Picture this… You are in 8th grade running around at basketball practice going through your drills when you look around and realize that one of your teammates is not at practice. You think to yourself that it is really weird because he never misses practice. That’s the last you really question it until you hear the gymnasium doors swing open. You look over to the doors and see your teammate walk through the door. You see he has wires hooked up to his chest and connected to a machine. You over hear coach yell, “What the hell is wrong with you Ethan?” This was reality for 8th grade Ethan Thompson following a visit to the hospital after a series of sicknesses. Up until this point everyone had only seen Ethan as Ethan, but now everyone saw Ethan
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She had never noticed that Ethan was a little bit blue in coloring because she had never had any babies to compare her baby to, but this gave Val something to talk to and ask the doctors about. Finally, with the help of her step dad, Val was able to convince the doctors to allow her to visit a specialist in a hospital to have more tests run on Ethan. These tests revealed something was wrong with Ethan’s heart, but the doctor wasn’t sure what he was looking at. The doctor sent out images of Ethan’s heart to cardiologists in 12 different states and finally got the answer. At six months old Ethan was diagnosed with dextro-transposition of the two great arteries with ventricular septal defect; however, it was determined he had been born with these. Upon Ethan being diagnosed Val did not feel any type of relief. She felt angry because of the unnecessarily late diagnosis. While Val was telling me the story of Ethan’s diagnosis I noticed that she was very discriminated against because of her age. The doctors assumed that because she was 16 she didn’t know anything especially in regards to having a …show more content…
He didn’t find this out until 8th grade. Finding this out really changed a few things for Ethan in a big way, one of the things that changed was how Ethan took care of himself. Ethan notably eats better than most teenage boys and also drinks a lot of water. Another life changing moment for Ethan was his 8th grade diagnosis’. These were the diagnosis’ where Ethan found out he would no longer be encouraged to play many types of sports. Ethan’s sport options were limited to two: basketball and baseball. For the majority of his life no one knew Ethan had any conditions because his disabilities were hidden/invisible disabilities, it wasn’t until his 8th grade diagnosis that the majority of the middle school found out about Ethan’s disability. Ethan recalls that when he first told friends they were surprised because they didn’t expect it. Ethan noted that some of his friends understand his disability more now, but some still don’t. I got the feeling this was a more difficult subject for Ethan to open up about. My brother and Ethan are friends and in the same grade so I was unsure if this was because he and my brother are friends and I don’t know how Tanner responds, or if it was just a difficult subject to think about and talk about. This also made me want to talk to my brother
She had never noticed that Ethan was a little bit blue in coloring because she had never had any babies to compare her baby to, but this gave Val something to talk to and ask the doctors about. Finally, with the help of her step dad, Val was able to convince the doctors to allow her to visit a specialist in a hospital to have more tests run on Ethan. These tests revealed something was wrong with Ethan’s heart, but the doctor wasn’t sure what he was looking at. The doctor sent out images of Ethan’s heart to cardiologists in 12 different states and finally got the answer. At six months old Ethan was diagnosed with dextro-transposition of the two great arteries with ventricular septal defect; however, it was determined he had been born with these. Upon Ethan being diagnosed Val did not feel any type of relief. She felt angry because of the unnecessarily late diagnosis. While Val was telling me the story of Ethan’s diagnosis I noticed that she was very discriminated against because of her age. The doctors assumed that because she was 16 she didn’t know anything especially in regards to having a …show more content…
He didn’t find this out until 8th grade. Finding this out really changed a few things for Ethan in a big way, one of the things that changed was how Ethan took care of himself. Ethan notably eats better than most teenage boys and also drinks a lot of water. Another life changing moment for Ethan was his 8th grade diagnosis’. These were the diagnosis’ where Ethan found out he would no longer be encouraged to play many types of sports. Ethan’s sport options were limited to two: basketball and baseball. For the majority of his life no one knew Ethan had any conditions because his disabilities were hidden/invisible disabilities, it wasn’t until his 8th grade diagnosis that the majority of the middle school found out about Ethan’s disability. Ethan recalls that when he first told friends they were surprised because they didn’t expect it. Ethan noted that some of his friends understand his disability more now, but some still don’t. I got the feeling this was a more difficult subject for Ethan to open up about. My brother and Ethan are friends and in the same grade so I was unsure if this was because he and my brother are friends and I don’t know how Tanner responds, or if it was just a difficult subject to think about and talk about. This also made me want to talk to my brother