Differently Abled #122

Scott Wentzell:

My wife and I kind of look at each other and say, yeah, he's here to teach people. He's here to shine the light in a very positive way on kids and people that are like him and maybe not like everybody else and what they can bring to the table as opposed to what they can't bring to the table.

Charlie McBrady:

I think everybody's got a story to tell, you know, but when you're living your life, you don't really think it's anything special or anything different. Every now and then you might notice that maybe you, maybe someone have a few more bumps in the road than others. But really, it's what I know. It's all I know. And you know, we're surrounded by these wonderful people and, you know, we just, we do what we need to do and we're not given anything that we can't handle. I don't think so.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast show number 122, airing for the first time on Sunday, January 12, 2014. Today's show is titled Disappointment Differently Abled and our guests include Scott Wenzel, Marketing Director at Thomas Mosher, Cabinet makers, and Charlie McBrady of Zachow Construction, both of whom are on the Morrison Center Board of Directors. Each of us has access to a different set of attributes, skills, talents and physical characteristics. For some of us, the attributes are more readily apparent than for others. This is especially true of individuals who were in the past referred to as handicapped. We now understand these individuals to be differently abled and often capable of accessing attributes that many of us have never even considered, largely as a result of learning to work with the world. Today's guests, Scott wenzel and Charlie McBrady, have experienced this firsthand through their experiences raising differently abled sons and through their work on the Morrison Center Board of Directors. We hope that our show causes you to think a Little bit about people who are differently abled in this world and your interactions with them and perhaps how you might be differently abled yourself. Thank you for joining us. I met our next guest at an art opening for art collector Maine through Thomas Mosher, which I think a lot of people will recognize as being one of Maine's top furniture makers in the state. And actually it's national. Now. This individual, Scott Wenzel, is actually in marketing with Thomas Mosher, but perhaps equally important, is also on the board of directors with the Morrison center and probably more importantly, is father to Scotty Wenslow, who has celebrated his 13th birthday.

Scott Wentzell:

That's correct.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And brings a really interesting sort of story into the world. So we thought we'd have Scott Wenzel come on and talk about Scotty Wenzel and his adventures with Scotty and with his wife Lisa. Thanks for being with us today.

Scott Wentzell:

My pleasure.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Scott, you didn't really. You weren't really thinking that your life was going to kind of turn out the way that it did when it came to having a child who has the syndrome. Dubowitz syndrome, Correct?

Scott Wentzell:

Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Which is very rare.

Charlie McBrady:

It is very rare.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Not a lot known about it. So tell me a little bit about that, about the beginnings of this.

Scott Wentzell:

Sure, sure. Well, my wife and I actually went to high school together, didn't date till after college, but we're familiar to each other. And so we go back a long ways. And when we got married in the 90s, we were living up at Sugarloaf and thought that it was going to be a great place to start and raise a family. And when Scotty came along, we were surprised to learn at first it was a cardiac issue that he was born with, an issue called tetralogy of Fallot, which means essentially he had four things wrong with his heart. And he was born in Farmington. And immediately we were transported down to Maine Med, which has one of the most amazing cardiac units in the country, and specifically pediatric cardiac professionals in the country are based there. He had heart surgery at five days old and another full bigger surgery at about six months old. So we were immediately put on this sort of path of the unknown with Scotty and. And immediately felt like we couldn't be in a better place. It did mean that we left Sugarloaf and moved down closer to the Portland area to be a little bit closer to the services that he needed then and that we came to realize he'd need long term. But there's so much here in this community that we never knew about because we never had reason to Access the different programs and organizations that are here. So I love talking about his story and the sort of world that opened up to us in having to understand how we could help him reach his full potential as our son and as going through childhood. And he's 13 now, so we just entered the teenage years, which is a little daunting for, I think, any parent. But we got great support system.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Did you know that Scotty had issues before he was born?

Scott Wentzell:

We didn't. My wife's pregnancy was completely normal, which is fairly typical for Dubowitz involve children. And the first sign that we had that anything was wrong was when she was about a week overdue and went to have a stress test administered, Just what they would normally do for any woman who's past her due date. And they wanted to make sure everything was okay. And one of the things they realized when they do this test is they're looking for the baby to react in a certain way. And one of those reactions is seeing the heart rate go up and his heart rate was going down, which is the opposite of what they'd like to see. So they decided pretty much on the spot that they needed to do a C section and get him born and figure out what was going on. They knew pretty much right away that he had a pretty serious heart issue at play. Called an ambulance to come up, a pediatric ambulance to come up from Portland to Farmington and pick him up. And it was interesting. We're standing in the neonatal unit, which some odd reason, was just us there that night, which I think is fairly unusual. And he had pretty much every piece of equipment in the room hooked up to him. And Farmington is where my family is from. My mom grew up there, and her parents grew up there, and their parents grew up there. So I go way back in the community there, and I'm leaning against the wall looking at Scotty hooked up to all this equipment. And I look over to my right, and there's a. A donor plaque for a capital campaign that had happened when they built the hospital or built that part of the hospital. And it said, all the equipment in this room provided by Jim and Barbara Flint. And those were my grandparents. So they were Scotty's great grandparents. I'm getting sort of emotional as I'm talking about it right now. And kind of told me right from the start that, you know, everything's going to be okay. And it was just one of those moments where it's like you look around and go, there is something bigger at play here. But it did have a calming effect. And we found out the next morning that tetralogy was the diagnosis. And the cardiologist said, it's a serious condition, but we know how to correct it. We know what to do, and we're going to do everything we can to make sure he's okay. And they did. And the heart issue right now is kind of in the background. It's a yearly checkup, but not something that's on our mind on a regular basis.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You almost lost him. I mean, this was a serious heart issue. It wasn't something small.

