Sunday, 7 April 2002
http://www.azstarnet.com/star/today/20407Jameson32fsrl2fmst2f.html
Photos by Max Becherer / Staff
Sisters in arms: Alicia, 12, gets a hug from Jené, 13, as the Jameson family of 17 gets ready for lunch. Each member of the family pulls as much weight as he or she can, with the older children helping their younger siblings bathe and get dressed.
Cuddles and smiles: Christie Jameson and her husband, Alva, cuddle with their youngest child, Jacob, 3, who was born without a fully formed brain.
Photos by Max Becherer / Staff
After dinner, the Jamesons sort through their children's medications. "We administer up to 45 different medicines during the day," Christie says.
The gift of adoption
"It is (the Jamesons') love and attention that help these kids do well.
It's amazing what can happen. It's like miracles."
- Dr. Wally Nogami, University Medical Center anesthesiologist
Brittany, 11, gently touches the fingers of Brianna, 5, who Christie says "will be like a 2-month-old baby the rest of her life."
By Carmen Duarte • ARIZONA DAILY STAR
NOGALES
It's 5:30 a.m. when the Jameson house starts rocking.
The 17 family members roll out of bed and take turns using three bathrooms in their two-story home.
Scattered throughout the house is equipment to be used during the day: two sets of crutches, four wheelchairs, four portable toilets, three bathing chairs and two walkers.
Upstairs, dad Alva Jameson helps get the kids ready for school, while mom Christie wakes up Jacob, 3, and Brianna, 5. Both children have cerebral palsy and are fed a liquid diet through tubes.
The older kids help the younger ones bathe and dress. Somehow, the Jamesons all read children's books together before the school buses arrive.
The day is filled with doctor's appointments, chores, meal preparation and doling out medications, followed by bedtime.
They get through it with the love that flows between parent and child. That's part of the way the Jamesons have made their family work for more than 30 years. Organization, prayer, patience and support from friends also help the family, which has 10 children still in diapers due to medical conditions.
"We do it because we like to challenge the children to accomplish something beyond their normal expectations . . . whatever they possibly can," Alva Jameson said. "And, prove the professionals wrong."
As Alva battles prostate cancer, the focus is still on the children. "Not what they want, but what they need," he said. "Next is trying to find things that are of value for them to see, hear, visit. Those are things we value most. In our minds, it's a dedication to seeing what we can do to make life better for a few children."
Almost 40 years ago, the Jamesons married with the idea that they would someday have a big family. The couple now have two biological daughters and since 1970 have adopted 35 racially diverse children, many with special needs. The kids, most from the United States, also come from Taiwan, Korea, Mexico, India and Germany. From baby Jacob and little Brianna to 17-year-old Tiffany, 15 kids remain at home. The others are: Sean and Eli, both 7; Mitchell, 9; Courtney, Shenee, Brittany and Samuel, all 11; Zachary, Alicia and Matthew, all 12; Jené, 13; and Shelly, 16.
Sean, 7, shakes hands with Dr. Fayez Ghishan at Children's Clinics for Rehabilitative Services in Tucson.
Alicia, 12, helps her sister, Shelly, age 16, finish her breakfast before taking away the bowl..
Jené, 13, spends a rare quiet moment outside after dinner as her older siblings do their assigned chores. Every child who is able has a job to do and it's their shared responsibility that helps the family function.
"It is (the Jamesons') love and attention that help these kids do well. It's amazing what can happen. It's like miracles," said Dr. Wally Nogami, a University Medical Center anesthesiologist who has been in the operating room with several Jameson children.
Expanding the family
During the last 25 years, Alva, 59, and Christie, 58, became parents to children who are medically fragile with physical or mental disabilities.
It began with a newspaper ad about a Down syndrome baby girl from Tempe who needed a home.
The Jamesons adopted Nicole and became known in adoption circles. They started receiving inquiries from around the state and the country seeking homes for babies who could have been institutionalized.
The couple also have adopted children with cerebral palsy, heart and intestinal defects, brain disorders and emotional problems.
