10 Ways To Confront Cerebral Palsy

1. Viagra: A lot of people don’t know this but Viagra cures cerebral palsy. Just kidding, there’s no cure for cerebral palsy. Cerebral palsy is a state of being, an abstraction, a concept receding from the shores of language recognition. But sildenafil, the celebrity molecule in Viagra, does catalyze neural regeneration in babies who’ve had strokes.

2. Ambien: Similarly, Ambien also has interesting effects on muscular animation and is being used therapeutically/experimentally for people who’ve had strokes when they were babies. Hamilton Morris did a nice thing about Ambien.

3. Botox: My brother has cerebral palsy and he likes to mountain bike. He says he wants his wrist to be “more stiff,” so that he can handle the handle bar more confidently. His doctor recommended that he get Botox injections in his arm, I’m guessing to kill out some of janky nerves in his arm? Ideally, my brother said he would like to permanently “lock” his wrist bones so that his arm is a giant stump. This is a weird one.

4. Robotic Limbs: My brother also fantasizes about robotic limbs a lot. Right now robotic limbs seem to be reserved for people with congenital amputations, only, I think. This seems kind of extreme to me, for people with cerebral palsy. I’m more into:

5. Muscular Therapy: Because maybe in the future when monster drugs have been created from sildenafil, or whatever, all of the time spent on exercising muscular memory and trying to make the cerebral palsied-body do things that they’re not supposed to be able to do, will all of sudden be rewarded. Maybe.

6. Appearing in Films: Physical “disabilities” are very special. Smart film directors, like Alejandro Jodorowsky (Holy Mountain) and Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad) know this and cast people with special physical aesthetics. I’ve always fantasized about a world where people with special physical aesthetics are glorified for their differences, like gods. I don’t care if that’s offensive. It’s just how I feel.

7. Nothing: Why does anyone have to confront cerebral palsy at all? Just don’t do anything. Pretend this article doesn’t exist.

8. Work With Children: This is a good option for any adult on the planet, but since we are on the topic of “cerebral palsy” I will talk about how working with children is a good way to confront cerebral palsy. Children are strange creatures that came from non-existence. When children have positive role models, or “possibility models,” as Katie Couric puts it, then that inherently makes the future a little better, since children grow up to be adults with responsibilities and powerful jobs like bankers, journalists, hamburger makers, taxi drivers, and presidents, it’s good that they have a positive upbringing. When children who have cerebral palsy who might feel weird about being different meet older people with cerebral palsy who show them what it’s like to have one common physical feature but be older, they might remember what they say more than what other people say.

9. Sue Your Doctor: Sometimes it is the doctor’s fault and sometimes doctors deserve to get sued. In my brother’s case, he definitely should have sued his doctor but he waited too long so he wasn’t allowed to anymore, apparently. My mother never wanted to sue the doctor because she is a little too beautiful and adorable and just says, “Everyone makes mistakes.” That is true. But also: doctors make a lot of money. So much money that they should probably pay attention when someone is clearly in need of a caesarean section. Money doesn’t solve anything at all. Maybe if the parents have a good lawyer then they can get lots of money for their child to be integrated in better educational programs, I guess. But ultimately, this is just to create balance in the world. Doctor fucks up, has to go through a lengthy court process that reminds him/her to pay attention when delivering a perfectly healthy infant.

10: With Laughter: Since children are assholes, humans growing up with cerebral palsy will most definitely encounter bullies and rude, mean things that diarrhea out of people’s faces. Being mean is a part of human nature. In the animal kingdom, animals with disabilities are picked on and attacked and withheld food. “I’m a Darwinian loser,” as my brother says, matter-of-a-factly, void of emotion. While this may be true, there’s something empowering about being so socially disadvantaged because it forces you to reassess your life in ways that more privileged assholes, like myself, won’t personally experience until much later in life. Being able to laugh at rejection or mean things is a very good quality to have. Through this laughter we come out like fresh new babies in a realm of further perseverance.