Cerebral palsy: One mother's journey

Melanie Grimaud straps on her running shoes and gets ready for her daily dose of self-therapy.

As a mother caring for a child who has a disability, running is her sanity. She uses each step, each mile and each marathon as a way to nurture herself so that she can stand ready to help her son day after day.

Her strength comes from endurance, and the endurance builds patience.

“He is our little miracle,” Grimaud says of her son Crew, who seven years ago suffered a traumatic birth in which he was deprived of precious and critical oxygen for an extended period of time, resulting in cerebral palsy.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 10,000 babies per year in the U.S. will develop cerebral palsy, or two to three per 1,000 births.

“As I was expecting him, I planned to right every wrong I had made with the first two kids,” said Grimaud, who is from Perry and has three boys.

“This time around, I would make sure he was well taught educationally and well-mannered. Not that the other two weren’t, but I was really hard on myself and thought I could improve my mothering skills.”

From the moment he was born, Grimaud knew her son needed her in a way she never could have imagined before.

Crew is non-verbal, hard of hearing, has microcephaly, seizure disorders and needs help sitting, standing and walking.

“Caring for Crew has empowered me. I never thought I would be the one in these shoes, and now that this is my life, I’ve had to learn and grow in ways I never thought possible,” Grimaud said.

“This has taught me so much about people, life and most importantly myself.” Grimaud is a mother who matters. Her days are spent lifting her son in and out of his chair, making him comfortable and working with him over and over on alternative communication methods.

There are days filled with challenge as she tries to explain to him in a language he can understand that the legs he wants to use for running do not work. His little mind cannot yet comprehend the limitations of his body.