About Us
The Metzger Family
We lost our first pregnancy at 22 weeks. It was absolutely devastating. However after a few months my wife became pregnant again and we managed to make it to 32 weeks when our first daughter came early. She was held in the hospital for 3 weeks because she wasn’t feeding properly and she had a stage 1 brain bleed while she was in the hospital.
During those 3 weeks I was in a busy period at work, finishing my MBA and going to the hospital every day. I would wake up at 6:00 AM and go to the office. I worked until 4:00 PM when I would leave for school. I attended classes until 10:00 PM at night and then went to the hospital until 1:00 AM. Looking back I have no idea how I did it all.
Well after our daughter came home and started to grow my wife realized that she wasn’t progressing properly. I said it was just because she was a preemie. The doctor said it was just because she was a preemie. BUT my wife insisted something wasn’t right. She got the doctor to agree to send my daughter to PT (physical therapy) at 6 months and my daughter began to slowly make progress. At about a year our PT told my wife she thought there was some real developmental delays and that she should get the doctor to send her to a neurologist. My wife again convinced the doctor to write a referral and we went to see the neurologist. They recommended an MRI. Seeing my 1 year old daughter put to sleep for an MRI is one of the scariest things I can remember in my life. Well when the results came back the doc said she had Cerebral Palsy and that changed our lives.
I was fortunate enough to have grown up with a good friend who has CP and is now a lawyer. I knew the diagnosis was not the end but I also knew there was no cure for CP. Over the years as we investigated various treatments it began to bother me that there was no significant research investigating treatments for CP. When I heard about the work Lizette, ED, Dave and Maurie were doing I was excited to join a team of folks who had the will to get the funding and focus necessary to cure CP. The advances in medical research over the previous 20 years are amazing and there is no reason to think CP can’t be cured if the resources are made available.
Kevin Metzger