|
I was born with Charge Syndrome and developed scoliosis in my teens. The doctors operated on my heart when I was very young, I developed balance problems along with vision and hearing impairment as I grew. When I was one years old, I started speech therapy. At first, the speech therapists came to my house and worked on speech with me. Later on, I started to go to them for I did not feel comfortable with them coming to my house. Back then, speech seemed to help me. Now I feel like I do not need speech anymore. Since I am going to have surgery to have my jaws reconstructed on July 11th, I probably still will be in speech, in case my speech becomes sloppy. At the age of one, I started physical therapy and in second grade, I met Donald Frederick Taylor. Don Taylor was a married man to a Catherine and had a son named Chris. I remember having a blast with him. He showed me some karate, teased me, and he shared the songs that he sung like “Shenandoah” and “You've Got to Have Heart”.
When Don turned fifty one years old, his lungs stopped working the way they should and the doctors told him he developed Chronic Idiopathic Pulmonary Interstitial Fibrosis. For a while, it did not seem to make too much difference in his life. After a year or two, Don needed to wear oxygen to help him breathe more comfortably. Sometime in early year of 2001, he had to go to the emergency room in Tuscon and a few days later was transferred to a hospital in Phoenix. On February 26, 2001, Donald Frederick Taylor passed away in his sleep with his wife and son by his side. I went two years without a physical therapist. Then I met another physical therapist by the name of Betty McNeff. She is a young woman who is married to Brad and has a little girl name Aryann. I believe that having therapy really helped, for my spine is straightening out. Besides having speech and physical therapy, I see a doctor of osteopathy, Clifford (Cliff) Heinrich. I started seeing Cliff two years ago. What is more interesting is that my father knows him. How they know each other was Cliff was interning at Community Hospital in Phoenix. His manipulation on me helps loosen my muscles a lot. I also have worn a body cast for two years.
The body cast made a BIG improvement on my back throughout the years. There are positive and negative side affects about wearing a body cast. The positive side is it helps you straighten your back and it keeps you little warm when it is cold outside. The negative side about the body cast is it can make you so hot during the summertime. It also hard to bend in it as well as covering up the spots when you have an itch and the body cast rubs against your skin. On April 1994, I started my growth hormone shots. I stopped having them on February 14, 2007. Those were a big help, for I grew two feet taller when I started. When I started, I was three foot six and when I got off them, I was and still am five foot six. Yet there is a possibility I will grow a few inches taller over the next year or two.
|
