A Medal for Mom
FLYER__CHILDREN'S TLC__FALL 1996
Tina Tercey's introduction to motherhood was considerably more stressful than most. Her twin sons were born prematurely at eight months and weighed only two pounds each. Jeremy and Jason spent the first eight weeks of their lives in the Neomatal Intensive Care Unit at Children's Mercy Hospital. By the time they were enrolled in the Crippled Children's Nursery School (our former name). They had been diagnosed with cerebral palsy, servere to profound hearing impairments and they were significantly developmentallt delayed; unable to hold up their heads, sit independently or communicate. Sharon Roberts, and occupational therapist on Children's TLC staff remembers, "Those little boys thrived becuase of the therapies they received in our transdisciplinary classrooms." Both boys received a comprehensive habilitation program at the nursery school which included physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, special education and deaf education.
Being a single parent presented more challenges to Tina, but she diligently pursued working with both the boys seeing that they attended school regularly and following up with therapeutic programs at home. After the boys "graduated" from Children's TLC they began kindergarten at Longan Elementary School in the class for children with hearing impairments. They also continued to need physical and occupational therapy which was only offered at the Delano School. Tina was a stronge advocate for appropriate education for her boys every step of the way. many times she has served as an interpreter for them at school functions.
Sitting in the Olympic stadium in Atlanta in August, Tina could indulge herself in some well-deserved pride in what the Tercey's have accomplished in 18 years. Both boys are seniors at westport High school and Jason, the captain of the high school track team, was the reason she was here. He was accepting a silver medal as a member of the 4x100 meter relay team in the Paralympic Games.
Jason was not supposed to be on the relay. He had qualified in the 400 and 800 meter races, and placed 5th and 4th respectively. He was put on the relay team as a last-minute replacement. Rules did not allow him to look back for a relay handoff, thouh with a hearing inpairment and almost impossible with crowd noise, but he is a seasoned veteran in overcoming challenges, and ran the third leg and moved the United States from fourth to second place where it finish with a time of 50.86 behind Hong Kong.
Tina says, "The whole thing was awesome."