Scott Wentzell:

Yeah, it was. And he spent a couple of weeks in the NICU neonatal intensive care in Portland in the Barbara Bush Children's Hospital. And Dr. Reed Quinn, who was his surgeon, who is pretty well known around the world for some of the work that he's done, took great care of him. And there were a couple moments that were tense where they were reacting to the situation that Scotty was showing, but we never felt like we weren't in the best place that we could be. So there's a gentleman I know through Sugarloaf who knew someone on the board at Children's Hospital, and he told me while we were going through this that if you need me to make a call and get you into Children's Hospital in Boston and see whoever you need to see, you just say the word. And I thought about it for a minute and said, you know what? We're really in the right place. We felt so well taken care of, and it was very personal. You know, there was a connection that we made with the people there that I was afraid if we went to a bigger hospital, might become a little less personal. So, yeah, that was a scary time, but it was also a time of, like I said, it was. We just had this feeling that, you know, we were going to get through it, and with the help of family, friends, and a lot of great professionals, that's. That's the way it worked.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We asked you to come in because we want to talk about the Morrison center, where you are on the board of directors. But when you sat down for your interview this morning, you handed me a piece of paper and you said, so I know we're going to talk about the Morrison center, but these are all the other organizations that have actually had a place in our lives and Scotty's life. So I'm going to read these off because it's very significant. And I think this speaks to this greater theme of being supported by community, which is especially interesting considering that you have a child who has a fairly rare genetic disorder. So you've listed the Barbara Bush Children's hospital, the Ronald McDonald House, the Morrison center, the Greeley School System S8051. Riding to the top, Maine Adaptive Sports and Recreation, Maine Special Olympics, the Daring Little League Challenger Division, the Falmouth Adaptive Skate Special, Surfer Nights through Alcoholic Surf Shop, the Center for Therapeutic Recreation, the Pine Tree Camp, and the Pine Tree Society. And root for me, that is. You've got a lot of people on your team.

Scott Wentzell:

We sure do. And we feel so blessed that we have access to all of those different organizations and the programming and services they offer, because like I said earlier, unless you have to access them, they kind of fly under the radar a lot of the time. And I think for the greater population that looks at us and says, wow, you guys are really amazing for all the things you do for Scotty. And I'd love to have that compliment. But the way I look at it is we're just parents seeking out everything that we can do to help our child be the best that he can be or reach his full potential. And I see people like my brother, who's got three young girls and all the work that he and his wife have to do to provide for them and make sure they get everything they need to reach their full potential. And for me, it's no different. It's different in terms of the things that we do may be a little bit different then our experience may be not typical, but the devotion and the dedication that it takes to be a good parent, I think is. I think is pretty much the same across the board. And I think you get out what you put into it, and your kids will get out of in their lives what you put into it as parents. And I'm the first to say, for us, it takes a village. And without the people and the organizations you just listed and the friends and family that support us on a regular basis, it would. It'd be a lot different, that's for sure.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Dubowitz syndrome. It's something that. I'm a family practice doctor trained in preventive medicine. So I take care of children, and I've taken care of children at the Barbara Bush Children's Hospital, and I've not heard of this. This is a rare autosomal recessive genetic disorder, causes developmental delays. It's just something that there's not that much known about. How do you. In a kind of a. This is a culture where we like to get some information and then act on it and do something with it. But this really is a big unknown.