"This is a remarkable family," said Joe Kroll, executive director of the North American Council on Adoptable Children, based in St. Paul, Minn.
"There is only a handful in the entire country who are like them. A family needs tons of support with those levels of disabilities. I do not advise it for many people," he said.
A typical morning
The Jameson family is interconnected and each member pulls as much weight as he or she can to make each hectic day run as smoothly as possible.
While Christie tends to the younger children, Matthew helps dress his brother Sean in jeans and a pullover shirt. Sean was born with spina bifida and is paralyzed from the mid-chest down. He now walks with braces and crutches - something doctors had said was impossible.
Matthew is a runner and good student. He helps his parents keep the house running smoothly, they say.
He's calling upon his inner strength now as he endures radiation for a rare soft tissue cancer. He had surgery in February at Tucson Medical Center to remove muscle from his thigh.
But before he loses his thick, black hair, Matthew wanted to have some fun. Last month, his mom bleached his locks and put in red highlights.
As the clock ticks, Alva supervises the remaining 11 kids - helping with baths, dressing and combing hair. Tiffany, Brittany and Alicia help their siblings get moving.
By 6 a.m., they all make their way to the dining room, where 14 children sit at a long, deeply nicked wooden table for breakfast. Hands move in toward 16 plastic containers of cereal that are fixed in the middle of the table. Toast and juice, bananas, applesauce, peaches, apricots or plums are also served.
The family goes through 2 1/2 gallons of diluted milk a day and about $140 worth of bulk breakfast cereals a month.
For kids like Jacob and Brianna, the harmonious scene at the breakfast table is a world away from the way their lives began.
Jacob smiles broadly. He sports short hair on the sides with longer hair on top. He was born without a fully formed brain, with brain matter only slightly above his ears, because his mother was addicted to heroin while pregnant.
Yet Jacob is learning to communicate at school through a talking machine. It has a computerized voice and he communicates through picture icons.
Brianna's birth mother used crystal methamphetamine through all seven of her pregnancies. Brianna is a blind quadriplegic.
"She will be like a 2-month-old baby for the rest of her life," Christie says. She straightens up the house and continues her daily five loads of laundry, folding the clothes into piles for the children to put away when they return from school. On Saturdays, she does 16 loads.
Midday errands
School for most of the kids means errands for Christie. Her calendar is jammed with two months of medical appointments, school and church functions.
She loads Jacob and Sean into the van - one of the family's three vehicles - and heads for Tucson, where the boys have appointments at Children's Clinics for Rehabilitative Services. This is one of the dozen or so trips she makes to Tucson for medical appointments each month.
The boys visit Dr. Fayez Ghishan, a pediatric gastroenterologist. He examines the boys and discusses their nutritional needs.
"Jacob was doing fine and Sean gained 5 pounds. We have to watch Sean's weight because if he gains too much he won't be able to walk," said Christie, explaining that he is on a 700-calorie-a-day diet.
Christie and the boys return home shortly before 1 p.m. She feeds the boys their liquid diets, and puts Jacob down for a nap. Sean rests and plays with toys in the living room while Christie fills the washer with another load, returns phone calls and checks her mail.
Success stories and heartbreaks
Christie walks to the living room sofa where she kneels and points to each of the 37 photographs of her children displayed on the wall nearby.
Her children's stories pour out of her: There's a special education teacher, a hotel chef, a home health aide who works with quadriplegics, a property investor, an alarm systems installer and fast-foot restaurant workers.
Faces no longer in the Jameson home include a son who suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome and now lives in a group home in Tucson because he can't control his anger.
Christie's voice goes quiet as she mentions the seven children who have died from medical conditions. One fragile son accidentally drowned in a bathtub while under the care of baby sitters.
And there is the 14-year-old daughter who asked Christie and Alva to put her into foster care recently because she wanted out of the family.
"We got her just before she turned 2. She was born addicted to cocaine," Christie said. "She cannot bond or attach to our family. We love her with all of our hearts, but it has been extremely difficult." Christie says the teen began striking out at her and had hurt her siblings.
