My name is Dorothea. I am 33 years old, married and i have a daugter, who is disabled. Her name is Angelina and she came into this world on November 28th 2004.
Angelina suffers from a genetic defect called Microdeletion 1p36. This defect affects every person who suffers from it in different ways. This chromosomal defect is very rare ( only 15, 000 children are affected by it).
Angelina has a heart defect, that does not need surgery, though. Apart from that, Angelina's physical and intellectual development is massively delayed. This can be treated by special theapies:
Speech therapy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_and_language_pathology
Ergotherapy/Occupational therapy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_therapy
Physiotherapy (Bobath concept):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobath
Hippotherapy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippotherapy
Since the day she was born, Angelina made lots of progress in her development, and I want report about that here. But there also have been heavy blows that she had to go through. I will talk about them, too.
