3 y.o. Chelsey: Miracle Girl
Published: June 14, 2005
The people who know her describe 3-year old Chelsey Stine as a “miracle”.
Her eyes twinkle and her sweet little sing-song voice doesn’t stumble over words to express her thoughts. She runs. She plays. She likes Barney and McDonald’s and she loves to sing.
That’s not bad for a child that doctors predicted would never draw her first breath.
Their predictions were so dire that her mother, Dianne Whitson, had already picked out her casket and the dress she would be buried in.
In everybody’s mind, she was as good as dead but little Chelsey had another plan and that plan was to live.
Born with an array of birth defects caused by bacterial association, Chelsey had enlarged kidneys and heart problems. She was also diagnosed with hydrocephalus, or fluid on the brain. She had scoliosis and crossed eyes.
“The doctors told us the prognosis was very poor. Doctors even suggested that we withhold the feeding tube and let her die. He said she’d never walk or talk,” Whitson said of Chelsey’s prognosis right after birth.
After being taken to Arkansas Children’s Hospital shortly after she was born, doctors there at put a shunt in her head to drain the fluid off her brain and they gave her a feeding tube.
“When she came home she was too weak to suck a bottle,” Whitson said. “I fed her every two or three hours with the feeding tube. I turned her to keep her from getting bed sores, changed her. It was very overwhelming.”
Whitson, Chelsey’s legal guardian and the only mother she’s ever known, didn’t give birth to Chelsey but she has loved her since birth.
Chelsey’s biological mother left her because she didn’t feel like she could meet the demands of a special needs child, Whitson said.
The biological mother had been staying with Whitson during the last months of her pregnancy.
So Whitson did the only thing she could, she became a mother to Chelsey even though she had no idea what struggles the girl’s life would hold. All she knew was there would be struggles and she wasn’t wrong in that belief.
But she had support in her mission to care for Chelsey in the form of Opportunities Inc.
Therapists from Opportunities began visiting Chelsey in her home when she was just 3 months old and they worked with her trying to help her reach her potential, though at the time no one was sure exactly what that would be.
“They worked with her strengthening her and trying to get her ready for open heart surgery,” Whitson said of the which surgery was scheduled to take place when Chelsey was a year old.
“We didn’t think she would be able to do anything. We were just trying to keep her comfortable,” said Judy Burdine, speech therapist who’s been working with Chelsey since she was an infant.
But they still set goals for the child and doggedly worked to see those goals through for Chelsey’s sake.
“We expect nothing less than they’ll be like any other three year old. You have to have a dream and a goal,” Burdine said of how they approached Chelsey’s therapy.
No one ever expected that they would be as successful as they have.
Chelsey is three and a half and speaking at the level of a child 2 1/2.
She’s had seven surgeries to correct various problems with more surgeries on the horizon including heart surgery to put a stint in one of her arteries.
She still has struggles ahead of her but with friends and family supporting her, Whitson feels like Chelsey has a wonderful life ahead of her.
“We just think she’s the tops. She’s a miracle baby for sure. We have never seen anything like her. To have been through as much as she has and she’s only three years old, she’s unbelievable,” Burdine said.
Opportunities specializes in “dayhabilitation.” The staff are specially trained to work with the children with disabilities to help them meet their full potential no matter what their setbacks are.
The programs at Opportunities are funded by the state and local donations and support so they are free for families.
It’s an important service for families of children with special needs.
“The public is not geared to know how to care for a child with special needs,” said Joan Carter, of Opportunities Inc. “We believe so strongly in early childhood intervention because it prepares the child to go into public schools and live as normal as life as possible.”
Whitson feels like Opportunities has helped give Chelsey a chance at a normal life. “I do expect her to have a normal life. She has come so far in such a short amount of time.”
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