The next thing we learned was to make a commitment to our child. A quote I enjoy by Marian Wright Edelman goes like this, “You're not obligated to win. You're obligated to keep trying to do the best you can every day.” It was almost a year before anyone would tell us she had Cerebral Palsy. We knew something was wrong, but did not know what it was. She was not doing the things that normal babies could do. After we were told she had Cerebral Palsy, my wife and I had to make a commitment to Katie that we would do whatever we needed to do to help her function in a “normal” world. We could hide her from the world or treat her like our other children. We chose to do the best we could to help her.

After you make the commitment, you have to be willing to follow through. You are going to be the person taking them to the doctors. You are going to be focusing a lot of time on helping this person. Katie could not walk by herself until she was eight years old. But my wife and I decide we would not put her in a wheelchair if she could at least walk with help. They have a therapy called Conductive Education. We sent her to Canada three times for five-week courses. We actually raised the money to send her, and for us to stay with her, by holding garage sales. We would hold one every weekend in different locations for two to three months. We would tell people the garage sale money was being used to help Katie get to the camp. Do you know that people would bring us stuff to sell or tell us to come by and pick up stuff. You may not believe this, but I had a sixteen-foot horse trailer loaded up when I got ready to have the sale. By the end of the sale, we were restocked with new items. Also, sometimes people would donate money. My wife, our family members and I were willing raise the money to get her to the camp. Remember, “Where the willingness is great the difficulties cannot be great.” says Niccolo Machiavelli