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"Alex has helped me discover the unyielding positive person within myself. He has taught me about courage, discipline, and hope. He has helped me to define myself and my goals. He has made me realize that being a loving husband and father is what truly defines a man’s worth. "
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Healing Daddy’s Broken Heart
John Tierney
Alexander Russell was born at 2:26 AM on April 16, 1994. Eighteen hours of labor ending in a C-section was merely a foreshadowing of the difficulties to come. Alexander appeared to be a healthy, seven pound, seven once baby, scoring a nine on the Apgar Scale. It wasn’t until several weeks later that we noticed Alexander’s reluctance to move his left arm. As Alexander grew and the rest of his mobility increased, the rigidity of his left arm became more apparent.
At three months old, Alexander was diagnosed with brachial nerve damage in the left shoulder. Torn nerves were supposedly causing Alexander’s left arm to be extremely inflexible. At seven months, this condition was healing slowly and Alex was referred to a neurologist in Springfield, Massachusetts. We were led to believe this visit was to confirm that we were doing everything possible for the damaged shoulder.
The examination took only a few minutes. The neurologist turned to us and state, "The baby has experienced a pre-natal stroke." He began explaining to us the severity of Alexander’s irreversible condition, but I couldn’t hear him. Blood hammered in my ears, and I couldn’t draw a breath; nothing in my life had prepared me for the raw pain I experienced at that moment. It was as if that doctor had torn my heart out with a pick-ax.
After many months of grief, anger, disbelief, and many tests on Alexander, my wife, Michele, and I began to establish how to best help our baby. We decided to ignore Boston Children’s Hospital’s dismal prognosis of how abnormal our child would be. We chose to focus on the positives. Alexander is not prone to strokes, and therefore will probably never have another one. His brain damage is permanent but non-progressive. The rest of his brain has the potential to grow and to compensate for the damaged area. Most important, Alexander is a beautiful, happy, and loving child. We also recognized that Alexander is totally unaware that there is anything wrong with him. So we began to define a plan to help Alexander in his recovery.
First of all, we decided that Alexander’s cognitive growth was our top priority. We instituted a vigorous learning routine, using every available means to stimulate Alexander’s curiosity. My wife bought every childhood education book in the Western hemisphere. We became a unified team in search of creative solutions to make learning fun. With coaching, we relied on positive encouragement to reward Alex for even the smallest advances. To our amazement his progress has been extraordinary. At nineteen months, Alex has a vocabulary of over 50 words and sounds. Yet, it is his ability to absorb everything and his total awareness of his surroundings that is most gratifying.
Our second priority was to get Alex walking. Because Alex was initially unable to crawl and adapted an alternative method of dragging himself along via his right side, his left side continued to be too weak to support his weight. We continued to swim three nights a week, as well as attend therapy sessions at our early intervention program the other two nights. We devotedly followed the given exercises and even came up with our own. We took turns stabilizing Alexander while he attempted to walk. We climbed ramps so that he would learn to pull his weakened left arm through. We crawled behind him on an endless number of stairs, teaching him to use and strengthen his left side.
At eighteen months, despite the predictions and the odds, Alexander took three solo steps, smiled, and reluctantly sat down on the dining room floor. Michele and I cried into our champagne that night. We agreed that this was by far the most rewarding moment of our entire lives. Alex has since conquered the art of walking, moving all around the toys on the floor in his eagerness to get to the next one.
Alexander is my inspiration. Every day I witness his battle to overcome his limitations. When he falls, he pulls himself back up. When he is incapable of physically accomplishing something, he finds an alternative way to do it. Above all, he absolutely refuses to give up.
I’m not sure what the future holds for us. We’re too busy enjoying Alex to think about it too much. We stay busy with therapy, swimming, and building him a new playroom. And when Alexander follows me around with his toy hammer, banging and fixing in his wake, I have to laugh out loud. I think how he has fixed his daddy’s broken heart.
John Tierney
Pittsfield, MA
Special thanks to Pat, Linda, Tina and Kim at PDC, Missy LaFrance, Helen Hanzarak and Myra Palmer. We are forever grateful for each of you and your indispensable contributions to Alexander’s recovery.
This article appeared in the "Fathers Voices" column of Exceptional Parent magazine.
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