Scott Wentzell:

It is. And when Scotty was born, there were less than 300 diagnosed cases worldwide of Dubowitz syndrome. So there wasn't a lot of knowledge base to draw on. And in the years since, it's become a little bit more organized and there's been a little bit more of an effort to understand Dubowitz better. And we've worked with three different geneticists over the past 13 years. Two here in Portland, Maryland, both happen to be named Smith. And then a doctor down in Boston who's affiliated with Children's Hospital, who does a regular Dubowitz clinic on an annual basis. And for us that was really valuable because it allowed us to go. And he schedules appointments in one day, so he'll have a half a dozen or eight or ten appointments with Dubowitz patients and their families. But we all, we all get there in the morning, so we have time to spend with each other and meet each other's kids and hear each other's stories. And the one thing that I learned very early about Dubwitz through that experience is that there's a lot of variability in terms of what some of these kids and people that have been diagnosed with Dubwitz have had to deal with, both from a developmental standpoint as well as a medical standpoint. And Scotty's place on that spectrum is a little bit more involved from a. From a developmental standpoint in terms of. He's not quite as. His developmental issues are more profound than a lot of the Dubowitz kids that we met, but his medical issues, the heart issue notwithstanding, but his ongoing medical issues are not nearly as profound as some of the others. So there is a little bit of a range. And the geneticist has told us that his belief is down the road that Dubowitz will probably cease to exist as a diagnosis and be broken out into a number of other sub diagnosis. I guess I equate it similar to. There's the autism spectrum and there may be the Dubowitz spectrum that, as more becomes known, may be broken down into different diagnoses. But for now, it's a diagnosis that allows us to say what his diagnosis is. But in terms of a practical sense, on a day to day basis, it really doesn't impact us greatly because we're more tuned into what we're doing on a regular basis and what we're doing day to day. And. And we just had an IEP meeting with him yesterday at his school and I looked around the table and there were 12 people at the table as part of his team at the Greeley Middle School, and they're so amazingly dedicated to what they do and to Scotty that I don't think the word Dubowitz came up once. It's much more focused on him and where his progress has been in the last year and where we're going to try to make more progress in the next year. So. So the diagnosis is important from a medical standpoint, and participating in studies and trying to understand more about that is something we want to continue to do. But that's, for me, more in the background. It's more about, you know, what's going on today

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

here on the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast. We've long recognized the link between health and wealth. Here to speak more on the topic is Tom Shepard of Shepherd Financial I'm

Scott Wentzell:

not good at a lot of things. I'm a solid lacrosse player, a good listener. I certainly have a head for finance

Charlie McBrady:

and understanding of the human condition. But I'm hardly an expert at everything.

Scott Wentzell:

No one is. I've learned over the years that if

Charlie McBrady:

I can't do something, I have a

Scott Wentzell:

network of friends, family, advisors, people who are there to lend me a hand. I lean on them to help me and when they need help, there for them as well. My skills and talents like theirs are

Charlie McBrady:

a currency, and I spend it by helping.

Scott Wentzell:

It's transactional and very rewarding. It's not unlike the relationship a lot

Charlie McBrady:

of us have with our money when

Scott Wentzell:

we spend it for the betterment of others. It feels good. But getting to a place where you can feel that way is an evolution. You have to understand the steps you need to take in order to evolve. But if you don't think you have the skills to do it on your

Charlie McBrady:

own, I know someone who can help, and we'd love to help you evolve with your money.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As part of trying to understand what Dubowitz Syndrome is or what it might become. You've actually done genetic sequencing. Your wife, Lisa, was the second female ever sequenced after Glenn Close.

Scott Wentzell:

That's our understanding.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And you worked with the Jackson Lab?

Scott Wentzell:

We did well. We at Thomas Moser had been doing some work with the Jackson Lab, assisting in their development efforts. And I came to know some people there. And one of the things that someone was kind enough to do is talk to some of the scientists there about Dubovitz Syndrome. And would there be an opportunity for the Jackson Labs to have a research project around Dubovitz Syndrome? And at the time, the feedback was that not enough was known about Dubovitz syndrome. And the point at which Jackson Labs would become involved with researching a condition like that is they would have to have some baseline understanding of the genetic cause of Dubowitz syndrome, which did not exist yet. And it was probably about a year after that, through Children's Hospital, we became invited to participate in a study at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, where they were using genetic sequencing to try to determine the genetic cause of rare syndromes that had been undiagnosed or where they didn't know what that genetic cause was. And the light bulb went off for me is that that's what the Jackson Labs needs. So there is an opportunity, I hope, down the road, to have the Jackson Labs play an active role in understanding more about Dubowitz syndrome. The study is still ongoing. We were sequenced at NIH in 2010, all three of us, with about a dozen other families with a DeWitt's diagnosis in the family. And what they explained to me at the time was doing the sequencing now has gotten to the point where that can happen in a matter of a week or days. And that generates a map of the DNA for each of us in the study. But reading the maps and comparing the maps is what takes a lot of time. So they're still working on it, and hopefully at some point, they'll have some great information that to share with us and other scientists that might become involved in researching Dubovitz syndrome.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It strikes me that there are some people who have children that have issues, or let's call them special needs, and maybe they're not as comfortable with being out in the world with their kids. You know, maybe there may be even a sense of personal responsibility for something that they've. Maybe they feel like they've done, even though it's not completely rational. But I think that this does happen. I don't See that? I see you and Scotty and Lisa kind of being as much out in the world as you possibly can be. I mean, there's there ever been any problems with feeling that Scotty might be labeled or that he might be seen differently, or was there ever any question that you were going to be out there living as fully as possible?

