She has long red hair. Fair complexion. A high-school senior. Quiet. Mild mannered. When she speaks, her voice sounds like Locust Fork, Alabama.
Her name is Morgan. Seated beside her is Clarabelle, a black Labrador wearing a Service Dog Alabama vest.
Morgan has paralysis on the left side of her body; her left hand doesn’t work. She has frequent seizures, she is sensitive to light. She has diabetes. She has low vision, and is nearly blind in one eye. Her intestines are paralyzed, too, so digestion is an issue. A day in the life of Morgan is no walk on the beach.
Her health issues stem from a previous bout with encephalitis (brain swelling). The encephalitis complications should have killed her. But they didn’t.
“Took me six months to learn to walk again,” she said. “But I knew I could do it. I believed I could.”
She’s a tough cookie. Morgan practically grew up in Children’s hospital, in Birmingham. Her youth was nothing like the average American childhood. While most kids were busy playing in their
backyard sprinklers, eating Flinstone Push Ups, Morgan was in a hospital room, relearning how to walk.
Her mother remained at her bedside. When Morgan was too paralyzed to feed herself or hold her head upright, nurses did these things for her.
“My happiest childhood memories are at Children’s hospital. Those people love me.”
In her teenage years, things have gotten even tougher. What she misses most is her independence. When you deal with the medical trials Morgan deals with, you’re always under supervision. This gets old, fast.
“I couldn’t do anything on my own. Couldn’t even walk the school hallway without nurses hovering around me, waiting for me to have a seizure.”
Morgan wouldn’t sleep by herself, for fear a nighttime seizure would kill her. She wouldn’t eat by herself, for fear that she would choke. She couldn’t drink a bottle of water without…