Inspired by her son, a Langley mom creates a book to help people with cognitive delays navigate daily life. 

TRANSCRIPT

Evan:

Welcome back to DDA. Is encouraging abilities podcast. I am your host. DDA, communications, manager, manager, Evan Kelly joining me in the studio, which is, of course, is always a nice change over the phone. Is Stevie artemenko, am I getting your name?

Stevie:

Very, very close. Yeah. Artemenko, artemeco, close.

Evan:

Stevie is a local mom who has three children, each with some various health issues. She also works as a special education assistant. Is a writer and an advocate for the disability community. On the writer's side, she has produced a book to help with cognitive issues. Plan, sorry, to help people with cognitive issues plan and organize their days and develop life skills as they get older. It's called Life Skills, checks, checklists and guidance to help navigate everyday life. It is available on Amazon. So Stevie, thanks for joining me today.

Stevie:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really happy to be here for sure. So I always start these off with my guests telling a little bit more about themselves your local so let's start there. Well before becoming a mom, I did a lot of traveling. I love travel, and then I worked in radio as a copywriter and doing voiceovers. And one of the radio stations that I worked at, I was a creative director, and I got shut down. Everyone got laid off. And so, yeah, yeah. And so I thought, What do I want to do? What's something I really want to do? And one of my bucket list things was to go work for a nonprofit overseas. So I ended up working for an organization called Crossroads, and I ended up in Fiji as a teacher, and I had no background in teaching. Didn't know what I was doing. It was like, here's your class, they don't speak your language, and that was how it started. But thankfully, I had a wonderful roommate teacher who helped me.

Evan:

So what were you teaching? Then, everything, everything, Science, Math, English as a second language?

Stevie:

Well, basically, I mean, when it came down to me, what I was teaching, I was just teaching basically English and some math. It was a grade three class, but it was quite funny, because clearly there was a language barrier, and the kids would just be like, Yes, miss, Yes, miss, and half the time, I don't think they understood anything I was saying.

Evan:

So what do they teach in Fiji? Or not teach? What are they? What's the language in Fiji? It's Fijian. Fijian. It's its own language. Yeah, Pardon my ignorance.

Stevie:

No, no, that's okay. Um, so, yeah, so, and I only picked up a little bit of the language and but it was amazing. So that totally inspired me to come back and want to work with kids. And, you know, radio is really fun and great and all that. But it wasn't, you know, kind of inspiring me. And so I decided to go back to school to become a special education assistant, and that's where it kind of all started. And then, yeah, after my youngest son was born with all his special needs, then I quit all my jobs to focus on him.

Evan:

Yeah, right, right. So tell me a little bit about your youngest son then.

Stevie:

So I have three kids, and they all have health challenges. So my oldest is 24 and he's about to become a dad himself, which is really strange and surreal. Very happy for the first time. Grandma for you. Yes, yes. I was still like grandma. I like Nana better, but he had various health issues. He when he was a teenager, he was diagnosed with a congenital heart condition and a blood clotting disorder, so major surgeries, and it was really hard on him as a teenager and the family, and then my daughter, who's 23 was diagnosed with celiac a few years ago, so she's trying to navigate that, but she's on the road to becoming a registered holistic nutritionist, which is exciting, yeah. And then my son, Caden, who was the inspiration for this book, he was born at 25 weeks, at one and a half pounds. That's small, yeah. So he was considered an extreme preemie. He had major infections and very, very, very sick baby. So he was in the hospital in the NICU for about six months at Children's and Lions Gate.