Scott Wentzell:

I think at first there may have been going back to my experiences, you know, 30 something years ago in grade school. And I can remember very vividly in my head some experiences that happened with special needs kids that were in the school that I went to. That, as I look back on it, were quite frankly appalling in terms of the way they were treated, the way they were labeled, the way they were kind of cast aside not only by the kids who, you know, probably didn't know any better, but by the school. And they just weren't equipped to understand or handle the special needs that they had. So the Morrison center was the first place that really sort of took that fear away for us. They're so empowering there, and they're so inclusive of the family in their programs and their educational programs that we were involved with their preschool program that they made us feel so comfortable about who he was. And it became pretty clear at that time too that Scotty was a very social little boy. He really thrived on interaction with people. And even though he's non verbal and has obviously communication challenges, he communicates with his emotions. He's got his own sort of communication style, and he has this ability to light up a room. So he loves to be around people. The more people around, the more he sort of gets animated and really likes to interact with everyone. But the transition from Morrison center after a few years being there and being so comfortable there into the public schools was a little daunting as I started to recall my childhood experiences around special needs kids in the public schools where I grew up in Massachusetts. And within the first week, I'd say all those sort of fears melted away. And it became clear to me how much had changed in the 30 years plus since I was that age. And we had not only from the school system the kind of support that I didn't really expect. I mean, they actually came to Morrison center to observe Scotty the spring before he was being enrolled in kindergarten. And I just didn't expect that to happen. So I could tell right away how dedicated and involved they'd be in making sure they tailored their programs to make sure Scotty could participate fully and get the most out of it. And Then when he actually started in the schools, I was quite naturally afraid of or fearful of what the other kids might say or do. We started getting calls from other parents that first week and telling us how grateful they were that Scotty was in their kid's class because of how much they were going to learn from him. I don't think it's a big secret that Maine's not the most diverse state in the country. It's probably one of the least diverse states in the country. So in a lot of cases, interaction with kids like Scotty is the first chance that a lot of kids his age have to experience diversity in some way. So it became pretty clear early on that it was going to be a much different environment for him. And naturally, as someone who's a marketing person and has been doing that for most of my career, if not all of it, and his outgoing nature, it became almost. My wife and I kind of look at each other and say, yeah, he's here to teach people. He's here to kind of shine the light in a very positive way on kids and people that are. That are like him and maybe not like everybody else and what they can bring to the table as opposed to what they can't bring to the table. So we've embraced that all along. My wife likes to be behind the scenes a little bit more, so I tend to be the one who's out there a bit more. But, you know, Scotty loves to be out and about. He's had the opportunity to be on TV shows and in the paper, and we did a campaign ad for Les Otten, who founded what was called Maine Handicap Skiing is now Maine Adaptive Sports and Rec as they've evolved. But he asked us if we would share our experience working with that organization. And as much as I maybe hesitated to get involved in a political campaign, for me it was as much a PSA for Maine Adaptive and Maine Handicap Skiing at the time, and Scotty loved it. Every time that commercial came on the television, his head would whip around and he'd get animated, and, you know, he became a little bit of a celebrity at school. Not that everyone didn't know him already, but he loves to give high fives and fist bumps, and so that had a whole flurry of that activity going on, too. So I take my cues from him a lot of the time, and it's kind of a natural extension of who he is and I guess who we are to sort of spread the word and help people if we can, either by sharing information about the organizations that we've benefited from or just telling our story and maybe encouraging other people to not be fearful and know that people want to help. People genuinely want to help and be involved. And to me, that's what Maine is all about. That's why I love living here.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As a father, what are your hopes for Scotty in the future? I mean, he's 13, but I have a 12 year old and another couple kids who are older. And I know that we all think about where our kids might end up or the type of people they might end up being.

Scott Wentzell:

Sure, sure. Yeah. It is a little daunting to think too far into the future. I kind of have the sense that our hardest days are probably ahead of us as he gets bigger and becomes an adult. We do know that he's probably got another heart surgery. In his correction he had for Dubowitz Syndrome. A pretty common side effect of that surgery is that a valve is impacted in a way that it will have to be replaced at some point down the road. So he's got a heart valve that'll probably need a replacement. So that's a little daunting. So I kind of look at the future as a big unknown. My wife and I have pretty much accepted that he'll be with us for as long as we can physically care for him, and we want that. We don't have any interest in letting someone else do that. To me, that's who we are as a family. So hopefully we all live long enough lives that at some point we've got to figure out another plan. As my wife and I get to the point physically, someday we may not be able to do it all ourselves, but hopefully that's a long ways off. So I try not to think about it in specific terms. I try to think about it more generally and broadly. He's making progress all the time. It's at his own pace. But every time we meet with the team he has at school or see people that we haven't seen in a long time who maybe hadn't seen Scotty in a year or more, and they remark about how far he's come and how much he's changed and how much he's matured and grown. So that's kind of the way I look at it, is we just want to continue making that progress, give him every opportunity to excel at all the things that he does and, and help us understand what he wants to do to the extent that he can and just keep pointing in that direction. So it's a little bit of an Unknown, but at the same time, it's something that we're committed to.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Scott I know that people who are listening will want to learn more about many of the organizations that we discussed in the beginning of the show. But specifically, I think the Morrison Center. So how can people do that?

