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Mary Ellen – How have your family relationships changed?

Mary Ellen – How have your family relationships changed?

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My younger son jumped right in. He, I'm not sure how he processed it, but he was a fairly independent kid at the time. So, he sort of went on autopilot through seventh grade. To this day I can't tell you who his seventh grade teacher was, I d... Show More

My younger son jumped right in. He, I'm not sure how he processed it, but he was a fairly independent kid at the time. So, he sort of went on autopilot through seventh grade. To this day I can't tell you who his seventh grade teacher was, I don't remember. And that's good and I think he knew that we needed him to do that. So he did his own thing, he wasn't real demanding and he was really anxious to help out with whatever she needed, "I'll pick that up for you, I'll get that for you," it was his way of pitching in. Her twin brother was devastated, and their relationship changed significantly for quite a long time. He started making excuses not to visit her in the hospital, and I called him out on that one day. I said, "What is going on here?" And he said, "it is just too difficult for me to watch her try to do the simplest thing," he said, "I can't watch it." And I said, "Okay, I understand that." So he didn't visit her as much, he would wait for when she came home on day visits. And when she came home for good, their relationship was a little strained. He found it very painful, I think for him, to be around her, and so he distanced himself a little bit. And that went on for a while; I would say it took maybe the better part of a year for their relationship to become easy like it was before the accident. And they are very close; they have a great relationship now, but they had to work a little bit on getting it back together.

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Mary Ellen – How have your family relationships changed?

Mary Ellen

Daughter injured in 2005 at age 15, quadriplegic
More Videos by Mary
Transcriptadd

My younger son jumped right in. He, I'm not sure how he processed it, but he was a fairly independent kid at the time. So, he sort of went on autopilot through seventh grade. To this day I can't tell you who his seventh grade teacher was, I don't remember. And that's good and I think he knew that we needed him to do that. So he did his own thing, he wasn't real demanding and he was really anxious to help out with whatever she needed, "I'll pick that up for you, I'll get that for you," it was his way of pitching in. Her twin brother was devastated, and their relationship changed significantly for quite a long time. He started making excuses not to visit her in the hospital, and I called him out on that one day. I said, "What is going on here?" And he said, "it is just too difficult for me to watch her try to do the simplest thing," he said, "I can't watch it." And I said, "Okay, I understand that." So he didn't visit her as much, he would wait for when she came home on day visits. And when she came home for good, their relationship was a little strained. He found it very painful, I think for him, to be around her, and so he distanced himself a little bit. And that went on for a while; I would say it took maybe the better part of a year for their relationship to become easy like it was before the accident. And they are very close; they have a great relationship now, but they had to work a little bit on getting it back together.

Mary Ellen – How have your family relationships changed?
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