Geri Glass fought her way back from death nine years ago in the Intensive Care Unit at St. Vincent Healthcare.

Five days after high school graduation, the Park County High School athlete rolled her pickup on a curve in Bridger Canyon, killing a passenger and smashing her head and spine. Technically, she was dead when first responders arrived. No one thought she would survive the injuries.

She struggled to regain consciousness three weeks later to face life as a quadriplegic.

The Livingston native launched a full frontal assault on her future. From a wheelchair, Glass battled the odds, learning to control what movement remained in her hands and arms. She learned how to care for her dysfunctional body and taught others how to help her do it.

Glass could almost declare victory when she was able to move into her own home a block off Livingston’s main street and live independently with the adaptations her father and friends installed.

Now, at 27, she is girding for what she suspects could be an all-out war – for the chance to raise her newborn son.

The Park County office of the state Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS), she said in a visit with The Gazette last week, hovers over her life now, threatening to remove 2-month-old Gage if she fails to comply with conditions Glass considers unreasonable and unfair.

“This is the only child I’m ever going to have,” she said fiercely through her tears. “I love him with all my heart and I want to take care of him. I can take care of him.”

Glass has an extensive support network, including her social worker, who believes that she is fully capable of raising the child with the use of a little adaptive equipment and occasional help of caregivers.

“Once she’s in her own home where everything is built at her level, it would be so much easier,” said Tyran Kovac, a social worker at the Human Resources Development Council in Bozeman. “In her home she can reach everything. It’s really doable.”

But there is a big obstacle to her return to the specially equipped two-bedroom house on West Clark. Glass said state Child and Family Services workers have told her they will take Gage if they find she has, at any time, been left alone with him.

State intervention is usually associated with cases of abuse or neglect. No allegations of either have been leveled against Glass. Gage has doubled his weight since his premature birth Dec. 14. He gulps down 4 ounces of formula at a time and weighs more than 10 pounds.

“It’s because of my disability,” Glass said. “They don’t think I’m capable of anything. They’ve never asked me what I can do or come to see what I can do. I can change him, feed him, burp him. I can hold him over my head and play with him.”

Gage, a chubby little guy with medium brown hair and a quiet disposition, sits contently in his mother’s arms, tangling his fingers in her long, wavy hair. Glass doesn’t have full use of her arms or hands, but she maneuvers him into burp position and lifts him to kiss the middle of his forehead.

Because of the 24-hour supervision requirement imposed by DPHHS, Glass and Gage must live in the home of an aunt. When the aunt is away, she lives with either of her two best friends from high school, Danielle Watson and Kirsten Gilliam, both 27. They are each paid $50 a week as her personal care providers, but the money doesn’t begin to cover the hours they spend with Glass.

They aren’t the hired help. As far as Glass is concerned, they are an extension of her own devoted family, which includes her parents and a sister in Livingston.

In high school, the three women did everything together, and talked about joining the Army after graduation. But Gilliam decided it wasn’t for her after learning about boot camp. Watson, a tiny figure even after two children, could not gain the six pounds needed to hit the weight requirement. Only Glass, a 5-foot-10 varsity basketball player, would have gone.

That dream ended June 8, 1996, in the crash 14 miles north of Bozeman.

But one dream didn’t end. She had always wanted to be a mother. When her father remodeled her house years ago, it was adapted with the possibility of a baby in mind, she said. She had even consulted an obstetrician familiar with disabled mothers about what would happen during a pregnancy and how her body would react.

She conceived the child during a long-term, on-again, off-again relationship with a man who is no longer in the picture.

How the state got involved is unclear. Glass, her social worker, her family and her principal caregivers said they were told that a doctor had expressed concern that she might not be able to care for Gage.

Barb Braaten, one of the two DPHHS workers who have been dealing with Glass, said she could not comment on the case because of privacy laws.

“I can assure you we are very carefully following established policies and procedures,” she said.

Glass and her caregivers contend that what is really happening is harassment and discrimination. Restrictions placed on her have endangered the health of the baby, they say. They also say that Glass is being prevented from providing a stable home environment where she and Gage can bond and adapt to the special circumstances of their lives.