Scott Wentzell:

They can go online, just Google Morrison Center Maine, morrisoncentermain.org In fact, there's a beautiful new website that's in the progress of being created and hopefully will be online soon. The campus is in Scarborough. For a long time, the Morrison center was based in Portland, right in a building that's kind of right next to Martin's Point Healthcare, right at that bridge there. And that was its home for the better part of four decades, I believe. It was known as the Cerebral Palsy center when it first started. And Betty Morrison, who was a driving force there, who the center is now named for, I never got to meet her. Unfortunately, she had passed by the time I got involved with the center. But many people that did know her have shared a lot of wonderful stories about her. And I think the center reflects a lot of the values that she had in terms of. And it's kind of what I was just talking about in helping people of all abilities find their abilities that they have in them and empower them to be everything that they can be. And there's a very wide range of abilities and disabilities of the consumers and the people who utilize the Morrison center services, which do range from preschool through adulthood. They have not only school based programs and teaching programs, but employment programs. So there's. We do see the Morrison center in our future as well, with Scotty, as he gets through the school system and graduates from high school in five or six years or so, that the programs of the Morrison center could be exactly what he needs to sort of take that next step and continue moving forward. So the campus in Scarborough was built in 2007 and 2008. So it's been four or five years now. It's a beautiful facility, it's state of the art facility. And a new facility is just opened in York as well. So there's certainly no shortage of need for the services that the Morrison center offers. And there's a number of great organizations that offer similar programs. But I think the Morrison center team there and the staff is, you know, second to none. And that's really, for us, when we went to the Morrison center, it was. The facility was not very impressive at all. It was the people that made the difference there, not only the people that were running the programs and the staff, but the other consumers that we got to know, the families that we got to know. So it was a hub of human activity in the physical space, while maybe not giving a great first impression, was easily overcome, but now they've got the whole package. They've got an amazing physical plant that I. I think takes a lot of it opens the doors for the staff to really not have to think about where they're doing what they do. They can really focus on what they're doing, and they have access to technology and to space and to equipment that really allows them to service all kinds of people of all ages.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Scott, thank you for the work you do with the Morrison center and for bringing Scotty into the world. Thank you. And Lisa, because obviously he is a. I would say an ambassador. An ambassador of light, perhaps.

Scott Wentzell:

Yeah, that's kind of the way we look at it, I think.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And I encourage people who are listening, who would like to find out more about the Morrison center, to Google the website and learn more and perhaps donate and somehow contribute to the efforts, because it may seem as though this is something that impacts a small number of people. But as you've shown, even through your experience with Scotty, it usually has a much broader reach than we realize. Thanks for being with us today.

Scott Wentzell:

It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As a physician and small business owner, I rely on Marcie Booth from Booth, Maine to help me with my own business and to help me live my own life fully. Here are a few thoughts from Marcy. I can't imagine that I will ever be an artist. While I appreciate all kinds of art, I know that creating it is just something I'm not able to do. I don't have that kind of talent, and I find myself in awe of the people who do. Realizing that all of us have different and unique abilities and that we can't be good at everything is a tough thing to admit. It's a lesson I teach my children. But it's a lesson we all need to remind ourselves of as adults. Recognizing your strengths and talents early are keys to happiness and success. And leveraging those talents that others have is another key to a success. So while I may never have a gallery exhibition of my artwork, I find great joy in knowing that what I and my entire team have is the talent to help businesses run better. We are the leverage an entrepreneur needs to be successful. I'm Marcie Booth. Let's talk about the changes you need. Booth.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

People who are listening today may not even be aware of the great resource we have in the state of Maine called the Morrison Center. So we've brought somebody in to talk to us about the Morrison Center. And this is Charlie McBrady, who is the director of business development with Zakow Construction and also serves on the board and is the president of the Morrison Development Center. Thanks for coming in and talking to us today.

Charlie McBrady:

Thank you for inviting me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've been in Maine a long time.

Charlie McBrady:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You graduated from the University of Maine. You live in Falmouth with your three kids these days. So you've known the landscape, but you didn't know that much about what was then called the Cerebral Palsy Center.

