Really Special
Needs After Katrina
by
Jeff Stimpson © 2005
For me, dad to an autistic son, New Orleans and
Katrina confirmed what I believe we've all thought, usually to
ourselves, about the disadvantaged: We'll help them when their city
floods. I'm no fan of our government's "response" to Katrina, of
course, but I think our attitude toward those who can't motor it out
of town when a hurricane's coming has been fermenting for
generations. Not to mention our attitude about maintaining levees.
Still. What was it like, I think as I watch Alex
sleep in our New York apartment, to have an autistic child down
there? In the heat and the sludge and the looters? Your home gone,
right down to the "Elmo" tapes, most of your binkies, and the silken
T shirts of Jill's that you sleep with every night? What would it
have been like with Alex in the Superdome?
Dear Reader Cindy (not her real name) was
in Mississippi, not Louisiana. She and her husband had quadruplets
back in 2003, two of whom survived their early years to enjoy
Katrina: James (not his real name, either), a 22-weeker (1 lb. 2
oz.), and "Helen" (23 weeks, 1 lb, 1 oz. ). James has a trach and
limited vision; Helen was blinded by ROP Stage 5. Katrina didn't
especially care.
"We're doing pretty good," Cindy writes. "I was
one of the lucky ones that had minor damage to my house. A lot of my
family members lost their homes and more. Unfortunately, I lost my
job due to the storm: I worked at the President Casino as an
assistant reservation manager for 10 years or so." What seems to
bother her a lot is that she still has "a roof over my head at this
time, and others do not. Bills keep rolling in and money keeps
running out. But I'm very happy I have my family since all we have
been through with them. If we made it through the NICU days with the
babies, we can for sure get through this."
Good point. Rather than send cash (always in short
supply, as here too the bills keep rolling in), Jill and I shipped
three cartons of newborn supplies to the Mississippi chapter of the
March of Dimes: corn starch, diapers, formula, blankets, tiny
shirts, storybooks, and, I confess, a copy of Alex.
"Thank you so very much for the supplies," wrote
back Lynda Buntyn of the Mississippi MOD chapter. "They could not
have come at a better time. We got a call this morning from a local
hospital that just delivered a 3-lb. preemie and two full-term
babies to evacuee mothers who have nothing."
What would it have been like to lose our hospital
in 1998 or 1999? To watch Alex's doctors and nurses fleeing town in
their SUVs, their tires raising wakes on flooded, packed highways?
To know that if Alex's bells went off, no ambulance, even no
helicopter, would come? It can't compare, of course, but we did go
through 9/11 and the Northeast blackout with Alex, and I can tell
you that in such emergencies, special needs can become truly
"special."
Oh well, no hurricanes come this far north, and
what are the odds anything devastating is ever going to happen to
New York City? Except next winter, maybe, when the fallout of
Katrina and Rita jack up oil prices. To cheer Cindy, I told her to
think of us next February, when the wind chill in New York will be
10-below and Mississippi will be getting mid-60s.
"You guys will definitely be thought about in
February," Cindy replied. "I could not imagine being in that kind of
weather!"
Ha ha. I also wrote back to the March of Dimes
asking if they needed anything else, and saying I assumed none of
the babies was named "Katrina."
"The list we received from the hospital includes
onesies, blankets, baby shampoo, corn starch powder, baby towels,
baby bath, and baby washcloths," Buntyn wrote. "And no, I don't
think we will have very many babies named 'Katrina.'"
How about that? The night they arrived, those
diapers that just a few days before had sat cozy in a Lexington
Avenue CVS were catching Deep South wee-wee! We're shipping two more
cartons, one of which Jill just got around to taking to the post
office. Sorry they're late. I wish I could've told Jill that there
was a rush.
Copyright 2005 Jeff Stimpson, all rights reserved
