Over the past few years, an elderly Canadian couple have taken their cerebral palsied daughter around the world, including Vietnam, to help her get to know others with the same disease and spur the families with such kids to develop their children’s potentials.

Though the communal clinic in Long Ho commune in southern Vinh Long province is in the middle of an isle surrounded by muddy paths, Laverne Bissky and David Dziadyk, her husband, took turn pushing the wheelchair carrying Kasenya, their 17-year-old daughter who suffers cerebral palsy, and even carried her to the meeting place, where 15 local families with cerebral palsied kids were waiting for them.

Few knew that the night before, Kasenya was having a fever and tantrums all night long, which made them unable to sleep. However, they were set on making it to the meeting.

The local parents attending the meeting instantly felt empathy when Bissky introduced Kasenya, her daughter, who was diagnosed with the severest form of cerebral palsy and has overcome countless obstacles. To everyone’s amazement, she’s now an 11th grader at a Canadian high school for able-bodied kids.

“I see that several of the kids here may suffer a milder form of cerebral palsy compared to my daughter’s, so we must hold a strong conviction that our kids are entirely capable of learning, developing and improving mentally,” Bissky stressed.

Citing concrete scientific evidence which was translated into Vietnamese, she elaborated that cerebral palsy isn’t synonymous with complete mental ‘paralysis’, but only means that part of the patients’ brain sustains damage. The patients thus differ in their outside manifestations depending on the severity of the disease.

“Affected kids are entirely capable of listening, understanding and even going to school. The thing that counts is their parents’ painstaking care and patience and adequate exposure to the outside world,” Bissky noted.

She herself instructed a mother how to teach her cerebral palsied boy to drink on his own by sitting him up straight and training him to suck air before actually drinking water.

Bissky added that years ago, her daughter was unable to chew, but after two years’ practice, she can now chew chewing gum and spit it out.

“I know that just like me, other cerebral palsied kids also love their parents a lot though they can’t express them in words. Thanks a lot for always being with us!,” read Kasenya’s letter to her parents and her fellow patients, which moved many participants to tears.

“In the countryside, everyone thinks that cerebral palsied kids can only cling on to life and exist just to die soon later, though I feel that my child can sometimes listen to and understand what I said. We learn from Mrs. Bissky that with proper training and practice, our kids can even talk and go to school,” shared Nguyen Thi Ngoc Tuyen, whose 9-year-old child also has the disease.

Over the past two months, Bissky, her husband and daughter have visited over 15 places including pediatrics hospitals, physically-challenged kid care centers, orphanages and particularly dozens of families with cerebral palsied kids in remote, poor areas.

David Dziadyk, Bissky’s husband noted that though the cozy home and parental love and care are the best for such kids, not a few families choose to send their kids to centers, where care takers can’t tend to each of them properly due to overcrowding.

Bissky’s talk had a positive impact on their listeners. Care takers from Thien Duyen center agreed that there are times when the kids are upset and wouldn’t eat after being scolded.

Bissky and her husband also visit local wheelchair producers and study the shapes and dimensions to order ones that fit local affected kids before donating to them.

As member of the management of the cerebral palsied patients association in Alberta, Bissky and her partners are working on a guide book which provides guidance on how to take proper care of affected kids. The book will be translated into Vietnamese and donated to the centers and families.

Destiny

Bissky’s and her husband’s good deeds stem from a chance meeting in Tra Vinh province five years ago with a kid whose cerebral palsy was quite similar to their daughter’s. However, the boy couldn’t move as his parents couldn’t afford a wheelchair and didn’t know how to perform physical therapy on him.

“Back in Canada, the boy’s eyes kept haunting us. We just raised funds for a wheelchair and was about to give it to him when we learned that he had died from a high fever. His death spurred us on to do something to help such kids,” Bissky emotionally recalled.

They then decided to return to Vietnam and launched their “No Ordinary Journey Vietnam” organization and raised funds from around the world to assist underprivileged Vietnamese kids, especially cerebral palsied ones.

Though the couple isn’t wealthy, they are set on taking their daughter around the world to let her know that her disability could never stop her from seeing and feeling the outside world. They have traversed through 16 countries in four continents, and they mostly visited physically-challenged kids, especially cerebral palsied ones. They don’t hesitate to stay in locals’ shabby houses, and mingle with locals and then post their stories on their web titled “No Ordinary Journey”.

After spending two months in Vietnam, Bissky and her family’s journey ended at the Pediatrics Hospital 1 in Ho Chi Minh City on Aug 23.

During the meeting, through what David Dziadyk shared, several fathers to affected kids realized that the role fathers play in taking care of cerebral palsied kids is also key to their kids’ improvement.

“Bissky’s and her husband’s talks do raise hopes among affected kids’ parents on their kids’ possibilities of improvement. We ourselves have a more positive attitude towards the kids’ language and awareness development skills,” said Dr. Nguyen Quang Hien, head of the Caring and Rehabilitation Hospital in central Thua Thien Hue province.

“Through the “No Ordinary Journey” initiative, we aim to change people’s awareness of cerebral palsied kids. People, even the kids’ parents tend to consider such kids mentally retarded and have faint hope on their improvement possibilities,” said pediatrician Nguyen Thanh, manager of the education and research program of the Caring and Living As Neighbors organization in Vietnam and medical counselor to “No Ordinary Journey Vietnam”.