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PODCAST

Medical Motherhood

Shasta Kearns Moore

News, essays and insights on the experience of raising disabled children. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter at MedicalMotherhood.com. www.medicalmotherhood.com

kids & family parenting

All Episodes

14:10

Happy Mother's Day to all the Supermamas

Medical Motherhood ·

2023/05/14

Lack of sleep is definitely my Kryptonite! What’s yours? The second Sunday of every month Medical Motherhood publishes Where Is the Manual for This?!, an editorial cartoon by Lenore Eklund.Medical Motherhood’s news round upSnippets of news and opinion from outlets around the world. Click the links for the full story.• From the Miami Herald: “‘Just another baby for them.’ Parents, feds fight for kids stuck in Florida nursing homes” (If you decide to click through, be aware that the article contains

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13:12

Year Three of Medical Motherhood begins...

Medical Motherhood ·

2023/05/07

This week at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, comedian Roy Wood, Jr., had an important message poking out of his hilarious set: Local sources of news are dying and, without them, we are missing community storytellers and watchdogs all over the country.As a former community journalist, I am painfully aware of this reality and of how deeply important local news sources are. When I started Medical Motherhood, I imagined it could be like a small newspaper for my community. Even if you and I

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13:08

Growing resilience — lessons from a medical mama's...

Medical Motherhood ·

2023/04/30

Early on, I would try to start seeds and, eventually, they died. I would put them in neat little rows, give them fertilizer and water them. I would do everything by the book, everything I am supposed to do. But for some reason, I was rarely successful. My corn never grew past my knee, my basil yellowed and wilted, my lettuce seedlings rotted. My son, on the other hand…. Jasper* finds old seed packets and sprinkles them in patches, not rows. He doesn’t pay attention to the weather. He forgets to

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15:36

Paid family caregivers should be a national policy

Medical Motherhood ·

2023/04/23

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden signed an executive order that he called “the most comprehensive set of actions any administration has taken to date” to increase access to childcare and to the home-care industry. Biden, speaking to a crowd of union members, politicians, disabled people and their families in a sunny Rose Garden ceremony, called the new effort “fundamental to who we are as a nation.”Biden’s action comes as a flurry of activity is happening on the national scene to promote the use of

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13:04

News roundup: Pennsylvania schools to offer...

Medical Motherhood ·

2023/04/16

Hello readers,This week we have a bumper crop of news stories relevant to those raising disabled and neurodiverse children. So, we have an expanded news briefs section taking over this issue. As always, you can click the links to get to the original story. Here are the headlines you’ll find inside:* Report finds more than 130 emergency teachers serving as special education teachers in Oregon, potentially violating federal law* Pennsylvania introduces disability awareness curriculum to K12 schools, a

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10:02

Caregiver's Break Time Blitz: The eternal struggle...

Medical Motherhood ·

2023/04/09

When Lenore Eklund, our fabulous Medical Motherhood editorial cartoonist, sent over this month’s edition of Where is the Manual for This?! I literally laughed out loud. I feel this HARD. My to do list is as long as my arm and somehow even when I get a surprise break I still don’t know what to do with myself. The tension between “rest” and “productivity” is particularly strong. Productivity usually wins but rest would sure be nice…What do you do when you get a surprise break? What do you want to do

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19:42

A year ago, Oregon's parents rallied for change. Now...

Medical Motherhood ·

2023/04/02

Today’s Medical Motherhood is a rerun of coverage of a protest one year ago that was asking for parents to be paid as caregivers. Many things have changed in the last year, and much has remained the same: I still think this is a good idea and I have worked alongside a group of passionate parents for many hours every week to try to make it happen. I have also made and lost friends over differences of opinion about what a politically viable strategy is for a policy for Oregon. The parent group I am a

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11:57

Home help for your disabled child!*

Medical Motherhood ·

2023/03/26

Medicaid’s Home and Community Based Services are a wonderful thing in theory. But these supports — which in many states includes in-home caregivers — can be difficult to make work in practice, especially for children. Part of the issue, as illustrated this week by Lenore Eklund in her Where is the Manual for This?! editorial cartoon for this month, is the web of restrictions and limits on what exactly these hours can be used for. Some of them make sense, but most do not, especially in the context of

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16:00

Go camping! Accessible options in Oregon

Medical Motherhood ·

2023/03/19

I love camping. So I knew that even with our family’s extra challenges, I had to figure out some sort of way to keep going for summer adventures in the great outdoors. Through a lot of trial and error, I can say with confidence that camping with wheels is not only possible but worth the effort.Fortunately, camping — and travel generally — is being made easier by a new wave of accessibility in the tourism world. There are accessible tourism conferences, like The Accessible & Inclusive Tourism

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59:02

Three moms on why they should be able to be paid...

Medical Motherhood ·

2023/03/12

Each year on International Women’s Day, a Portland, Ore., radio station “holds the mic up to those systematically excluded from radio, 365 days a year.” From 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., all other programming is suspended to put marginalized people’s struggles into sharper focus. As part of this Amplify Women event, XRAY FM aired a conversation I recorded with three women at 11 a.m. last Wednesday, March 8. (See it on their site at Medical Motherhood: Full-Time Paid Caregiving for Parents of Disabled

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16:40

North Dakota could pass paid parent caregiver...