Charlie McBrady:

That's correct.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This was something that became important to you because of your son Kyle.

Charlie McBrady:

That's right. Yeah. The Cerebral Palsy center used to be on Veranda street and it was there about 40 years. And it was in an old military hospital right where Martin's Point is now, about two miles from my house. And I still didn't know anything about it until my youngest son, Kyle, was diagnosed with a learning disorder, which we weren't sure if it was autism. Mr. Combination of Things. And so we looked at different services around Greater Portland and went to the Morrison center as one of them to see if that would be a good fit for our family.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Kyle is your youngest. He's 15 now and is at the Falmouth Public Schools, Falmouth High School. But when you first were trying to understand what was going on with him, this must have been quite an interesting situation for you.

Charlie McBrady:

Well, it was. I don't remember exactly how old he was, but he was old enough to be in one of those car carrier snap in, snap out car seats. And my wife Jennifer and I went

Scott Wentzell:

to

Charlie McBrady:

interview there to see if it would be a fit for Kyle because we still didn't really know his diagnosis. And the Old center had a greenhouse that a bunch of guys built probably back in the 70s through donations that the adults that go to the center would grow plants and poinsettias at Christmas to the general public. It was an older greenhouse at the time I was there. But back when it started, it was sort of a state of the art type of thing. And when you go into the old center, you'd go into the adult program first, which was the greenhouse. Some community service people and the consumers that went there were in basically in this antiquated lobby. So as a young parent with a young kid, not knowing what your future holds, it was kind of a shock, you know, into your system, thinking, oh, my God, this is my life, you know, and not knowing what that meant. So that was a tough. That was a tough day. And as we walked through the halls of the Morrison center, we got down to the preschool, we got to the. To the cerebral Palsy center. We got to the preschool area and interview with the teachers. And for some reason, you could sense that even though the building was in disrepair for the most part, we were shocked at the entrance. You could tell that there was a spirit there and the teachers had a dedication to it. So we ended up enrolling Kyle into the CP center at the time. And he went there for a couple of years before he went to public school.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It is interesting to think about the historical reasons for needing a cerebral palsy center, which has sort of morphed into the Morrison Developmental Center. When you were trying to figure out what was going on with Kyle, it must have been very, well, a whole new world for you and Jennifer. You had two other children who didn't have this sort of issue. And all of a sudden there's some undefined diagnosis that you're kind of chasing around that you didn't even realize was on your horizon.

Charlie McBrady:

Right? That's exactly right. And we had. We didn't know where to go, what to do. And unfortunately, like most things in life, when you know, once you go through it, then you wish you could write a book about it because. Or there was a handbook for you when you were at that stage, because you're just learning through your own experiences. And of course, all those kids are different too. But there was something about the center. We knew that no matter what, we're in good hands there. And, you know, that somehow it was all going to work out.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So the Morrison center, you've described the preschool that Kyle was in, but it's actually something that is available to people of all ages, really.

Charlie McBrady:

Right. Well, The Cerebral Palsy center really deals with mostly with people with multiple disabilities that can't go be mainstreamed into the public school system. But the preschool is different in that we have run an integrated program with typical and handicapped children even back then, which is great because you go into a story time and you may not even know who's the one with a handicap and who's not.

Scott Wentzell:

So.

Charlie McBrady:

And that was sort of cutting edge back, I think back when he first went in there, we were doing this integration for preschool. And it was great because a lot of parents could drop both of their kids off, you know, at the school or at the center or if one was older in the program and their typical brother or sister needed to go to preschool, a parent was able to go there. And it was. It's also great. Even though the facility itself was sort of old and run down, we had all the therapies that you needed there under one roof. Even though it wasn't perfect, we didn't have parents having to take their kid out from some typical program to go to physical therapy or OT or speech. We had everybody under one roof and we had our own nurse. So even though the facility was not up to par, that the staff certainly was and the programs were.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Kyle now goes to Falmouth High School, but you've remained very involved with the Morrison Center. Why is that?

Charlie McBrady:

When Kyle left the Cerebral Palsy center, about two years after, I got a phone call and somebody wanted to have breakfast with me. So I figured something was up and I got talked into getting on the board, which I was all about it, giving back. You have to remember, this is a Senate that never asked anybody for money. It never had a capital campaign, it never had an annual campaign. It just kind of went under the radar with the most involved people in the community. And so it was a great place. No one knew about it and it didn't have a lot of support. So I thought this would be a good thing to get involved in. So I got on the board there. And then over the years, we didn't have all kids with cerebral Palsy. We had this mystique that that's what it was. It really wasn't. We had people with CP, we had people with many different diagnoses. Autism. Mr. A lot of kids with multiple diagnoses. So we decided that we needed to rebrand. We knew that we were growing out of the facility, which was a two story building with hallways that certain wheelchairs that people needed to work on couldn't use. So we changed the name of the business, the center to the Morrison center after Betty Morrison, who was the executive director forever, who ran the place like on a shoestring and did a great job with what she had at the time. But we knew we needed a change and we wanted to get away from the thought that we were just, we just dealt with people with cerebral palsy because that's not, that wasn't the case. So we changed the name and we decided that we're going to do a capital campaign, the first time in history to acquire some land and build a building. And so it was kind of an exciting time to get on the board, actually. And, and so I was on the capital campaign committee and also the building committee to build our new facility.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And that facility is in Scarborough now.

