Nothing but Positive Vibes
Submitted by Mary McHale and Joe Holm
Daniel was born May 1, 1998 with Down syndrome. My husband and I had put him on the waiting list for daycare at Bergan Mercy Child Developmental Center, which is a daycare for employees at Bergan Mercy Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska, where my husband works (although they accept children of non-employees). Needless to say, when Daniel was born we weren’t sure if the daycare would still want to take him, even though it would be discrimination if they refused.
When I got home from the hospital, I called Yvonne Ballars, director of the center, and told her of the situation. Her first words were, “Well, we have never had a child with special needs but as long as you tell us what we should and shouldn’t do for him, we’ll work it out with the staff.”
Daniel went to daycare for the first time when he was 4 months old, after open-heart surgery at 9 weeks. He was in good hands and continued to grow and develop. Daniel’s home-based teacher, physical therapist, and occupational therapist provided services at daycare and worked with his teachers so that they knew what to do to help him in his therapy.
Daniel had a series of health problems starting after his first birthday. He had a nasogastric-tube inserted for aspiration pneumonia prevention. We had a home healthcare nurse come to daycare and go over procedures for feeding and the staff had no problems. Then Daniel had to be on breathing treatments and portable oxygen. The staff rose to the occasion and treated it as though it was just another thing for Daniel-they administered the treatments amidst the other children in the room. Then Daniel ended up with a g-tue for some feeding issues. This was a little trickier for the staff, but again, my husband and I and the home healthcare nurse did a number of in-services for the staff so that they could learn to feed him.
Happily, Daniel no longer has any feeding tubes, breathing treatments, or oxygen, and he is just like any other kid at the daycare. As a matter of fact, there are two other infants at the daycare also with Down syndrome. The other child is enrolled at the daycare because a pediatrician had heard of our son and knew of our positive experience.
We have had nothing but positive vibes from Bergan Mercy Child Development Center, and Daniel had posed an opportunity for the staff there to deal with a number of new experiences.
