An Invitation

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
Psalms 139:13-14

I would like to invite you along on a journey. This journey will be unlike any you've ever been on. But any journey, like any story, needs to begin at the beginning.

At the beginning of July, I had an appointment with a man who facilitates a special program called the, Davis Program, to help people who have dyslexia. When someone has dyslexia, it basically means they're disoriented. One cause of this disorientation is what's known as trigger words, words that don't have a picture, like the, and, as...   There are 216 trigger words. What the Davis program does is two-fold:  it helps the person orient by giving techniques to see things from a different perspective, and also has the person take those 216 trigger words and using a dictionary create a clay model of each word by smooshing all the definitions together.

Mom and I, along with my ever-present four-footed, furry sidekick, were met in the lobby of a non-wheelchair accessible building (no wheelchair automatic doors and a broken down elevator) by a man named Carl. We were led to a board room on the first level. (The hallway reminded Mom and I of the hallway leading to our room at the  hotel we stayed at when the company I work for went on tour to Toronto in April 2014). It had twists and turns and branches and what seemed like hundreds of doors!

When we finally arrived at the room, I was familiarized with the program and the basics of what we were going to be doing that day. Then Carl got me to read out loud.  I love reading, but reading aloud is tricky with my lack of control over the muscles in my mouth and air ways. He started me at a grade two level and I think I finished that particular section of the assessment at a grade eight level. One of the most common signs of dyslexia is trouble reading. Now, as I said above,  I love reading and depending on the size of the book and my availability to read I can be done a book in as short a time period as a week.

What he discovered was that while I read well and was able to tell him what I had read about, two things would happen. 1) I'd stumble or skip words and these words were always one of the 216 trigger words. this I was aware of and could tell him both what had happened and what word had caused the stumble. 2) This "symptom" wasn't as obvious to me. Every time I  read X number of trigger words I'd go into what Carl called my auto-pilot. This meant that I would start reading at a hundred miles an hour, with a monotone voice and no stopping at commas or periods! The fascinating thing was that when this would happen I wouldn't make any mistakes! Unfortunately, I also didn't understand nearly as well what I was reading. He kept telling me to slow down but then the mistakes would begin again: the changing a word, dropping a word, or adding a word would come.

The reading test did it for him. I was diagnosed dyslexic.

But that's not it. It doesn't do much good to have a diagnosis but be unable to do the Program because of the extent of my other disabilities! In total the assessment took over 5 hours!!!!!

The Davis Program is a hands-on program. Because my muscles don't work well,  Carl had to find out if I had the ability to handle the program's demands.

One of the hardest exercises he had me do was actually imagining a piece of cake in my hand. Before we started the exercise he asked me to close my eyes...this posed an interesting problem as I can't close my eyes voluntarily and keep them closed. Carl thought that was fascinating and wanted to know how on earth I fall asleep each night if I can't close my eyes!

Carl soon learned he would need to use what he calls "wiggle room!" Find creative solutions to wiggle around in so we can accomplish things the "normal" person doesn't have to think about! In this instance, I just looked down at my all black pants. Once that was figured out, he had me describe my piece of cake to him and was quite surprised with how much detail I gave him.  Try it! What does your cake look like!

The other problem we  faced with this exercise was my inability to turn my hand over and keep it that way for a long period of time. So, my cake was balanced precariously on the back of my right hand during the exercise.

Next he took my left index finger and pointed it up to the ceiling by my head. Then, he to me told float my imagination out to my finger and look at my cake from there. I couldn't do it. So, he broke it down. He had me put my hand down, and just turn the cake in my imagination. I was able to do this and describe to him what each side of the piece of cake looked like. Then we tried the index finger again. This  time I was able to see the cake from my finger, so he moved my finger around and, it took a while, but eventually I  saw my cake from each angle I had before when we were just turning the cake.  (Go ahead, if you wish, and try the above exercise, it's a lot tougher than it sounds!!!!)

He also wanted to see if I could do the clay modeling. He explained to Mom and  I that he could use some of his "wiggle room" and help me if needed. He had me roll out the clay and  make the letter "A" to match the exact size and shape of his letter "A" he had made.. He also showed me a really neat, really fast way to make a clay person. Simply roll a piece of clay into a barrel-like shape, then using a special cutter, cut a slit in the clay at each end. Split the two sides of each slit, creating arms and legs. Finish your person off by rolling a head a sticking it between the arms. No neck and no features, but it's a person.
It appears with time I will be able to accomplish these physical parts of the program. It will take more time, but Carl is willing to extend the program for me to accomplish it and not charge any more for it!

We finished the assessment with a questionnaire type thing. But  this was unlike any I'd seen. The detail of the questions... Needless to say this part was probably the longest in the whole assessment as my answer depended on situations. What as suppose to be a quick rank of 0-5, ended up being "well, 1 in this situation BUT 4 in that situation... Each question ended up with at least two story examples to explain my answers!

I will be starting the Davis Program with Carl in early December. I am inviting each one of you to come along with me on this adventure. It has taken many weeks but through prayer and conversation with my Mom and a friend, I am beginning to see that being dyslexic is nothing to be ashamed about. God created my brain this way. This is why I can both choreograph and dance without becoming mixed up. As in the Psalm above "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made."