Evan:

Can I ask you a little bit about that? Because, because that sort of aligns with my own life. I have an identical twin brother, okay? And we were born two months premature back in 1971 right? And so we were three pounds when we were born and given a 50, 5050, chance survival, yep. And it's, it's interesting, because my mom was a child psychologist at the time. And my father was a, well, he was a GP, but he was also, I don't know if he was a psychiatrist at that time, but he ended up finishing as a psychiatrist. And back in 1970 they Firstly, they didn't know my mom was carrying twins because her heart beats me insane. They didn't have ultrasound and stuff. Were that old. Old. But the interesting thing is that my parents brought a bunch of literate literature for it, because infants at that stage in the time you they're put into an incubator, and you weren't, you weren't able to touch them, yeah, and so my parents brought forward all this literature, but that if you are allowed to handle them even in the incubator, yeah, pardon me that they have a better drive. And I was just wondering, was that your experience

Stevie:

So so Caden was he was so he was 25 weeks. So at that point, his skin was so fine, it was like, almost like onion paper. So I wasn't allowed to even, you know, I wanted to stroke him and reach in through the incubator, but I wasn't allowed to do that because his skin was so fragile. So I could just tap him. And then it was three weeks. I had to wait three weeks before I was able to hold him. And they, I can't even remember the term that they used nesting, but yeah, so the first time I held him was three weeks after he was born, and amazing experience. But yeah, that was a part of the ritual to hold them. Because, yeah, they did thrive. They needed that, the warmth and the sound of their mother's heartbeat and touch, yeah. So, so important. So and it, it meant so much to me, and I think it clearly that's, that's part of the protocol now, yeah.

Evan:

And they Yeah. And then that was at Lions Gate hospital, and my understanding is the story went is that the they actually helped the hospital change their policy on that.

Stevie:

Well, that's how it was at children. So that's amazing that they were, they were instigators of that, because that's huge kangaroo. That's what they can kangaroo. Yeah, no, it was so glad that they did that, because to be apart from your child is excruciating, you know, especially when they're in the incubator and stuff. So to have that daily time with them was so important.

Evan:

so tell me a little bit about more, a little bit more about Caden's physical issues.

Stevie:

yeah, so he, so he was diagnosed super, super sick in the hospital. He ended up with a feeding tube, couldn't feed on his own that was removed after about a year, but then was later diagnosed with an intellectual disability, autism, mild cerebral palsy, hearing loss and a severe nut allergy. But wow, has he come a long way, and sorry, he said, Oh, he's 17 now, so he's almost an adult himself. Yeah, I think he's more ready than I am.

Evan:

That's always the case, right? I've got a 16 year old, yeah, just turned 16 yesterday, and I've got an 18 year old as well, who's now starting college for the first time. I need more time, yeah, totally. So then I stopped feeding him, so that's good. No more food for you. No no more growing so, you know, I guess we're both parents, so having all three kids with various health issues, that must have been a bit tough.

Stevie:

It was tough. I mean, there was a lot of times, you know, I was totally scared, lost, you know, felt like I didn't know what I was doing. But thankfully, you know, I did have a lot of support, you know, from the hospitals and their transition programs. And I really, I really, really learned to reach out and ask for help and know that, you know, I can't do this on my own. And you know, the days that I was, you know, crying or pulling my hair out or whatever, you know, those are the times when you you reach out, whether it's professionals or friends or family like that, to me is, you know, it helps you to be a better parent, and it's also self care. So if I, if I didn't do that, I don't know, I ended up about 10 years ago, I guess, well, more than 10 years ago, maybe 12 years ago, I ended up quite sick. I thought it was the flu, and it turned out I had severe pneumonia, and I was admitted to the hospital right away. I was intubated. I was in a coma for a couple of weeks. Oh, wow. And that was a big, big lesson for me, that I was doing too much, you know, trying to be there all the time for each of my kids and the family and just go, go, go. And after that, I really learned to focus on making sure I was okay, so that I could take care of my kids.

Evan:

Yeah, it starts there first, right? I mean, that's, that's something we talk about a lot here, and sort of try to champion that self care, even, even for our employees who are looking after people with disabilities, you know, for eight hours, absolutely that can, that can wear you down, wear you down. And that's how, you know, I I'm so fortunate. I feel, I feel blessed sometimes that, you know my kids, there's other than. Being them, being ornery and combative, it's I don't have to worry about a whole lot, you know, I'm very fortunate that way.

Stevie:

Yeah, I think it's so important. And I think the dynamic is changing that way, where, you know, people