My sister, Verna: A Lesson in Overcoming

Barbara Silvas' recent hub: http://hubpages.com/hub/Rocky-DennisMy-Personal-Development-Mentor inspired me to write about my sister Verna. She turned 50 this summer which is almost impossible to believe because she still looks like a child. Verna was born with Down's Syndrome.

This was a devastating blow to our family; particularly my mother who was highly intelligent and never could quite come to terms with having a child who was labeled an idiot on the intelligence scale. This was a lesson in perception for me. I have since met people who not only have natural born Downs but people who have chosen to adopt them as well that don't see having a mentally challenged child as a negative. My mother had Verna at a time when not a lot was known about these children and at a time when people still locked them away never letting anyone know of their existence.

My Mom loved Verna fiercely, almost to her detriment. She spoon fed her for years and totally enabled her. A school for the handicap was built close by and here Verna blossomed and learned to do all sorts of useful things. My mother always claimed that Verna was as close to an angel as she would ever see. She was an angelic child and to this day has a great sense of humor and is for the most part pleasant to be around.

Verna was also born with bilateral hip dislocation and had several surgeries to try and shorten the ligaments and castings to attempt to hold her hips in place. Verna was in a cast up to her chest with her legs splayed out and with an opening to change her diaper. I think I was about 9 when I started changing diapers.

One of my earliest memories once Verna was out of her cast was of pulling her home from the babysitters in a wagon. Kids coming the other way would point and snicker and somehow Verna knew they were making fun of her. She would purse her forefinger and thumb together and talk to her hands. She would talk and say: "What's wrong Verna?" and "It's ok Verna" back and forth. It used to tear my heart out.

I forget now just how old Verna was when she started to walk; 9 or 10 I think. She walked because she didn't know that she couldn't. She would throw each leg forward and managed to get around quite well. This was short lived however as she gained weight her legs couldn't support her.

At one point the Vancouver Canucks spent quite a bit of time with the mentally handicapped. Verna loves hockey, associating it with my brother Howard. When we were kids we would all sit in the living room to watch Saturday Night Hockey. My brother would rattle the windows in their frame with his outbursts of: " He shoots, he scores!" Verna loved it. Verna got to know most of the Canucks by first name and even went on the Royal Hudson train trip to Squamish with them. This was in the days of Tiger Williams, one of Verna's favorite players. At this time Verna was still mobile.

However she had had surgery to put pins in her hips to hold her hips in place and for some reason at the age of 28 her body rejected the pins. She ended up in hospital and received transfusions all night. My parents stayed with her all night at the hospital and when they came home in the morning they found that their front door was wide open and all my Moms jewelry and other valuables had been stolen.

This was just the beginning of the nightmare. Verna developed a staph infection in both hips and had to have her wounds packed several times a day. One of the holes was as big as an orange the other the size of a grapefruit. Verna who had always been a little trooper through all her hospital stays was screaming her head off when they went to change her dressings. They couldn't figure out why it hurt so badly. They even brought another patient in who had a staph infection to her ward to explain to us how much it hurt.

Something more was wrong but due to Verna's limited capacity for speech she couldn't tell us. We mostly just listened with our hearts. Time went by, a week, 2 weeks I'm not sure; its blanked out from my memory. I well remember her screams though, begging Mommy and Daddy to save her and pushing herself as high up in the bed as she could to get away from the nurses who were coming to torture her yet again. Then one day the resident Doctor came to my Mom with Verna's X-ray in his hand and asked her when had Verna broken her leg?!!!

This was the first we knew of it. The head orthopedic surgeon had never even looked at her x-rays! We surmised later that what had most likely happened was that a nurse had turned Verna on her own instead of following the procedure for a 2 person lift. Verna absolutely loves everyone but there was one nurse that she absolutely despised. I wonder why?! My parents had every right to sue but they had already been through so much and it really wasn't a part of who they were.

Verna spent the entire Expo 86 year in hospital; 13 months all together. She could see Expo from her hospital window but only made it to Expo once, to McDonalds. She loved Ronald McDonald and that was where she wanted to go.

After that ordeal you could expect Verna to be bitter. She was not. She was now permanently confined to a wheelchair; her femur completely fractured in two with many splinters. There is plenty of scar tissue now to relieve her of the pain for the most part at least. To this day Verna has to lift that leg and position it whenever she transfers to a chair to sit down. Does she complain? Occasionally, she gets a stab of pain if she doesn't place her leg well but otherwise no. She has never once bemoaned the fact that prior to going into the hospital she could walk and when she came out she was confined to a wheel chair.

Verna maintains her sunny disposition. She loves everybody and everybody loves her back. She lives in a group home and every year they take her to the Vancouver Folk Festival. One of her caregivers said that the next year she was going to get a T-shirt that says, ‘I'm with Verna'. Verna has an amazing memory for faces and names. People that she hasn't seen in years she will great with Hi and their name.

Having Verna in our life has helped to make my son a better and more empathetic person. From the time he was little he would chat with her and try to help he in any way that he could. My best friends kids would always take time to visit with her. In fact I believe she has helped make all of us better people. Everyone she touches is better off for having met her.

Verna may not have a high IQ but she certainly has a high EQ. Verna has overcome numerous challenges and remains a happy and loving individual. We can all learn from her example.

Our little angel passed away March 11th, 2009 at age 50. This has come as a huge shock to us all. I went to her yearly assessment on Feb 6th and she was happy and healthy; 3 days later she was rushed to hospital screaming in pain.

The emergency doctor said she had a fractured hip, said there was nothing they could do and sent her home. She developed pneumonia which she battled bravely. We were told more than once that she wouldn't make it but they didn't know the will of my sister.

Verna was loved my so many which was evident by the turn out at her memorial service.

People came up to me after her service and said that it was the nicest memorial service they had ever been to.

Below is part one of the slide presentation we did set to her favorite Elvis Presley tunes. If you would like to read the eulogy and see the rest of the slide show it is posted on my blog.