Lori Harder shares how her daughter with cerebral palsy defied medical expectations and achieved major milestones. The story shows what happens when you refuse to accept the limits others place on you based on diagnosis alone.
My oldest daughter has cerebral palsy. And early on when she got diagnosed, the doctors were trying to tell me all these things that she was going to experience. Like she'll never walk, she'll never talk, she'll never be able to be off of a feeding tube, like laundry list. I remember sitting there just knowing in my gut that is not true. That's not going to happen. If I had accepted what they told me, I would have completely limited what she was capable of becoming. But now she's turning 15 and she's on track to be a model and a standard up comedian. She walks, she goes totally mainstream school. All the things that they told me she would never do. So I would really encourage people, try to envision something different that exceeds far what your label tells you your life is going to be like because you will not heal if you accept the barriers of that label.
