The Christianville Spirit: Weird Family; Explaining What I had and What My Mom did

The Christianville Spirit

The Spirit that Makes You Wonder

September 27th, 2017-TCS # 563

Happy Autumn, My Readers! That is the Old English Way of saying, Fall. Honestly, I like to refer to Fall as Autumn, It sounds much nicer! So, Gather ‘round, My Readers, Rather ‘round! It is Time for Another Untold Story of My Life! This One, I feel is going to a Funny One and I am going to Warn You Folks, It is Definitely Not Traditional! 

So, The other Day, My Mom and I talking and started talking about My Childhood. It led to The Topic of What My Mom did for a Living when I was a Kid. We had a Good Laugh and I said “Boy, We were a Weird Family!”. Funny How You realize just how Weird your Family is or was when You get older in Life.

So, As A Child, There are a Few Questions that You can be asked of when You talk to Your Friends or Your Friend’s Parents, “What does Your Mom and/or Dad do?”. Other than that You proudly say What Your Parents do. In a Child’s Mind, If Your Parents do something simple and easy to explain, well it is Easy to explain. Presently My Mom is a Professor at a Community College teaching Medical and Health Care Classes, President of The Potocki-Lupski Syndrome Foundation, and The Last one, Part-Time Lactation Consultant. Easy to Explain, at least Right Now that is. Now, try to Imagine, Trying to explain or at least, wanting to Explain what Special Needs You have or in other words, Why I have a Little Twang in My Voice that is a bit Nasally. I have Potocki-Lupski Syndrome (or PTLS), It is Autistic-like. We are like Autism, only Friendlier. Again, Easy to explain. Well, Let’s flash back to When I was a Child! (Sound of Time Machine Whooshing). I am in 4th or 5th Grade in the Late 90’s, Old enough to want to explain what I had and What My Mom did. At This Time in My Life, I knew that I had something called “A Duplication of Chromosome 17” because at the Time, Dr. Potocki and Dr. Lupski had not put a Name to It yet. Add to that, that not A lot of People had “What I had”, I was 4th in The World and 1st in The United States, A Blessing and a Curse at the Same Time. Again, This was at The Time. Now, My Mom, at the time, was a Nurse, but, did Lactation Consultation until She decided add on Massage later on a Couple Years Later to help with The Child Birth and Parenting Classes that She was Teaching.

Now, Lactation Consultation (We will just call it LC), to put it simply, is teaching Your Baby to basically feed from The Mother. The Mother’s Breast. Also known as Breastfeeding (I will be Honest, those Words make me Laugh still). Now, as A Child, I could not even pronounce LC, All I knew was The Alternate Name, “Breastfeeding” because that was, what it was, to put it simply, It was Breastfeeding. So, When that question came about, What does Your Mom do and Why do You speak Funny? I answered Very Proudly (even though I probably had No Idea what I was actually saying) “My Mom does Breastfeeding” and I talk Funny, again answering Proudly “I have a Duplication of Chromosome 17”. I got quite a Few Puzzled Looks when I said both of Those. Both of Which I usually said, Just ask My Mom. Yes, even though I had No Idea how to explain about What I had, I would still say “Do You want to do what Special Needs I have?” They would answer Yes, thinking it was something Easy like Autism or Down Syndrome. Nope, I had something that was more More Unique and Even though, I was Rare and 4th in The World having it, I was Extremely Proud! Even My Brother had a Hard Time explaining, What My Mom did and What I had. He was curious one time about What Color the Milk was that coming of These Moms, thinking It might be Red like Blood or maybe Blue or Green. My Mom did her job at The Hospital, Doctor’s Office, or At the Client’s House. So, We did not see her when She was doing her job with The Babies and the Moms. It made things confusing, This was not a “Take Your Kids to Work” Day kind of Work. But, We did go to Her Business Partner, Mrs. Ramirez’s House every now and then. We went to School with Mrs. Ramirez’s Kids. As for Explaining What I had, It was Hard to explain, let alone pronounce “a Duplication of Chromosome 17” and Know what I was saying. At The Time, My Brother, Michael, was Very Confused! All We knew was that I had something Very Unique! So , I look back on all of That and Laugh because it was not Easy at all. All in all, If You need to know how The Body works (even if You are not Breastfeeding, Pregnant, or Parenting), She can help you understand all the Medical Stuff, and She is The Expert on PTLS!

Thanks for Reading The Christianville Spirit. Embrace Your Weird Family!