Right now, I believe we’re doing okay. The youngsters are wholesome, and we’ve acquired a lot assist. I really feel like sources ought to go to households who’re struggling greater than we’re. We hosted Edie’s eighth birthday celebration organized by pals. In that means, the love now we have been proven means we’re fortunate.”
“For youngsters like Waylon, the await medical gear can take years—the considered forsaking these long-awaited necessities is devastating.”
Dawn McCoy, is a TV host, author and founding father of Loving Way Foundation, a nonprofit group that fights youngster abuse. She can also be a single mother to her son Waylon, 5, who’s disabled. She says:
My son, Waylon is 5 years previous and has in depth mind harm, blindness, cerebral palsy, epilepsy and developmental delays. He doesn’t but discuss or stroll, sit or stand independently. And as a solo dad or mum, to say that emergency conditions depart you feeling powerless is an understatement.
We are fully reliant on medical gear: Waylon’s wheelchair, gait coach, bathtub chair, exercise chair, leg braces, and arm braces are all important. For youngsters like Waylon, the await medical gear can take years—so the considered forsaking these long-awaited necessities is devastating. The concept of evacuating underneath strain with a baby who can’t stroll is past terrifying.
Although we had been within the purple flag zone, we had been lucky to not face a sudden, fast-moving evacuation like so a lot of our pals. At least 20 of them misplaced their houses. Given how difficult an evacuation could possibly be for us, we determined to depart early, and went to Palm Springs for the week.
I talked to Waylon about all the things that was occurring and we stayed inside and simply cuddled rather a lot and watched films.
I additionally tapped into Waylon’s love of music to be a type of remedy for us. I stored wanting to listen to a gradual model of Randy Newman’s “I Love LA”, so Waylon and I sat on the piano and got here up with our personal tackle it with our personal tailored lyrics.
Our dwelling, situated in Mid-City, in the end remained secure. However, the scent of smoke lingered in all places, and I observed a notable uptick in Waylon’s epileptic seizures.
Honestly, the toughest half is simply feeling the devastating heartbreak and lack of my pals and fellow Angelenos. We are a household who has survived trauma in our previous, and I simply know properly that feeling of the ‘earlier than’ and the ‘after’. But you’re proper now in the course of—the place am I? You’re type of in a purgatory.