Make A Child Smile

Elizabeth's Story
written by mom Rebecca

I was 18 years old when I had Elizabeth. I began having problems with the pregnancy and Elizabeth ended up coming into this world 2 months early on November 6th, 1992. Well I suppose she was just as impatient then as she is now :o)!! Being 2 months premature you would think she would have a lot of problems... not her, she was a trooper even then. She was 3 lbs. 3 oz.
and 16 3/4 long. After gaining a little more weight, she came home. They told us that since she was two months early, to expect her to be two months behind. But when she was about 10 months, I knew something was not right. I fought with her doctor at that time that something was wrong, but each time, the doctor said that she was the doctor and I was not, and that she knew what she was talking about. During all of this Elizabeth began having seizures. When she was about 15 months old I was finally able to find a place that could help me get help for her.

Finally, after many head banging arguments with her first doctor about her condition we were finally able to find a doctor that had agreed with us that she had Cerebral Palsy. Elizabeth is unable to walk however she is getting better at helping with transfers. She needs some help sitting up...although she can do it by herself if she wants to. We are now dealing with the teenage mood swings! We began homeschooling a year and a half ago when the public school wasn’t making her do her work, but instead letting her play. It has been hard but well worth it.

Elizabeth has had several surgeries. The first was to straighten her eyes which were crossed pretty bad. The worst surgery had to be fixing her hips because they were coming out of the sockets due to the spasticity in her legs. This surgery was done by breaking the bones right below the ball of the hip, repositioning it into the socket and using metal plates and pins to put the two parts of the bone back together. This was done on both sides. At the same time, she had her hamstrings lengthen, and her adductor muscles clipped. The recovery time for this can take anywhere from a few months to even a year. She would then have another surgery to remove the hardware. She had the right hip done again on August 10th, 2001 because we found that the socket was not shaped right which was allowing that hip to come out of socket again. They also had to fix the socket which meant another incision in the VERY lower part of her right abdomen area. They had to put two screws through the socket. She had to wear a cast from her hips all the way down both legs for 7 weeks. In the summer of 2004 Elizabeth also had her ankles lined out as they were turning out bad.

Elizabeth is a really happy child and is always making people smile...by just being so sweet to being funny. She is a talker let me tell you! She could talk the stripes right off a zebra! She received a wish from the Make A Wish Foundation and in March 2002 we went to Florida and stayed at Give Kids The World and seen a lot of the major Orlando Parks (Disney, Universal, and Sea World). We also got to go to Cocoa Beach and see the ocean for the first time.

Our road has been a long and bumpy one, but we have always made it through. Her biological father dropped out of her life about 8 years ago. That is fine as he was never there for her anyway. I met another guy who has been a wonderful dad to her for 10 years now. If anyone ever asked who her dad is... I tell them it's my husband, because he is everything a father/daddy should be. Elizabeth even calls him dad!