Here it is!

A few weeks ago, I drove to Indianapolis with Haylie to the WFYI television studios so that she could be featured in a segment about her business, Haylie’s Handmade.  I’m delighted to finally share that interview with you here:

Click here to see the video clip

I’m delighted with this little piece.  It shows my daughter to be hardworking and altruistic and me being, quite deservedly, very proud of her.  All true.

What it doesn’t show you is the fight we almost had in the bathroom just a few minutes before when I tried to change her hairstyle or make her wear hairspray.  Admittedly, true.  It doesn’t show you the way she holds her boundaries and shuts down my rare anxiety-induced over-mothering episodes these days.

It also doesn’t show you how Haylie’s nervousness at the last moment, and her resulting shallow breathing, led to a wee bit of a convergence problem just before going on air.  It doesn’t show you how I freaked out by the thought of her going on television with her eyes crossed and looking like she used to back in her brain-injured days, and then how I made her get up and run laps around the maze of studio hallways until, breathing deeply again and getting adequate oxygen to her brain, she returned to her normal straight-eyed self. 

True story.  Full disclosure.
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We often hear from people that without being told about Haylie’s background story – the fact that she was brain injured and had to fight her way to wellness over the course of many years – that they would never know it when they meet her.  It’s true, most of the symptoms of her brain injury are indeed gone.  That’s due to the intense program of neurological organization that she followed and to the knowledge she now has about how to live in way that supports her brain’s health, every moment of every day. 

It could certainly be described as miraculous, but it’s no mystery.  It’s a very simple story of cause and effect.  But, it is unusual because most brain injured kids with big problems grow up to be brain injured adults with potentially even bigger problems.   The tragedy, in my mind, is that it’s normal in our culture to ignore the cause and target symptoms instead.  This never works in making lasting and effective change in anything because it doesn’t actually eliminate the root of the problem.  If you have, or know someone who has, a child with neurological problems, I urge you to contact me right now and set them on the path to the life of their dreams.  Here’s to hope…and to paying it forward.