Columns

Last in a series. Read parts one and two. When our daughter Abby, who has Rett syndrome, went into a Delaware hospital 17 years ago for spinal fusion surgery to correct severe scoliosis, she had an allergic reaction to something partway into the operation. The…

Second in a series. Read part one. Seventeen years ago right about now, my wife, Donna, and I sat dazed in a Delaware hospital as a surgeon explained that he had been forced to abort the spinal fusion he was performing on our daughter Abby because she’d gone into…

First in a series. These days in our household, we refer to August 2009 as “the worst summer vacation ever.” It’s a grim sort of joke. There was no vacation that August. There was an operation that was supposed to keep our daughter, Abby, who has Rett syndrome, in…

Registration. Physical. Supplies. Even though there is still over a month left of summer, I’m already preparing for the start of a new school year. I’m not only getting myself ready, but also my daughter and my students. My daughter, Ryan, has her sports physical completed by mid-July so there…

At the International Rett Syndrome Foundation’s conference earlier this month in Minnesota, there was a “Caregiver Retreat Center,” a quiet room away from the main conference activities where parents and other caregivers could go to chill. The conference sessions were information-heavy and sometimes emotional, and this side room offered a…

It was, if I do say so myself, a brilliant idea, though it didn’t turn out quite the way I had envisioned it.  As I was preparing to attend the International Rett Syndrome Foundation conference held earlier this month in Minnesota, I noticed that among the agenda items…

At the International Rett Syndrome Foundation’s (IRSF) conference earlier this month in Minnesota, which I attended, there was quite a lot of talk in the scientific presentations about gene replacement, gene activation, gene silencing, and such. Also at the conference, there were quite a few young kids with Rett…

The last time I went to the national conference devoted to Rett syndrome, my daughter Abby’s disability, I brought a bathing suit and a beach towel and finished the conference 10 pounds heavier than I had started it. I’m on Day 1 of the 2026 conference as I…

My daughter Abby, who has Rett syndrome, won’t sit through a lot of movies, but one she has watched a zillion times is “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” the first Harry Potter film, which came out in 2001, when Abby was 4. My wife and I think she…

My husband, Billy, loves to golf. After working hard all week, there is nothing he enjoys more than spending a few hours on the golf course. These days, I don’t mind how much time he spends golfing. In fact, I encourage it. But it wasn’t always that way. When our…