My daughter was a tiny four year old little girl when I first brought her home from her previous foster home. The social workers handed me this adorable little brown haired, brown eyed spit-fire of a girl, with curled up hands and bent knees, who didn't talk or walk, and a pile of paperwork from doctors and specialists with a whole lot of "nevers" and "can'ts" spelled out among big diagnoses and fancy words.
Call me crazy, but I put the pile of paperwork in a drawer and never looked at it again. I refused to let the opinions of what others thought she could do define her future. My daughter began to learn and grow, very slowly, in a loving home. We began to seek out specialists to treat her crooked joints. But each one told us the same thing- "She will never walk," they said. "Get her a good wheelchair and make her comfortable." Or, "There is nothing we can do for her hands."
But my daughter is blind. Her hands are her eyes, and without the ability to walk or move a wheelchair on her own, her world is limited. So we were not willing to settle for those options. We continued to search until we found a medical team that believed in my daughter as much as I did. We found a Shriners hospital in Philadelphia where the doctors said, "There's no reason she can't walk," and "With surgery and splinting, we can help her hands."
My daughter has big goals for herself. Her doctors, her therapists, and yes, even her Mom, are a big part of her team. But she has worked hard in the past eight years since she was a tiny little four year old sitting in a foster home.
Last month, the girl who was never supposed to walk or talk according to her early reports, decided that she wanted to a treadmill of her very own. She found one for sale, negotiated a price, used her own money that she had saved, and bought herself a treadmill. Now, almost every day after school, unless she is too busy with baseball or choir or other activities, she comes home and walks on her treadmill. Her Momma could not be more proud of her.
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