Medical Motherhood ·

2023/03/05

Toby Lunstad was an occupational therapist and manager when she realized her daughter Addilynn’s needs were significant enough that she needed to give up employment. Toby had run out of paid leave and was having to constantly correct her daughter’s hired caregivers, so she didn’t feel safe leaving Addilynn with them to go back to work.That was three years ago and Addilynn has blossomed under the focused care of her mother.“She is doing way better,” Toby tells Medical Motherhood, “even friends that

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20:40

Julie Beckett’s legacy is honoring the role parents...

Medical Motherhood ·

2023/02/26

Medicaid would have paid for Katie Beckett to live her entire life in a hospital.Her mom, Julie Beckett, had other ideas.Not only would that have been a waste of government resources, but a poor excuse for a childhood. So Julie Beckett collected arguments and data and took her advocacy all the way to President Ronald Reagan. Within two days of the President speaking about this, administrators made an exception for Katie. Soon after, there was an option for states to create what became known as

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17:20

'We did it. It worked.' Watch the senate hearing on...

Medical Motherhood ·

2023/02/19

Medical mothers wear many different hats. We are therapists and nurses and referees and dieticians and housekeepers and laundresses.One of the many hats I wear is journalist. Another, lately, has been political activist.Last Monday, Feb. 6, I wore that latter hat to a hearing of the Oregon Senate Committee on Human Services. The committee was hearing testimony two bills that could lead to paid parent caregivers in our state. The first, Senate Bill 646, is a broad measure, developed by Sen. Tim Knopp

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10:19

Introducing a supermama superhero: Clarissa Kent,...

Medical Motherhood ·

2023/02/12

Introducing: Clarissa Kent! Editorial cartoonist Lenore Eklund and I were laughing a while back about a reverse superhero: One who dresses in street clothes to do heroic life-saving activities by day but then on rare occasions, dresses up in a leotard to do… well, absolutely nothing by herself in bed with takeout! That’s how this medical motherhood life feels sometimes. I love what Lenore has done with the concept and look forward to more in the supermama Disability Defender series. To truth,

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13:36

Oregon to ban expulsions from preschool but what...

Medical Motherhood ·

2023/02/05

This month’s edition of PDX Parent has my feature on Oregon’s radical new program to eliminate suspensions and expulsions from preschools and day cares by 2026. The Suspension and Expulsion Prevention Program in the soon-to-be-created Oregon Department of Early Learning and Care is gearing up to provide the training, research, supports and funding that early educators will need to stop the practice. Before the ban on suspensions and expulsions goes into effect, the state plans to conduct three years

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12:01

There are other people walking in the rain

Medical Motherhood ·

2023/01/29

“So.That’s all.Thanks for asking and for the love. It’s just so hard. All the time. Forever.”That’s how I ended a text exchange with a friend this week, another medical mama. I was explaining another hard week in what has been a series of hard weeks lately.Of course, I meant it as hyperbole, but that is kinda how it feels sometimes caregiving for a child with lifelong complex disabilities. So hard. All the time. Forever….*It’s only as I’m approaching middle age that I have found a sustainable

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17:22

Disabled children are more likely to be victims of...

Medical Motherhood ·

2023/01/22

A man was sentenced last week to life in prison for sexual exploitation of four children, three of whom were significantly disabled. As a certified nursing assistant caring for them overnight in a Central California group home, Steve Rodriguez, 38, filmed himself sexually abusing the children and committed several other crimes, according to a U.S. Justice Department press release.While the details of the case are incredibly distressing — such as that he started the acts when one victim was just 6,

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19:36

How to use ChatGPT to simplify the stuff you need to...

Medical Motherhood ·

2023/01/15

Life is just too darn complex. I say this a lot, but it’s true. Especially for those of us raising disabled children, the web of rules, restrictions and justifications we have to crawl through can often be downright suffocating. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just have a robot do all that for you? Well, an all-powerful solution may still be a ways off but ChatGPT may be the next best thing. For those who haven’t heard about the artificial intelligence (AI) program taking the world by storm, this

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10:54

Who can help?

Medical Motherhood ·

2023/01/08

The second Sunday of every month Medical Motherhood publishes Where Is the Manual for This?!, an editorial cartoon by Lenore Eklund.There just is no substitute for: “Been there. Done that.” Yes, medical professionals and social workers have their areas of expertise and can unlock access to specialized supports. But some days you just need someone who has actually gone through it themselves, rather than read a book about it, you know? I have learned so much from my community of medical moms (and

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18:20

Self-care: How to and why

Medical Motherhood ·

2023/01/01

“The problem with people like you is getting you to take care of yourself.”That was my physical therapist. He meant it in a good-natured way. But the statement echoed through my brain as I drove home.Though I had been to probably hundreds of physical therapy appointments in the last decade for my twins, this was the first one I had been to for myself. As my non-ambulatory son approaches 70 pounds, my back is no longer up to the challenge without professional help.As the primary caregiver to children

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