“There’s no reason these guys should be involved in the first place,” Glass said. “I’m just so upset, I about can’t deal with it anymore.”

“What they are doing is making everything more difficult for Geri and everybody else,” Gilliam said. “She doesn’t need a 24-hour-a-day baby sitter.”

Because Glass can’t be alone with Gage for a even a few minutes under the DPHHS rules, when either Gilliam or Watson needs to pick up her own children at school or run an errand, she has to bundle up the baby and take him along, no matter how cold it is, they said.

Because Gage was born six weeks prematurely, he is especially susceptible to respiratory illness, she said.

Living in someone else’s house makes everything harder, Glass said. Their doorways aren’t wide enough or bathrooms big enough. Their kitchen cupboards and appliances are too high, so she can’t cook meals. She said she could do much more for herself and Gage in her own environment where everything, including table tops and changing tables, is adjusted to her needs.

She wants to go home to take care of her three cats and two dogs.

“Yes, there are things I can’t do for myself,” she said. “But I know my limitations. I know when I need to ask for help. If I called these guys up,” she said of her friends, “they’d be there in a heartbeat.”

“What she needs is someone on call, someone who could help her at night,” Kovac, the social worker, said. “A lifeline to a first responder and a second responder.”

The social worker said she is working on that now, and that it will probably involve a button that Glass could push if she needs help. Kovac said she is assisting Glass with a safety plan that she hopes will help eliminate some of the state agency’s concerns.

Glass said she worries about the effect on Gage of constantly moving from house to house.

“I think it’s very unfair he can’t be in his own home environment,” she said.

Glass said she wants to get on with her own life, too – taking courses over the Internet and finding part-time work.

Right now, Glass manages as best she can on $599 in Social Security and Social Security Disability payments each month. She also receives about $248 in food stamps and some assistance with her heating bill. Both she and Gage are covered by Medicaid.

“But I need to go home so I can get my life and his life together,” she said.

Under current plans, that may not happen for at least another six months. Glass, Kovac and others who attended a meeting last week with DPHHS said Glass was confronted with a requirement that she provide a plan for her life until Gage is an adult.

“They wanted me to sign an 18-year plan saying where I’m going to be at, where I’m going to live,” Glass said.

Those are conditions that would never be asked of non-disabled mothers, Kovac said.

By their accounts, Glass’ attorney stepped in, said an 18-year plan was unreasonable and offered a six-month plan instead. During the next six months, Glass must prove herself capable of caring for Gage and participate in an occupational therapy program. She won’t be able to go home during that time, unless she can get a written statement from a doctor that she is able to care for her son, and another from a pediatrician saying that Gage is safe in her care. Whether she will be able to find doctors willing to accept the liability is an unanswered question.

Glass is using every resource she can find to keep her child and to take him home, including contacting the Through the Looking Glass program of the National Resource Center for Parents with Disabilities.

Ella Callow, an attorney for the organization in its Berkeley, Calif., office, said in an e-mail to The Gazette, “My organization has worked with parents with disabilities for 25 years, and our staff has had excellent outcomes with parents with the same level of quadriplegia. There is no reason to assume she cannot parent with some resources.”

Watson and Gilliam, mothers of two small children each, say that before Gage was born, they left their children in Glass’ care without any reservations.

“She’s more than capable,” Gilliam said. “I know she knows her limitations.”

Glass said she would never put any child, much less her own baby, in a situation that she could not handle.

“I took care of myself, I took care of my animals, and I took care of everybody else’s children,” Glass said. “But now they tell me I can’t take care of my own.”

On Monday, she was in crisis again. Watson, who was to stay with her for the day, had a sick child and home and couldn’t come. Glass’ aunt had to take the day off to comply with the DPHHS restrictions.

“It’s so stressful, I just woke up bawling,” she said. “It’s so hard on everyone. Why can’t they just let me go home and take care of myself?”

By LORNA THACKERAY
Of The Gazette Staff