The Jamesons have been investigated by the state multiple times, Christie says, because the teen accused her parents of child abuse when she didn't get her way. Arizona Child Protective Services said it cannot comment on its cases. An online search of public records in city and justice courts and Superior Court in Santa Cruz County found no child abuse charges against the couple.
"It's difficult, but even what we are going through with her, it shows us that family is the most important thing," Christie says. "To be able to have the time and the experience to care for these kids and be a part of their lives is worth every single bit of sorrow that a family might go through. This includes losing a child who passes away, or having difficulties, as all families do, as the children become teen-agers."
Christie looks down at Jacob whom she cradles in her arms. The boy makes loud noises for several minutes, as if carrying on a conversation with his mom. She breaks into laughter, telling him, "You are so funny." Jacob's face erupts into a smile.
Returning home
The buses start arriving to drop off the children. The house fills with chatter and laughter again.
Tiffany, Matthew and Alicia begin doing chores so they can have Saturday off. Sweeping, mopping and cleaning bathrooms fill portions of the house with the aroma of pine cleaner.
Other children begin reading, riding bicycles and playing on swing sets in the back yard. Some feed the dogs and cats.
Tiffany, who has Down syndrome, gets ready for a dinner and dance at Nogales High School. She changes into her ROTC uniform.
"Tiffany, get your dress. I washed it and it is hanging behind the door in your room," yells Christie. "You will need nylons, heels, hair clips and a spray bottle."
"OK, Mom. I have a bag that I can put it all in," Tiffany yells from upstairs.
The night before, Matthew, who wants to be a chef like older brother Derrick, helped cook a meal for two days. It included 10 cups of rice, 48 scrambled eggs and Polish sausage.
The mixture, which is cooked with spices and tomato sauce, is a favorite. It was served with corn or string beans, and salad. They drank milk or juice, and had applesauce or apricots for dessert.
The family budget
Two refrigerators and three freezers are stocked with groceries.
"We've learned how to count every penny and stretch every dollar," Alva says.
The Jamesons get by on Alva's $35,000 a year salary as an accountant, plus Social Security and adoption subsidy checks, which bring in $3,915 a month.
The kids' health care could be as high as $5,000 a month, Alva says. But most of the children qualify for long-term medical care under the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, the state's health insurance for indigents.
The family also relies on the spiritual support from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Friends donate time and expertise, doing everything from plumbing work to household repairs and donating computers.
"(The Jamesons) are incredible people whose work is based on religious convictions. They see the kids almost as angels who are placed on this planet," said Pat Palmer, director of children services with Catholic Community Services of Southeastern Arizona.
"They are able to relate to the individual needs including health and social needs of each child. That might be very tiny issues of growth . . . just acknowledging other people are in the room, recognizing people or using a spoon. They have incredible patience."
Finding peace
After dinner, Alva washes dishes, Jené wipes off the folding chairs around the dining room table, Brittany sweeps the dining room and Alicia sweeps the kitchen.
Christie sits at one end of the dining room table near a blue container filled with medicines that need to be given to many of the children. "We administer up to 45 different medicines during the day," she said while grinding a pill.
Medications are given, Alva helps the children clean up and put on their pajamas. They begin to wind down and are in bed by 7:30 p.m.
Now is the time for Alva and Christie to gather their thoughts and share quiet time. But that isn't always the case, especially if children are sick with colds and coughs - or just have bad nights.
"A lot of people do think we're crazy," Alva says, laughing. "My wife doesn't like me to do it, but I occasionally take all the children to the grocery store by myself. And by the looks I get, their opinion is somebody is crazy."
Alicia doesn't think her parents are nuts. And the Jameson children are thankful.
"They mean the best thing in the world because they adopted me and (Mitchell) when no one else wanted my brother. They only wanted me.
"Then my mom and dad came in and said, 'We will take both of them.' "
* Contact Carmen Duarte
at 573-4195 or at cduarte@azstarnet.com.
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