Iris Wechsler enjoys taking her daughter...

Iris Wechsler enjoys taking her daughter Cheryl to monthly dinner meetings for people with disabilities at Temple Beth Hillel in North Hollywood. Wechsler is director of the Moses Program that hosts the dinners. She has also led Cerebral Palsy fund-raisers and lobbied in Sacramento for services for people with disabilities. Wechsler has a passion for getting things done and pride in her daughter.

My daughter Cheryl was born in 1957.

By the time she was a month old she started to dehydrate. That was the first time she was hospitalized. She was hospitalized again when she was 3 months old. Then they discovered that she had a malfunction of the kidneys which threw off the chemical balance of her blood.

When she was 8 months old, they told me that she had congenital torticollis, which is a short neck muscle. Then the doctor told me she had a congenital hip problem. He said with all these things wrong there was a very strong possibility of mental retardation.

At UCLA they told us she was profoundly retarded. That she would never walk, never talk and that we should put her in a state hospital and forget she was born. And, she will be dead in 10 years. They said there was a very rare genetic cause and she definitely did not have cerebral palsy.

I was devastated, absolutely devastated. I just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed my head off. Her father did, too. I remember that night we had tickets for some Russian ballet down at the Shrine Auditorium. He said, “I don’t think I want to go to the ballet.” And I said, “Well, what can we do? It’s not going to do any good to stay home.” So we went with heavy hearts, but we went.

When she was 2 1/2 she said her first word. I heard a car coming down the hill and I said, “Cheryl, there’s a car,” and she said, “Car,” clear as day. So I thought, OK, now we’ll go to school. I finally found a pre-nursery school class for children who are mentally retarded out at New Horizons in the West Valley. I took her there every day for 4 years.

I took her to an out-patient diagnostic program at Childrens Hospital that was funded by the state. By then, we were really broke. They told me that she’s mildly to moderately retarded and the reason that she is not walking is that she has cerebral palsy. Her heel cords were so tight she couldn’t put her foot down. So they put her in a cast. When she was 5 years and 1 month old, I will never forget, she walked! Once she was diagnosed as having cerebral palsy, I was able to get her into a public school for children with physical disabilities.

When she was about 6, she had her first grand mal seizure. She nearly choked to death. So now we’ve got mental retardation, cerebral palsy and epilepsy. Then she was having temper tantrums. They said her brain just short circuits and that’s why she had these behavioral problems. By the time she was 10, I was getting worn down. I felt she should be placed in a residential facility. We found the Home of Guiding Hands, which is in San Diego County. It was a wonderful facility and we placed Cheryl there.

It was a very difficult decision I don’t wish on my worst enemy. As much as I knew it had to be done and that I just could not handle it anymore, it took me a year and a half until I could go into her room to clean and not cry.

Cheryl was there from 1970 until 1983 and then we moved her up to a group home here in Los Angeles, where she is now. About 2 1/2 years ago, she earned her first paycheck, which is something I never thought I’d ever see. One check was 37 cents and the other one was about $1.45. She doesn’t know the value of money but she sure knows it buys things and she also knew that she had earned it.

For a little girl who was supposed to have been dead by the time she was 12, she’s now 31. I’m very proud of her. She works up to the very best of her ability, which is more than I think some average people can say.