Michelle Loubon

Ace pan­nist Dane Gul­ston has risen to the chal­lenge of cop­ing with his son Daniel Gul­ston, nine, who has been di­ag­nosed with Down syn­drome. On March 13, at All Stars Pa­n­yard, Duke Street, Port-of-Spain, Gul­ston shared the tri­umphs and tri­als of cop­ing with a dis­abled child.

Mu­sic, which runs in Gul­ston's veins, has been ther­a­py for Daniel, who is of­ten spot­ted play­ing pan along­side his fa­ther at events. From his Pic­cadil­ly Greens home, Daniel of­ten ac­com­pa­nies him to the pa­n­yard which is lo­cat­ed a stone's throw away. The se­nior Gul­ston is an ad­vis­er to the en­sem­ble/se­nior mem­ber of All Stars, which placed sec­ond in the 2013 Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion at Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

Gul­ston said, "Daniel's favourite song is Imag­ine by John Lennon. He likes to play it. He likes Bun­ji and Machel. He loves the pa­n­yard ex­pe­ri­ence. He loves mu­sic. He likes so­ca, chut­ney, ca­lyp­so and pan. He likes All­rounder's Gar­lic Sauce. He likes per­cus­sive in­stru­ments. He en­joys his drums at home. Mu­sic is one of the things that helps to keep him 'nor­mal.'"

Asked if he felt par­ents should en­cour­age their chil­dren with Down syn­drome to get in­volved with mu­sic, Gul­ston added, "Def­i­nite­ly. I would say mu­sic and sports. Daniel likes soc­cer and bas­ket­ball. He would sit and watch a whole game. They should ex­pose their chil­dren to the pa­n­yards. It's a dif­fer­ent ex­pe­ri­ence. It is good ther­a­py."

Speech im­ped­i­ment

De­scrib­ing Daniel as "ex­treme­ly spe­cial," Gul­ston boast­ed he ab­sorbs in­for­ma­tion quick­ly."He picks up the mu­sic eas­i­ly. He is help­ful. He is thought­ful. He would car­ry a gro­cery bag out of the car. He an­swers the phone. He is a joy. But he is touchy. He can get emo­tion­al. And like most chil­dren, he likes to get his own way. He likes fried chick­en."He laud­ed Daniel for mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant progress in but­ton­ing his shirt.

"He is a stick­ler for neat­ness, likes to dress him­self and he likes his hair combed."On the flip side, Daniel's speech im­ped­i­ment re­mains a ma­jor set­back."His speech is slurred. He has trou­ble putting sen­tences to­geth­er. So com­mu­ni­ca­tion is a prob­lem. My wife (Di­anne) and I un­der­stand him well. But speech is a ma­jor chal­lenge."

Di­anne Gul­ston "over­whelming­ex­pe­ri­ence"

Re­flect­ing on his birth (Jan­u­ary 7, 2004) at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, Di­anne Gul­ston said she had a nor­mal full-term preg­nan­cy. The Gul­stons' world was shat­tered when they learned he was born with three holes in his heart. At one year old, Daniel was tak­en to Luther­an Methodist Hos­pi­tal, New York, USA, for a heart op­er­a­tion.

Via tele­phone, she said, "I was over­whelmed to learn about his con­di­tion. Dane helped me cope bet­ter. He un­der­stood the sit­u­a­tion bet­ter than I. When Daniel was born, it was chal­leng­ing. But I be­gan to un­der­stand him a lot more."

On the fate­ful day, Gul­ston said, "When I got to the hos­pi­tal and they told me about his con­di­tion, I asked, 'How se­vere?' I won­dered if he was autis­tic. There are dif­fer­ent lev­els. Every­thing was not right. He had spaces be­tween his toes. The lines in his palm were dif­fer­ent. His eyes had that wild look. He was not fo­cus­ing."

Re­ly­ing on his pa­ter­nal in­stinct, Gul­ston em­braced Daniel as a gift from God."I de­cid­ed he was here al­ready. He's here to stay. We would do the best we could to help him." He de­cid­ed he would treat Daniel like his oth­er chil­dren–De­von, 27, Dwayne, 25, and Den­ni­son, 13, who is a stu­dent of Wood­brook Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary School.

For more in­fo on Down syn­drome con­tact Na­tal­ie Morales at morales_tri­ni@ya­hoo.com/ 744-4639

Gov­ern­ment needs to do more

Asked if he felt the Gov­ern­ment was do­ing enough, Gul­ston said, "No. For in­stance, when it comes to ed­u­ca­tion and chil­dren with dis­abil­i­ties, we don't have enough fa­cil­i­ties for their ad­vance­ment. We need to give them a bet­ter chance at be­ing well-ad­just­ed per­sons." Daniel at­tends Im­mortelle Chil­dren's Cen­tre, St Ann's.

Asked what ad­vice she would give to par­ents, Di­anne Gul­ston said, "Love them. Be pa­tient. Let them in­ter­act with chil­dren and adults. Don't os­tracise them. Keep work­ing with them be­cause they are bright chil­dren."?