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Description
         He walked into the restaurant late as usual; I eyed him for a minute then motioned him over.  He was talk maybe six one with long black hair, he sat down and said

"So"

"So…" I repeated unsure of where he was going.

"What is it like?"

I looked at him bewildered, "What is what like?"

"Living with Cerebral Palsy, after all I don't have it" he said as he ordered his usual drink, a coke with no ice, I turned to the redhead that was serving us and ordered a Dr Pepper, my usual don't ask if you don't like it you don't have to. I looked him in the eye and said:

"You got your giant key ring?"

"Yes, why?" he asked as he produced it from his pocket.  He worked as a janitor and this was really the only way to explain it.

"Take all the keys off for me set them on the table" I said sipping my doctor pepper and looking around the restaurant.  It was rather simple and I can't remember it's name but I knew I liked the pasta there, he had asked me there for this discussion, a discussion I've had plenty of times, and really didn't know how to discuss.  Let me back up here and tell you, Cerebral Palsy is really a blanket term for born with brain damage, I almost died when I was a kid; my lungs collapsed because they were that of a three month old premature baby.  I'm not premature but my lungs were. They still don't know why. Anyway, basic terms it's like being born with damage on the brain due to lack of oxygen to it; it also comes with muscle problems and causes me to react late.

              He took off all his keys; I counted twenty three in all.  I looked at him and said, "Having cerebral palsy is like this, you see your keys?" he nodded as I continued "Now, each key is for an action so let's go through your day."

"Ok, I get up" he counted off a key "I take a shower" he counted off another key and I stopped him.

"No no you're skipping steps" I started to tick off keys "you wake up, you have to raise your body up" I counted off two keys, "then you have to move from the bed to your shower, each step is a key" I kept counting off keys, adding three keys to the pile of two we had, I was guesstimating because I didn't know how large his room was I knew it took me three steps to get to the bathroom so I took three keys, "Then you make breakfast and eat it" click, click, click more keys, "then you eat it" a key for each spoonful. He saw that the keys were dwindling as we talked about walking and exercising. I stopped when we got down to three, "so now you see the physical toll, that's the hardest part of it.  The mental toll is easy to get past though it's a funny thing too", I walked him over to a bar and ask the tender to flip the TV on to static, both of them looked at me, "just do it please, I'm trying to give him an example of something"

The TV clicked onto static and I said, "now try living with that in your head all the time not just the sound by the feel of static, like two wires misfiring" he nodded, "every day I wake up and it feels like there's actually literally static on my brain" I continued and he raised his eyebrows.  I shrugged, "the keys were the physical part of that, but at the same time you have the mental part, it's like living in a fog all the time, so now do you get it?"

He nodded and we walked back to the booth, I concluded by saying "Every day I
have to ask myself if this is worth doing, every day I have to make myself do it and I have to push myself, I go through more thoughts in a day than more people in an hour, that's what it's like."

       He nodded understanding now dawning on his face.  I really do hope that me writing this helped you reader, because I don't know any other way to explain it

Description
         He walked into the restaurant late as usual; I eyed him for a minute then motioned him over.  He was talk maybe six one with long black hair, he sat down and said

"So"

"So…" I repeated unsure of where he was going.

"What is it like?"

I looked at him bewildered, "What is what like?"

"Living with Cerebral Palsy, after all I don't have it" he said as he ordered his usual drink, a coke with no ice, I turned to the redhead that was serving us and ordered a Dr Pepper, my usual don't ask if you don't like it you don't have to. I looked him in the eye and said:

"You got your giant key ring?"

"Yes, why?" he asked as he produced it from his pocket.  He worked as a janitor and this was really the only way to explain it.

"Take all the keys off for me set them on the table" I said sipping my doctor pepper and looking around the restaurant.  It was rather simple and I can't remember it's name but I knew I liked the pasta there, he had asked me there for this discussion, a discussion I've had plenty of times, and really didn't know how to discuss.  Let me back up here and tell you, Cerebral Palsy is really a blanket term for born with brain damage, I almost died when I was a kid; my lungs collapsed because they were that of a three month old premature baby.  I'm not premature but my lungs were. They still don't know why. Anyway, basic terms it's like being born with damage on the brain due to lack of oxygen to it; it also comes with muscle problems and causes me to react late.

              He took off all his keys; I counted twenty three in all.  I looked at him and said, "Having cerebral palsy is like this, you see your keys?" he nodded as I continued "Now, each key is for an action so let's go through your day."

"Ok, I get up" he counted off a key "I take a shower" he counted off another key and I stopped him.

"No no you're skipping steps" I started to tick off keys "you wake up, you have to raise your body up" I counted off two keys, "then you have to move from the bed to your shower, each step is a key" I kept counting off keys, adding three keys to the pile of two we had, I was guesstimating because I didn't know how large his room was I knew it took me three steps to get to the bathroom so I took three keys, "Then you make breakfast and eat it" click, click, click more keys, "then you eat it" a key for each spoonful. He saw that the keys were dwindling as we talked about walking and exercising. I stopped when we got down to three, "so now you see the physical toll, that's the hardest part of it.  The mental toll is easy to get past though it's a funny thing too", I walked him over to a bar and ask the tender to flip the TV on to static, both of them looked at me, "just do it please, I'm trying to give him an example of something"

The TV clicked onto static and I said, "now try living with that in your head all the time not just the sound by the feel of static, like two wires misfiring" he nodded, "every day I wake up and it feels like there's actually literally static on my brain" I continued and he raised his eyebrows.  I shrugged, "the keys were the physical part of that, but at the same time you have the mental part, it's like living in a fog all the time, so now do you get it?"

He nodded and we walked back to the booth, I concluded by saying "Every day I
have to ask myself if this is worth doing, every day I have to make myself do it and I have to push myself, I go through more thoughts in a day than more people in an hour, that's what it's like."

       He nodded understanding now dawning on his face.  I really do hope that me writing this helped you reader, because I don't know any other way to explain it