Charlie McBrady:

It is, it's on Chamberlain road. It's probably five to six years old now. It's a 30,000 square foot building with not just one, but two greenhouses that are state of the art for us at least. We have a multipurpose room, we have classroom wings, we have a preschool wing, and then we have a school aged wing and we have an adult wing. And in the adult wing, it also encompasses the greenhouses and community service programs for adults and even comes with a kitchen so they can work on cooking skills and things like that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Why has it been important for you to have greenhouses in your new facility? I know you had them in your other one, but what's the tie in?

Charlie McBrady:

Well, one, the greenhouse that we had wasn't going to be big enough. And we decided if we're going to do it, we really should have two so we can transition certain plants into other areas. A lot of the consumers that work in the greenhouses work in there several hours a week. And when they sell product to the public, they're scanned with a barcode and they actually receive a paycheck for what they make. Some people might spend hours potting up one plant because of the whatever, but it's their goal to go in there and they're proud of it and they're proud of the payday. And we figured if we had two nice greenhouses in this setting that we're going to, we would have more community integration. People would come in in the wintertime, we sell poinsettias and because of the population that we have, we don't use any pesticides at all in our greenhouse. So it's all. We introduce good bugs to eat bad bugs and it's totally healthy. And our poinsettias are beautiful. You know, they're safe for cats. And so it's a good thing for us. It's a beautiful place to go in the wintertime. We have a Christmas sale there. And it's really helped the Morrison center get on the map with the general public. So if we talk about it, more and more people are hearing about what we do, and it just translates into having a stronger program for people that really have the most needs.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So the adults that are part of the Morrison center, the Cerebral Palsy center, they actually work in the greenhouse?

Charlie McBrady:

Yep, many work in the greenhouse. Or we have a craft room where they do different crafts that we have craft sales for. And it's important. One important thing about it was when we moved into the new center, we didn't realize that this was going to happen. But the old center was sort of. You drive by it. I drove by it for many, many years, and I didn't even know I was there. I may have bought a Christmas tree or two from there, but never really understood what they did there. The new center, particularly with the adults, it was a hard transition for them because they went from a kind of a quiet place where they were safe in their environment with their peers and teachers that they knew and therapists they knew, to a bright building, a beautiful building, where all of a sudden you had some people from the communities coming in to buy plants, and it looked more like a beautiful school. And I think for some of the adults, they had a hard time with that, actually, because it brought back memories of when they were younger and maybe things weren't so good. And slowly but surely, that transition has changed. And if you go in there now, you'll be greeted at the door by consumers. You probably get a hug or two. And to me, that was probably the most striking thing, actually.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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Dr. Lisa Belisle:

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Charlie McBrady:

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Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Hasn't been an easy time for you personally. You've gone through, you've had, you had an accident last year that was. Well, I don't know. Are you willing to talk about this?

Charlie McBrady:

Yeah, it was a freak accident. I owned a company that I sold and I used to take Kyle out on weekends to drive a forklift. Probably doesn't sound very safe for a 15 year old autistic boy, but he liked it and we had it down pat. We had done it a thousand times before. I sold everything off. I took him out one last time to drive the forklift and he got on the forklift and turned it on like he knew he could, I knew he could. And he'd never been able to put it in gear. Well, me, I walked around to the back of the forklift and he happened to put it in gear this one time and stepped on the gas and, and crushed me against a wall or a doorway actually. And so I ended up breaking my pelvis in four places. And my back in one and had to go to the hospital obviously, that day and kind of put a little interesting twist on our winter last year. He liked the fire trucks and the ambulances showing up, though. He kind of thought that was kind of neat. But everything worked out fine and I didn't have an operation and I just was laid up for most of the winter.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But that actually, the way that you're describing it says something to me. It says that you have this willingness in your life to see things in a way that kind of moves you forward in a positive direction. You know, whether it's Kyle having a diagnosis you didn't expect or getting into an accident that you didn't expect, you just seem able to kind of deal with what you need to deal with and move on.

Charlie McBrady:

Yeah, I think everything happens for a reason. So, you know, you just take it one day at a time. And, you know, thank God I wasn't hurt worse and I had family to support me and my family, and we kind of just put our heads down and got through it. And I think, you know, it's diversity and, you know, adversity, and my oldest two kids have grown up with it and they get it. And so I think it's been a good lesson for a lot of people that Kyle's been, you know, in their lives, friends of ours, family, and it's. It's actually a true blessing. And, you know, it makes you just kind of take stock in what's important.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've been able now to expand the services of the Morrison center from Cumberland county down into York county. And that's a big deal for you.

