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Boy with cerebral palsy making steps towards a new life

BECKLEY — Without thought or hesitation, Mike Darby removes a black apron from a post, carefully places it over his son’s neck and ties the strings at his back.

“And when Dad’s not here he does this all by himself,” Mike’s wife Ann jokes as she watches from a few feet away.

Mike and Ann both know their son Kevin doesn’t need his dad’s help, but it can be difficult to break lifelong habits. And it’s no longer every day they have the opportunity to help their son.

Mike and Ann were married for eight years when they adopted Kevin — just one week old — in August of 1981. Ann’s infertility was one of the side effects of DES (diethylstilbestrol) — a medication her mother and millions of other women took during pregnancy from 1938 to 1971.

But the couple knew soon after they took Kevin home that something was amiss.

“At birth, he was jerky and they said it was due to lack of calcium,” Ann, a retired speech pathologist and preschool special education teacher recalls. “So I knew the early warning signs of cerebral palsy and he had those. He didn’t use his left arm like the right and babies use both arms equally.”

What is cerebral palsy?

From the Mayo Clinic: “Cerebral palsy is a disorder of movement, muscle tone or posture that is caused by damage that occurs to the immature, developing brain, most often before birth.

“People with cerebral palsy may have problems swallowing and commonly have eye muscle imbalance, in which the eyes don’t focus on the same object. People with cerebral palsy also may suffer reduced range of motion at various joints of their bodies due to muscle stiffness.

Her suspicious were confirmed at Kevin’s fourth- or fifth-month baby visit when she asked the doctor.

“He said, ‘Take him home and love him. He’ll never walk or talk.’ ”

“Devastating,” Mike says, of both the diagnosis and prognosis. “Life changing.”

But Ann’s training and the couple’s hearts told them that was not the end of Kevin’s story.

And so began a lifetime of hard work and a commitment — from both parents and son — to making the most of life.

At close 3 years old, after about 1,000 hours of therapy — both physical therapy and daily therapy at home from Mike and Ann, Kevin took his first shaky steps.

“He wasn’t walking independently,” Mike says. “Just a few steps between us, but he was walking.”

Even after Kevin started attending Stanaford Elementary School, he maintained a strenuous physical therapy regime and had multiple surgeries.

Kevin received a modified diploma from Woodrow Wilson High School when he was 21 and began working at the recruiting office in Beckley with a job coach.

One of Mike’s sisters found a long-term life sharing community with adults with disabilities in Kentucky and another found one in Crozet, Va.

Now, Kevin navigates the serene country setting of Innisfree Village as though he’s lived his entire life.

He has his bedroom in a house he shares with four co-workers and two volunteers.

In the bakery, Kevin helps make bread and assists with granola, measuring flour and oats for mixing.

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