Mainstreaming Kathleen

At the age of 28 I had my first child a big strong beautiful boy Johnny. The pregnancy had been normal uneventful and the birth following an easy quick labor also uneventful. There was no reason to expect anything different with a second pregnancy. But it was different. Within 2 months I had a small hemorrhage. By the time the baby was born I had had 4 or 5 more. The baby a girl was born at 26 weeks so small the doctor could hold her in his hands. At first I worked just to get her going day by day a monumental task. Later it was to assure her of a place in regular public school classes and a life as normal as possible. But I also found myself fighting for a more normal life for other handicapped youngsters and later for all handicapped individuals. Handicap Advocacy became my life's work albeit unpaid. I chaired a county task force on the Needs of the Handicapped; I was the chairperson for my county's Committee on Employment of the Disabled Persons and organized yearly one-day seminars for employers at the state university; I set up an all-day job fair which involved everybody in the county who had anything to do with disabled individuals from the county executive to all the non-profit agencies working with those same persons. I begged and borrowed from everywhere and everybody who might help. It was a fantastic success. We had disabled persons who had PhD's and those who were seriously retarded and everything in between. In 1996 I received the Cory Moore Award for my efforts on behalf of disabled persons and in 1999 I was named one of the Most Outstanding Senior Citizens in the state of Maryland. Best of all I have had a wonderful daughter and a life full of challenging and rewarding work and I have grown.