FamilyConnect

Transcript

Veronica: Hello, my name is Veronica Alvarez, and my son is Diego Alvarez. He’s my first child. He was a premature baby, and he was born at 24 weeks. He’s a fighter and a warrior. He was like four months old, and we knew he had a severe problem with his eyes. He is legally blind. And we didn’t know how to raise our blind child.

You have a dream when you are pregnant or a vision of a child, and when you have a disabled child, not only blind, I mean, with all the challenges, it’s difficult. When you talk with another parent, you can see that there is something beyond the problem.

It helped me a lot to see another parent with kids, blind kids, to have that connection with other parents who are going through all the stages that you are going through. When we talk with parents in the early stages of this, I mean, we can also give support to them and say, you know, here’s Diego we went the same that you are going through, and you’re going to be fine. You’ll have to be strong and search our group of parents to help you.

My advice to them is to try to be strong and also try to not to feel that you are alone. There are a lot of people that can help you go through these stages. There is something there for them. I mean, there are fighters like my son. He didn’t have vision before, so he’s happy. You know, and (Diego clapping) he’s learning a lot of stuff, and we are very happy. I mean, we cannot see our family without him or a different, Diego. So, we love him.

Narrator: FamilyConnect, familyconnect.org