In a previous blog entry I mentioned that on the maternal side of my family there were three siblings who had limb girdle muscular dystrophy. I will depart from the usual theme of this blog to talk about limb girdle muscular dystrophy which I will refer to as MD.
It is not the "Jerry's Kids" MD. Related but not the same.
The oldest of the three was Dale. He stayed in his wheelchair most of his life. He didn't attend high school (more about which later). His interests were many. Among other things he was a stringer for a local morning newspaper, the Journal Herald. One time he asked me to take him to a new construction in the area. I believe it had something to do with water processing. He wrote an article about it. When he submitted his article to the newspaper he asked them to credit me with the photo. Dale lived to age 53.
The middle sibling was Mary. Her early reaction to MD was denial. She did not finish high school, either. She did, however, strike out on her own. She bought a small house in a suburb of Dayton and began working as a coordinator for charitable organizations. The organization she did not work for was MDA, the Muscular Dystrophy Association. Ironically Mary died of cancer at age 50.
The youngest sib was Ginny. She did finish high school and this is the remarkable thing: Our high school had absolutely no handicap access. No ramps, no elevators, no curb cuts, no anything.
Ginny didn't always use a wheelchair to get around. She did learn how to drive a car and got around quite nicely with that. (And here's a reminder to myself to write an entry about the car and Mamie the Dog.)
She lived a full life to age 56.
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