you feel like you just don't fit in. When you go to pay and you are struggling getting that money or credit card out and you start to blush because you know that cashier or the person behind you is thinking "that poor girl". When you are asked to repeat yourself 2-3 times because that person can't understand you and you just want to say never mind. When you have to buy new shoes more often than normal because you ruined the toe part of your shoe or you have a hole on the bottom due to walking toe-heel instead of heel-toe. When you have to use adaptive tools like a button hook. When you can't open a water bottle or you spill your dr...
Post a Comment
Read more

Struggle is Real with Adult CP

 Here is something that frustrates me about the state of California. Basically since I was diagnosed with CP I went to CCS (California Children Services). They provide free occupational and physical therapy until your 21. This is so awesome and I would go twice a week until high school where I would do more check ins because I was becoming more independent and doing so well I did not need it as much. Now I know what your thinking...um Nicole why are you frustrated with this? Well did you noticed I bolded until your 21? This is the issue. Once you turn 21 they are like bye bye good luck with the rest of your life. It has been difficult because you get dropped off and on your own without any recommendations of where to go next in life.  Most of you know that hot yoga has been a life saver for me and has basically become my physical therapy and it has been great until...covid. Due to the shutdown it also caused a shut down of my body because my physical therapy (aka yoga) was tak...
2 comments
Read more

So What Did You Do In Kenya?

Jambo!! I am made it back from a life changing trip in Kenya! I will be posting a few blog posts about stories that happened there but first I wanted to give you all an overview/timeline of what I did everyday over there July 7 - We landed at 2 in the morning! As we are all waiting to get our luggage we notice that no new luggage is coming out. Hmmmm what is wrong?? Yeah well all 90  of us lost  our luggage. Our flight out of LAX was delayed which made us have to rush to our next plane in Turkey. The airport personnel decided they did not have time to transfer our luggage to the next plan which ended up for us not getting our luggage. We got like an hour of sleep and then we had to wake up and start our day. We went to pangani which is the main school we worked at. We were greeted and had an opening ceremony from all of the kids. Then we got to take a social worker and walk around the Mathare Valley. We were able to go into one of the shanty's and pray over a sick girl ...
Post a Comment
Read more