Love Triumphs All: An Inspirational Story of Overcoming Cerebral Palsy

Read an inspiring story of John, who overcame cerebral palsy with the love and support of his family. This article talks about the challenges faced by John and his family, and how they overcame them. It also highlights the importance of love and support in the lives of people with disabilities.

Running head: INSPIRATIONAL TALK
Name of the Student
Name of the University
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Love triumphs all:
Cerebral palsy is a term, which many of us are not accustomed to, as we often
overlook the people who suffer from it. It is used to describe a set of neurological conditions
that affect movement of any person. However, it remains one of the most common forms of
childhood disabilities. This condition makes the movement f the body parts very difficult.
Sometimes it affects a particular part of the body, sometimes a particular side or even the
whole body. There are various degrees of severity in this regard. It is because of damage to
certain parts of the brain, both voluntary and involuntary movements can be affected.
Cerebral palsy is not a contagious disease, people with this disease, tend to have a normal
lifespan, and in many types of cases, a decent quality of life can be expected. Although, the
persons suffering from it understand the true fight, they are putting up on an everyday basis
for the most basic things in life. These people put up a fight on an everyday basis in order to
accomplish the basic of things, which you or I could do with the wink of an eye. This is the
true story of one of my inspiring cousins, John and his endearing family, which I am going to
share with you all today.
John was born on the 19th of April, 1996 on the beautiful city of Montreal in Canada. He and
his brother George were twins. During his birth, his nerve tissues in the brain had dried down
due to the lack of enough oxygen supply, which had caused some parts of his body to stop
functioning in their normal way. Back then, the doctors had failed to recognise it, as after the
birth, all the parameters had seemed normal. It was only realised after some two to three
years later, when my uncle and aunt had noticed that John was not crawling, unlike his
brother George. This caused a great concern for the parents. They took little John to their
family doctor, who after conducting some tests, confirmed the matter of Cerebral palsy. The

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parents were at shock. Aunty was grief stricken at the sight of one of her sons running and
jumping around the house and the other one clinging to his bed.
Another wave of grief swept the shores of the family, when my uncle and aunty discovered
that little John was not speaking anything, unlike other kids of his age. They took him to the
doctor, where the child specialist concluded that due to the dead nerve tissues, the child
would not be able to speak or understand things. It was a case of both physical and mental
disabilities. It was a disturbing scenario for the family of my uncle and aunty. On one hand,
George was growing into a healthy boy, John was having the problems of growth and
understanding. My aunty used to cry profusely each night, asking god, why her beloved son
had to go through all this. Both my uncle and aunty were absolutely clueless about how they
would be going to treat their beloved son.
Fortunately, one of my uncle’s close friend had a friend, who was a renowned physiotherapist
in the city of Montreal. They visited the doctor, who allayed all their fears and made them
understand the problems of their special child. The doctor said that these kind of children and
patients need an extra amount of care, attention and love in order to make their various
unused body functions to respond properly. The more considerate the parents are towards
these kind of children, there are more chances of the adaptability of these children in the
normal environment. The doctor explained that these kinds of children always needs people
around them to help them on a continuing basis for accomplishing all the basic tasks around
them, their influence on the child is enormous. It is important that he is always surrounded by
people who are kind, considerate and who love him unconditionally. From that day onwards,
my uncle and aunty devoted their lives towards the welfare of their beloved son John. Even
George was growing up and he used to feel very sorry for the condition of his parents and his
brother. Not only my uncle and aunty, but also my cousin George also realised this problem,
as he was growing up. He also started sharing the responsibilities of his beloved brother.

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Right from taking him to the physiotherapy classes, helping him with his daily activities of
going to the loo and other essential activities. Each and every member of my cousin’s family
were hell bent on making our beloved John live a healthy and happy life, not letting his
limitations have any impact in helping him to live a healthy life like any of his cousins. It
took a real strength of character to accept to do these things, as catering to the special needs
of any child suffering from physical and mental disabilities is a daunting task.
My uncle and aunty took a series of steps to ensure that their child does not lag behind other
children in terms of anything. They embarked on the task of regularly taking him to one of
the special child school for the children suffering from Cerebral Palsy. The teachers and the
other physiotherapists worked on John’s leg and hand movements ensuring that they are able
to work as efficiently as possible. My uncle and aunty also requested one of the
physiotherapists to come home and take some sessions with John. Although, it was
financially excruciating for my uncle to bear all these expenses because he hailed from a
middle class background. Despite all his financial struggles, he tried his best and is still doing
so.
Although, with all these special care attention, no significant amount of changes were seen.
As the doctors had told, that in these cases, where the patient is suffering from almost 85 to
90% physical and mental disability, the chances of their improvement remains bleak. This
would remain a life time of responsibility of the family, still my uncle, aunt and cousin
George, have stood like a rock beside our beloved John. Today he is 22 years old, heavy and
is suffering from some other health issues, but the family has still not given up on him. It is
their love for our beloved John, which has made this journey of 22 years possible and would
continue to do so.