Chelsea's Evolution

It seemed to Chelsea that just as she was learning to adult, she had to learn to parent. And then had to learn to be the parent of children with developmental disabilities. She frames her experiences of navigating this journey to nurse Jennie Wright's 7 Stages of Grief (2011).

Chelsea explains her initially ableist feelings around autism and her own feelings of overwhelm kept her in the first four stages longer than she would have liked. But once she hit that Upward Turn, with the belief that God was ahead of and beside her, she was able to evolve into the mama bear her neurospicy children needed and deserved for her to be.

You'll hear Chelsea refer to Emily Perl Kingsley’s poem “Welcome To Holland”. 

Terminology that may be unfamiliar in the order it comes up in the episode:

• rhabdomyolysis (Cleveland Clinic)
• Guillian-Barré syndrome: a rare autoimmune disorder where the body's immune system mistakenly attacks the peripheral nerves in response to an infection, which can result in a muscle paralysis that begins in the extremities and, in serious cases, moves toward the body's core organs. (Mayo Clinic)
• neuroaffirming
• Applied Behavior Analysis
• Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
• Individualized Education Plan (IEP)
• Medical Home model: an approach to providing comprehensive primary care that facilitates partnerships between patients, clinicians, medical staff, and families (American Academy of Pediatrics)

Podcast includes an introduction for episodes 6 and following at the beginning. Transition music, "Taking a Vocation", by Noey Budde.

Closing narration for episodes 6 and following.