Postcards From The Pandemic: Swimming On Land, Signing On Zoom

Eli Silver is a Beachwood teenager with hearing loss and muscular hypotonia. Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, he’s had to abruptly adjust from a full day at school to a new world of virtual education and online physical therapy.

“The school was basically having a half an hour in the morning with his deaf mentor. So he would be on the computer just conversing with her using American Sign Language,” explained Eli’s mom Laurie.

“There were a lot of challenges as you can imagine because with Zoom and some of the conference calling, if the screen would freeze then they would lose access to that language.”

A Fish Out of Water

In addition to keeping up with his academics we also had to try to replicate his physical therapy at home.

Eli has a severe muscle hypotonia which means he has very weak muscles that was diagnosed when he was about four months old.

[Laurie Silver]

We tapped into this organization called Rec to Connect Foundation which helped us do — they model swimming on land. It was called Fish Out of Water. So he would spend 45 minutes a week trying to work on his swim strokes via Zoom.

Even though some exercises we could do at home, he responds better if there's other people on the computer. And just to give him a sense of community, the Fish Out of Water has, you know, maybe 10 other kids joining in so it gives him a chance to socialize as well as do exercise.   

Teenager on a Break

Eli's been very attached to me always and it was always, you know, “Mom do this” and “Mom do that.”

Laurie and Eli Silver hike in the Cleveland Metroparks as part of his physical therapy. He also bikes and lifts weights. [Laurie Silver]

And all of a sudden once he had to spend 24 hours a day with me, and I had to facilitate all his therapies and everything. And one day as I was talking to him telling him to do, you know, absolutely one more thing and he kind of put his hand up in front of my face. It was like, ‘enough,’ like ‘I'm over you.’

I want him to be independent, and I want him to not need me, but it was just terrible timing because all of a sudden he just doesn't want to be with mom.

I think overall you know we've tried to maintain a positive outlook and just be thankful that this is our only challenge right now is trying to continue his academic and physical success and just build on that while he's in isolation.

This postcard was produced by Isaiah Paik.