April 13 2024

I need to turn the spotlight on Lillian Darnell for a moment, as I am super proud of her.

She had a nurse appointment for a shot on Thursday. The nurse asked Lillian if she would get onto the exam table. Lillian began to tell her that she needed the step pulled out. Nurse didn’t wait for Lillian to get out what she needed to say, assumed she didn’t want to get up there, saying, “Oh, you don’t want to get up there? That’s fine.”

Lillian raised her irritated voice, telling the nurse that’s not what she said, and pointed at the pull out step, saying again that she needed it to get up there.

I kept my mouth shut, letting her set fire to the air in that exam room. You go Lillian. You go! Be seen, be heard. (Also, we LOVE nurses. They are amazing!)

**For those who don’t know, Lillian is my 22-year-old daughter. She has a chromosome deletion (18p-), autism, anxiety, and mild intellectual disability. She has articulation difficulties and a stutter, making her difficult to understand. The past few years I have been guiding her to correct others when they misunderstand her.**