"My" Helen Keller

"The best and most beautiful things in life cannot be seen, or touch, but are felt in the heart."

Helen Keller


I often refer to Meggie as "My" Helen Keller, though our stories may not be exactly the same, some of the similarities have been very intriguing to me. From a very young age we could tell that Meggie's beautiful blue eyes had been affected by the ONH (Optic Nerve Hypoplagia) which was not diagnoised yet. Just how much vision she had as a baby was very hard to tell.

One of the puzzling things as a baby, was, how she would cry and shake when people would pick her up out of her craddle; not as much with myself, as with someone with an unfamiliar touch to her. This was so puzzling to us we consulted with her doctors and therapist. After examination, time after time the doctors did not find any reason or concern, and reassured us she was fine. Consulting with the therapist, she came to the conclusion, due to Meggie's poor vision, she did not know where she was in space, and felt very insecure being whisked through the air at what seemed like a normal speed to us, we needed to slow it down for her. Ahh, this seemed to make some sense to us, the question was now what do we do?

After a long abnormal pregnancy, we knew Meggie had hydrocephalus(which shortly after birth was arrested), but we did not know that at 6 months of age, "My" Helen Keller was not only legally blind, she would be diagnosed with SOD ONH, (Septo-Optic Dysplagia Optic Nerve Hypoplagia, or DeMoisers syndrome), along with hypothyroidism, and epilepsy. The list of diagnoses and labels grew and one question lead to another, and one diagnoses after another, leaving us wondering how long the list would be?

As a family, in survival mode as I call it we were learning a new definition of normal. I can truly say though we are still learning as we go, we have grown closer as a family and to God.(... but with God, all things are possible. Matt. 19:26 NIV). Only time would tell the challanges and the accomplishments we were about to see.

Years later I recieved a call from an old friend, who shared with me about a program she was using with her adopted son, with CP. She seemed quite excited and had a lot to say about it, and asked if I would be interested in getting some information. At the time I thought I was to busy and just dismissed it for some time. Several months, may be a year later, I got another call from the same friend, she was wondering how Meggie was doing, and if I ever considered her program. That week she stopped over at our home with some informational/educational discs that the president/founder of the company made. Listening to the discs once, twice, and maybe starting a third time, opened a world of valuable information about neurodevelopmental techniques used to help excel brain injured individuals all the way to gifted individuals. My only question was could this really help Meggie?!? I was on the phone shortly after, and we have been a NACD family ever since.

All children can learn, all need the opportunity, even Helen Keller's parents learned that many years ago. If our children are not excelling, we need to provide the right environment and program for them to learn. Just to mention one of the greatest rewards this past year with program was to go to Meggie's eye doctor and show her how Meggie could pick out animals we requested on cards, not only that, she can do them in sequence. Amazing Meggie! We know her vision is far from perfect, but using the vision she has to her best of her abilities, is something worth working for! Any set backs/delays due to illness or seizures soon return, and at times are exceeded.

Thank you NACD, thank you Meggie, I truly feel blessed.