Charlie McBrady:

It is. We had just moved into Scarborough and for 40 years they hadn't done anything. And all of a sudden we have this new facility and we're talking about expanding. And half the board's like, listen, we would do really well with what we've got here. And the other half of the board's sort of like, you know, it's not fair that a five year old with a feeding tube has to get in a school bus every day and drive from Kennebunk or Berwick or the border of New Hampshire to Scarborough every day, particularly in the winter, but year round to get services. The state's been kind of pushing us lately to see if we would be willing to expand our program. And we thought about it long and hard. With all the things that are going on with the state of Maine and funding, it was a difficult decision, but we finally decided that we were going to acquire a building In Wells, which we did and we renovated it this summer and opened up a smaller 6,000 square foot school. And we have a preschool program that's already full. It's 15 kids. We've got a school age program there and an adult program that's starting with a beautiful kitchen just like the one we have in Scarborough on an eight acre campus. So maybe there's room for expansion down the road because it clearly it's a beautiful building and we turned a restaurant into a school. It looks wonderful, but it's not going to be big enough, I don't think. And so someday down the road we'll probably try to do something with that. But I think right now we're going to just enjoy what we've got, you know, and the services that we're providing.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It sounds like one of the most important things through all of this has been the people that have been there to support you, to support Kyle when he went to school there, to support the people that still go to school there, support the children. It seems like this is. It takes a very special person to have that sort of flexibility and openness and desire to help.

Charlie McBrady:

Yeah. It's funny, we just had our grand opening in Wells and one thing that struck me and struck some people I invited down that don't know a lot about Morrison is that we got the staff. I mean, some of the staff was from Scarborough, but primarily we hired all new staff down there and they're so energetic and they are so grateful to have a nice facility to work in with this population because they don't really have that opportunity in many different facilities. And that helps a lot, you know, and for the jobs and you know, it is the staff, it is the people. And we have a board of directors that goes to board meetings because they really are passionate about it. It's not a resume builder by any means, but we've got some great people that quietly go about it and do what needs to be done for this population. It's not a huge organization. It certainly is big enough and growing, but it's all about these individuals that belong in the community that we're proud of and are growing every day. So. So we're lucky to have great staff, we're lucky to have a great board, but really when you go to these centers and you watch what goes on, it's very clear why everyone's there.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's interesting to hear you describe other people as being so quietly supportive and going about their business because when you came in you said, well, I don't even know what are we going to talk about? As if maybe you didn't have an interesting story to share yourself. Does this just feel so normal to you in your own life that it doesn't feel like it's as interesting as perhaps other people might find it?

Charlie McBrady:

I think so. I think everybody's got a story to tell. But when you're living your life, you don't really think it's anything special or anything different. Every now and then you might notice that maybe someone might have a few more bumps in the road than others. But really, it's what I know. It's all I know. And, and, you know, we're surrounded by these wonderful people. And I'm always amazed at, like board members, for instance, that don't have any immediate family with disabilities that are so dedicated because they see it. And I think that they're just feeling like, you know, how lucky am I that I don't have the struggles every morning, you know, every single morning that some people do? And so, yeah, I don't. I don't think my story is anything special, really. It's just, you know, we just. We do what we need to do and, you know, we're not given anything that we can't handle. I don't think so. I guess that's what I think.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

For people who are interested in either donating to the Morrison center or maybe they have a family member or a loved one that might benefit from services at the Morrison center, how do people find out about the organization?

Charlie McBrady:

Well, we're online. If you just Google the Morrison Developmental center or the Morrison center, it'll pop right up.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We've been Speaking with Charlie McBrady who is the director of Business development with Zachow Construction. But for the purposes of this interview, more importantly, the president of the Morrison Developmental center and father of Kyle, husband to Jennifer and father to Ian and Aaron. Aaron, Yeah. I appreciate all the work that you're doing. I think you are a very. You're just as you've described, quietly going about your life. But I think the world is probably a little better for having you in it.

Charlie McBrady:

Well, thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and podcast show number 122, Differently Abled. Our guests have included Scott Wenzel and Charlie McBrady. For more information on our guests and extended interviews, visit Dr. Lisa.org also in the March issue of Maine Magazine, you will find my profile of Scotty Wenzel and his family. I hope you take the time to look at this and enjoy it. The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is downloadable for free on itunes. For a preview of each week's show, sign up for our e. Newsletter and like our Dr. Lisa Facebook page. Follow me on Twitter and Pinterest and read my take on health and well being on the Bountiful blog. We'd love to hear from you. So please let us know what you think of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our differently abled show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Sam.