Greetings by Grant
My friend Deanna sent me an email about greetingsbygrant.com and I love everything about this website. Grant is a little boy that was born with agenesis of the corpus callosum, a rare birth defect in which the structure that connects the two hemispheres of the brain (the corpus callosum) is partially or completely absent. His condition caused developmental delays, making learning to walk and talk a challenge. He began intensive physical, occupational, developmental and speech therapy at age four months. With unrelenting determination he finally walked after his second birthday. He learned to communicate in baby steps – first with sign language, next with a voice output device and, finally, with words.
Doctors at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis added autism to his already full plate at age four. But that was small potatoes next to the diagnosis that came in April of the same year. A life-threatening infection caused dangerously low blood counts for Grant in the winter of 2004. Tests and specialists couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. On April 16, the answer came – acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). After over three years of chemotherapy, Grant beat childhood leukemia. Despite the roadblocks, Grant sees the enchantment and wonder in everything around him.
Grant is an amazing artist and his works of art have been used to create clothes, notecards and totebags. I see some onesies in Libby’s future and hopefully some notecards in my future… I am a big fan of the “always stand tall” giraffes and “friends stick together” elephants.