..
..
Slidell teen with Cerebral Palsy astounding doctors with progress, now a
motivational speaker
By KEVIN CHIRI
Slidell news bureau
SLIDELL — When Terri and Herman Schallenberg left Children’s
Hospital 15 years ago with their premature baby boy, they were told “take him
home and love him. He’ll never walk or talk—don’t expect much.”
That prognosis was not surprising since Terri was lucky to be alive, and so was
her new baby boy, Casey, born 14 weeks premature and weighing only 2 pounds, 3
ounces.
Terri and Herman were understandably excited as her first pregnancy proceeded,
and that excitement doubled when an ultrasound revealed she was carrying twins.
But 26 weeks into the pregnancy, she began having cramps, was rushed to the
hospital in Slidell, and told she had a ruptured uterus. That condition is so
serious that the life of the mother is immediately threatened, and Terri’s
situation was no different.
“I flat-lined two or three times while they were trying to do the C-section,”
she recalled. “All the doctors were thinking about was trying to save my life.”
She recalls the situation was so chaotic and charged in the delivery room that
her husband was finally asked to step out, since his emotions were out of
control—no surprise with the life of his wife and unborn twins in the balance.
Finally, two babies were delivered and all Terri remembers is “them running out
of the room, holding two purple, very small babies in their hands.”
Her daughter, Kelsi, never made it. She was taken off life support after seven
days. Casey, on the other hand, had a future, albeit one the doctors and nurses
didn’t offer much promise about.
Due to periods of time with oxygen cut off from the brain, he had cerebral
palsy, as well as hydrocephalus, a condition where fluid around the brain does
not drain.
“I was an emotional wreck after the delivery and for several days,” Terri
recalled. “But the time that things changed was just before they transferred the
babies to Children’s Hospital. I held Casey, and he opened his eyes—his big,
blue eyes—and seemed to look straight at me. That was the moment I knew we had
to fight to do all we could for my children.”
After three months in New Orleans, and Terri’s life as a paralegal becoming
history, the couple brought Casey home with more dire predictions.
“We were given the worst case scenario about Casey,” Terri said. “One nurse even
told us he would only be a vegetable his entire life. But somehow I knew God had
something better for him and would lead us to find it.”
Slowly, Casey began to surprise the doctors and therapists. By the age of two
the speech therapist said she didn’t need to work with him any more since he was
doing so well. Mom and dad put him in music and horseback riding therapy to
continue stimulating his brain, and by the age of 5, he was walking on his
knees.
“The surprising thing is that no doctor around here would offer us hope about
him walking. But finally I found a doctor in New Jersey who immediately said he
could do surgery in a way that would lead him to walk,” she said.
By the age of 9, Casey was walking on his own, with no assistance of any kind.
And meantime through these years, a change had occurred in the lives of Herman
and Terri.
“We were never church-goers at all, and still didn’t go after Casey was brought
home,” she said. “I was raised Catholic and always believed in God, and I knew I
wanted Casey to go to church and have his first communion. So when he was five,
we started going to church and put him in a CCD class.”
The class was wonderful for Casey, since he began making friends, got some
exposure with many other people, and found a relationship with God beginning to
grow.
“As I was in the class for a few years, I knew I found a personal relationship
of my own with God,” Casey said. “And when I walked for the first time, it was
like God let me know I needed to tell my story to others, of the miracle He did
in my life.”
 |
Attending St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Pearl River, Casey’s
improvement was also being noticed by Dr. Louis Bauer, a longtime
Slidell Christian clinical hypnotherapist. As he watched Casey come down
the aisle for communion each Sunday in church—first in a wheelchair,
then with a walker and finally one day all by himself with no
assistance—Bauer began to take a special interest. “One day we met after church and from that point, we’ve become very good friends,” Terri said. Bauer, who is a regular Christian speaker at public events, began to mentor Casey and finally asked him to attend an event with him. Casey was asked to come up front and speak a few words, which he did, with no problem in the least. “I really never was nervous,” Casey said. “As a matter of fact, I talked longer than Dr. Bauer expected and he made a joke about me having so much to say.” Since then, Bauer continues to mentor Casey and believes there is a special future for him. Casey has spoken approximately 20 times, and has also had several public engagements by himself. He is hopeful of getting more speaking invitations, all to tell his own miracle story, making it clear he is an “inspirational speaker” who would like to tell his story to any groups, religious or not. “I want people to know that if I can go through this kind of obstacle, then why can’t they get past anything in front of them. God answers prayers and we need to believe Him for what we want in life,” Casey said. For Casey, his physical challenges are not anything that hold him back, he said. He is homeschooled by his mother, exercises at home and is learning to play guitar, besides handling a newspaper route with his mother. Now at the age of 15, he said there is only one thing in life that remains a difficult thing to handle. “Losing my sister is the only hard thing in my life,” he said as tears began to fall. “I think about her every day. I talk to her and I think she’s my guardian angel in heaven. I still picture my life with her here, and it’s really hard to know she will never be with me here on this Earth.” Casey is available to speak to any groups, in church or not, and can be reached by calling 863-7706 or e-mailing him at jst4casey@aol.com. |
 |
