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Mom encourages parents of special needs children

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By Elizabeth Marie Himchak

A Rancho Bernardo mother wants to encourage other parents with special needs children to not give up and to continually push their children to reach their utmost potential.

Revathi Subra said her son, Suneet — now a 15-year-old sophomore in Rancho Bernardo High’s critical skills class, was born less than 30 weeks into her complicated pregnancy. He weighed 2.5 pounds and had to be in an incubator for 40 days.

“When Suneet was born, doctors said he would not live,” Subra said. “He had jaundice and lost more weight (after birth).”

However, Suneet proved doctors wrong and when discharged from the hospital weighed almost four pounds.

That was just the start of their challenges. By the time Suneet was several months old, Subra said she and her husband noticed little things were wrong with him — like not sitting up, but rolling his eyes. Doctors could not come up with an immediate diagnosis. When he was a year old he had a massive seizure and was diagnosed with cerebral palsy.

“They did a scan and realized he had a stroke on his left front lobe, which affects motor skills and speech,” she said. “They told me he would not talk or walk, but be in a wheelchair.” The seizures continued until he was 7.

“However devastated we were we decided never to quit on Suneet,” Subra said. “We tried different kinds of alternative medicine and power of prayers and healings by spiritual leaders. ... (With) the hard work of exercises, with lots of love as a family team, year after year Suneet showed improvement.”

At the time of Suneet’s diagnosis, Subra said she and her husband were awaiting the birth of their second son, Suhas, who ended up becoming a role model for Suneet.

As Suhas reached his milestones, Suneet started to copy his younger brother. At 2 1/2 years, Suneet started talking and crawling. Because his right side was very stiff, Subra said it looked like a “combat crawl.”

Subra said she took a tough love approach with Suneet, pushing him to keep trying and never give up while her husband was the more “nurturing, best buddy” parent. Together, they got him to slowly start taking small steps aided by a walker and had him undergo orthopedic surgery. While he eventually learned how to walk on his own, Suneet still uses the walker to run — like he did last year when participating in a Special Olympics competition. He also earned his white belt in karate.

The child who was never likely to speak now talks with a vocabulary of around 300 words and leads his class in 200 prayer songs, his mother said. “He can’t read music, but he listens and sings and claps accordingly,” Subra said. “It’s amazing. He memorizes everything.” He is also computer literate.

With a philosophy that “impossible” means “I am possible,” Subra said her son has been continually encouraged to try harder, whether it is physical therapy exercises in the swimming pool or gym. Each day she takes Suneet for a walk. Their next goal is for him to run without assistance.

“The family came together. Every day we try something,” she said, adding, “With team work, a kid can really do wonders.”

This is why Subra said it saddens her to see some parents give up on their special needs children, resigning to the idea that their children cannot overcome their limitations.

“It takes special care and love,” she said, attributing Suneet’s achievements to him being “a fighter,” the family’s extreme hard work, the power of prayers and “miracles by divine blessings.”

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