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THE MAYOR OF TELEVISION

The Ins and Outs of My Son Larry

We first knew that Larry had a disability pretty early, maybe when was just 7 or 8 months old. When he couldn’t get up by himself, I knew something was wrong.

Of course, they tell you about all these different doctors that can save him: This one’s good for this, that one’s good for that, so I gave them all a try and got all kinds of answers. One doctor literally baked him because he thought Larry had rickets. He was bombarding Larry with vita-rays to kill the rickets. Larry would get up in the middle of the night screaming, and I couldn’t pick him up to console him because the treatments had left his skin too sensitive to tolerate my body heat.

I just couldn’t stop him from crying. So I called my own doctor, who had just gotten out of the service, and he said, ?Why isn’t he walking?? It was that doctor who finally told me that Larry had cerebral palsy. We ended up in the children’s hospital in Boston, where they gave him all the tests, EKGs and everything. One of the doctors there said it was too bad that Larry has such a helpless body because he has such a tremendous brain.

I remember one neighbor I had who felt sorry for him, and Larry let me know right off the bat that he didn’t want to go down that street anymore on our walks. This neighbor would always say, "Oh, you poor thing," and things like that. Larry didn’t want to be a poor thing.

Things got a lot better as he got a bit older. Larry takes these pills called Soma and they really control his spasticity. He was actually the first person to take the drug. He took the first one when he was about 7 years old. He’s been on it ever since, and he’s 59 now.

Larry looks in the TV Guide to find out what programs are coming on. Larry’s father mounted a changer onto a board so Larry could change channels, and ever since then we’d be very lucky to get to see a show Larry didn’t want to watch. He’s the boss of the TV. I don’t really mind. We like a lot of the same shows.

MRS. PERRY

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