Three hundred and fifty medals on Bryan’s bed from 38 years of Special Olympics competition!

We are gearing up for yet another change for Bryan. His tenure at the little red brick Cape Cod in Hatboro is coming to a close. Move in date to a new house in Warminster will be sometime at the beginning of July. A few short weeks.

Meanwhile, Ed and I and some of the Shared Wellness staff have been working on cleaning, culling, and boxing up his possessions at the Doylestown apartment. There’s a lot of stuff which has accumulated over fourteen years of living there. Three hundred and fifty gold, silver and bronze Special Olympics medals plus numerous ribbons hang heavily on the side of his bookshelf. Fifty trophies for baseball, soccer, and basketball adorn his shelves. Half of them will come to our house out of sight. Half will make the move. I’m hoping he doesn’t notice!

A decision has been made that the D’town apartment was not a good fit for Bryan. AND Bryan has made it abundantly clear that he wants to move into a house where he doesn’t need to ascend multiple flights of wooden stairs to reach his domicile. Smart guy. His parents agree! Also, he’s been hankering for an outside patio, an “entertainment room”, as he terms it, and more living space in general. In fact, Bryan wrote us a long wish list of those things which he’d like to have in his new home. Three pages worth!

It seems that a rental property is coming available through Shared Wellness in the Warminster area in July. Bryan’s lease at the Doylestown apartment is up at the end of July. Perfect timing! His current roommate, Sean, who also has special needs, is wanting to continue to live with Bryan. The guys get along very well.

The only problem with the new model is that both Bryan and Sean will be moving out of Life Sharing and into a CLA situation. (Community Living Arrangement). As a mom, the stigma of the CLA model from the past has bad connotations. Visions of extremely needy individuals with many physical and mental issues, living 5 to 6 in a home come to mind. Twenty-four hour care for the residents was the norm. Resistance in the neighborhood was common.

I need to reassure myself that this old version of a CLA is evolving into something new in this day and age. For Bryan, having a staff member there most of the time is a plus. He’s cooking, creating menus, food shopping, doing chores, playing games, watching movies and doing things that used to happen in his apartment. Perhaps this is why he is happier now than I’ve seen him in a long time. He recently said to a staff member “I feel safer now than I have in a long time.” Very telling.

It’s going to take a lot more work as we continue to pack up his belongings and physically move him from two residences into one. But the staff at Shared Wellness assures us that they will be helping with the move and yet another transition for Bryan in order to make this as pleasant and painless as possible.

“Shared” Wellness is, indeed, aptly named!