Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Say What?


In one part of my life (the one that pays the bills) my days are filled with acronyms.

I work in the field of mental retardation (some prefer to say intellectual or developmental disabilities) and more recently, autism. In my notes and scribbles, these words usually shrink to MR/DD and ASD.

Add to that ICF/MR, ISP, IPP, SIS+, CH, SD, SC, 4300s, 6500s, CMS, HHS, 2380s, DPW, ODP.... the list of nonsensical letter combined to somehow make sense to somebody is unending.

Say what?

That's what self-advocates (people with disabilities who represent themselves and their community at policy workgroups and committees) have started to say. "You're not speaking my language." They say. "You are creating a dialect that purposefully excludes me and that's not fair."

"Nothing about me without me." They demand.

That's fair. And to be honest, I don't think my brain can retain any more anyway.

That is why I sometimes have trouble reading other blogs, particularly those surrounding issues of infertility and parenthood. I don't know the language. I don't know the code. I think it took me a few days to figure out what IVF meant. Oh yeah. Duh. I get it now.

I'm a newbie to all of this. I have never NOT known that I am infertile. It was stated matter-of-factly before my boobs even finished growing. Sure, I had moments of hope and delusions that maybe if i just stop taking my pills, my period would magically arrive and my body will have healed itself back to normalcy, but for the most part, this whole possibility of pregnancy is a very, very new thing to me.

I am fairly certain that my cycle will be in sync with a lot of other cool female bloggers out there. But I haven't responded to some queries, because I'm not sure. Coincidentally, my cycle also corresponds with yet another life changing event - my parents selling their house and moving to another state. It would be exciting and happy if it weren't for financial reasons. We can talk about that saga later.

I'll be posting my schedule later today.

3 comments:

daisy said...

Hi,
Here is a helpful link to another blog http://sweetvee.blogspot.com/2006/02/lingo.html with some answers for you. I had the same problem in the beginning...had to Goo*le everything. Sweet Life's list is not comprehensive. I would add DE for donor eggs, sometimes confused with donor embryos (these are usually "adopted" from another couples previous IVF…for a frozen embryo transfer). ED for egg donor. EDR for egg donor recipient. I am sure there are others, but I added ones that pertain to our situation. There are many places to get this info but I wanted to give you a starter so you didn’t have to spend time hunting them down. I am sure others have suggestions too.

I work in IT and we have acronyms to describe acronyms. It’s completely insane. Before that, I worked in medicine, so my mind is full of them, which I am sure is the reason I can’t remember what I did yesterday or where I left my keys.
Daisy

Anonymous said...

So where's this schedule you promised? I am excited to see.
SHH

Princess Peach said...

Not sure what value I could add here...but celebrating your survivorship and wishing you peace!

Google