Michal

Michal was diagnosed with dup15 right before her second birthday. 

Michal was born May 13, 2013. She was an extremely quiet and well behaved baby. We felt lucky; we could not have imagined it being anything else. 

Michal started daycare full time at 3 months; it wasn’t until they noticed that Michal wasn’t meeting her milestones that we decided to do some investigating.  We called in early intervention and made an appointment with a neurologist since we couldn’t get an appointment with a developmental pediatrician.

We began therapies and the neurologist said that we should wait a bit and see how she progresses.  Finally after a while the neurologist saw she wasn’t progressing the way he would like and he ordered some tests. She had an MRI and blood work. The MRI was clear but we had to wait for the blood work. 

It finally came back in April of 2015. We were told Michal has a duplicate chromosome 15. The neurologist explained it was extremely rare and she will never have a normal life and we should find the alliance online.  We left stunned. The doctor didn’t explain anything! We went home and looked up the dup15 alliance. We are so grateful that this alliance exists. It helped shape our early days and it still does. We joined the Facebook group and started learning as much as possible and asking questions when necessary. 

Michal has continued her therapies and we have fought to get her private placement. She is so amazing and sweet and we can’t imagine our lives without her. She is slowly progressing and continues to amaze us every day.