A Mom’s Story: Taking on a New Role After Tragedy
Before her daughter suffered a severe brain injury in a near-drowning accident, Angie Hassinger sometimes got annoyed by other moms.
Maybe it was that they made a big deal about food allergies, or gasped every time their child fell down, or that chatter about children could consume every conversation.
“Turning into a special needs mom,” she says, “I remember apologizing and saying, ‘I don’t know if I’ve ever been a total jerk to you, but I didn’t get it.’”
Today, Angie Hassinger “gets” it: Having a child with special needs can be all-consuming. It can be emotionally and financially draining. It can strain a marriage and change the family dynamics. It can make you look at the world from a different perspective. And it can happen to anyone.
Back to Life
Angie and Richard Hassinger’s daughter, Abigail, nearly drowned two years ago when she fell into an icy lake. The 3-year-old beat the odds at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Medical workers resuscitated her. She spent eight weeks in a coma and almost another month in the hospital before going home.
Now Abby, at 5 years old and 45 pounds, needs constant care. She suffers from seizures, has cerebral palsy and needs breathing and feeding tubes. She has to be lifted, bathed and diapered. She needs help just holding her head up. She communicates mostly through eye blinks, hand squeezes and facial expressions.
But the child who was blind after the accident can now see and track movement. She can watch fish in an aquarium.
She can be at her computer and blink to turn the pages of her favorite story books.
“She’s not who she was,” says her mom, who also has two younger boys. “But she’s definitely in there.”
Taking Stock
Before her accident, Abigail Hassinger was the picture of a young and healthy child. She loved to carry around her favorite stuffed dog, watch “Charlotte’s Web” and pretend she could fly.
“She was kind of your outdoor-girl princess,” says her mom, who sees their tragedy as something that could have happened to anyone. “Any parent who has a couple of children has lost sight of their children once or twice, for a second,” she says, “and they’ve just been fortunate it hasn’t been something big.”
Finding Help
If there’s anything the Hassingers want people to learn from their story it’s that life goes on. And there’s help available. Angie credits the Center for Infants and Children with Special Needs for helping the family navigate her new world.
Ronald S. Levin, MD, the Center’s director, is Abby’s primary care doctor. He has a waiting list. But he tries to find help for as many patients as he can.
He has been instrumental in developing and updating what has become a bible of sorts for kids with special needs – the “Special Needs Resource Directory.”
“To us, advocacy is in everything we do,” he says, “whether it’s making sure families can afford medications or that they understand the terminology of their child’s condition. At the same time, we teach families how to advocate for themselves. I think, in some way, we become part of the family.”
Wishes for a Princess
A pale blue princess dress hangs in Abigail Hassinger’s bedroom opposite a chart that lists her many medications. Abby naps beside it in a hospital bed where machines help her breathe and monitor her while she sleeps.
The dress is from her Make A Wish Foundation trip to Disney, a trip that gave the Hassingers hope for what they can do again as a family.
“She has special needs,” her mom says. “But I don’t know to what extent. I know that she’s in there. My wish would be to get her to a device where she could effectively communicate with the world around her.”
Angie Hassinger feels like her life is defined now as a “special needs mom.” But it’s a label she wears proudly.
“We had to make a decision about life – to live,” she says. She’s not going to let a severe brain injury make her give up her wishes for her princess.
