Читать книгу Shéri - Shéri Brynard - Страница 9

If my father and mother succeeded at one thing, it was to ensure that the travel bug would bite me. I love travelling by train, boat, plane and bus.

When my grandmother looked after me when I was a baby, she got me to sleep by rocking me. I’m still mad about anything with wheels or wings that can take me from point A to B. I think I caught the travel virus in Germany, when I was still very small and floppy.

In Germany, researchers developed cell therapy specifically for people with Down Syndrome. The theory was that lamb foetal brain cells could help to stop them ageing prematurely, enhancing their health and diminishing some of the physical traits. To complement the therapy, other therapies to stimulate the child were suggested.

For the best results, the first treatment had to start within the first twelve months of a baby’s life. When my parents heard about it, they realised that they had only three weeks before the June holidays (by that stage my mother had already started teaching again) and that the December holidays would be too cold in Europe. The following year would have been too late.

So during the June holidays, they took me for to the Kinderklinik in Aschaffenburg, for treatment by Prof Franz Schmid.

We flew to London. My mother told me that the flight was no problem because I slept most of the time. I was three months old. We did a lot of sightseeing, and I was breastfed wherever we went.

Many people were amazed to see such a little thing – I was very small for my age. They were so interested in me and made a huge fuss of me. A little girl wanted to know whether I was a boy or a girl. When my mother told her that I was a girl, she became very excited and declared: “So she can marry the prince!” Princess Di’s baby, William, Britain’s heir-to-be to the throne, was also born about that time.

At the clinic my parents got to know an American couple who had brought their baby boy there. In her diary, my mother wrote that she noticed that I was much livelier than the other kids. She also noticed that all the parents there accepted and loved their children. Because all of them had children who looked and functioned differently, the parents soon bonded.

One of the problems that people with Down Syndrome have is that we have hardly any nose bridge. This can impact on a baby’s breathing. And our eyes are easily infected because the tear glands can become clogged as a result of the poorly developed nose bridge. In addition, the facial skin can be quite dry because of clogged oil glands.

These are some of the problems that they were trying to alleviate with the cell implants. My tear glands were sometimes so severely infected that my parents feared that the puss might damage my eyes. The day after we left the clinic, the infection cleared. My mother believed that it was the result of the implants. The treatment had to be repeated every six months until I was four. The vaccine was later imported and this enabled Dr Karshagen to inject me here in South Africa.

My mother says things weren’t always easy. She always wanted everything to be just right. She became very tense whenever she felt that she was not succeeding and not coping.

But God did not abandon her. He started sending his angels to our house. And even to Pick n Pay. There, among the shelves, the wife of a professor once told her: “Classical music has a calming effect on babies. Let Shéri listen to classical music. And talk to her like you would to any other little one.”

And so my parents talked to me about anything and everything while they were bathing or dressing me. They pointed out birds, clouds in the sky, flies against the window, the moon and the stars. And sometimes my dad danced with my mom, and with me.

I can still hear myself laughing. They were so funny. It was fun, and I was happy.

Dance was a Dad Jerry thing. I must have been about ten when we went on the cruise on the Sinfonia. The evening of the Captain’s Ball, my mother looked like the photographs of her when she was a RAG princess as a student. She looked so young and pretty in her black evening dress with her blow-dried hair falling softly on her shoulders. My dad had on a yellow bowtie. He bowed and asked her for a dance. When he danced with my mother, his dance feet and steps always improved. And then came the dance that left everyone stunned. I was sitting with my sisters at the table, watching our parents dance. Then my father came over, held out his hand and with a bow, as if I were a princess, asked: “May I?”

I jumped up. My feet had been itching! It was exactly what I’d been waiting for. My father soon realised there was a slight problem. I was too short and he was too tall. This meant that he’d have had to bend down so low that he’d look 80 years old.

So he picked me up, and I sort of sat on his hip. He took my hand and we danced with his feet on the dance floor and mine in the clouds.

Now I know exactly what it feels like to be in the clouds.

I think it is almost like being in heaven.

My father succeeded in sometimes taking me, my mom and my sisters to the clouds.