WOW: Soldier mom back to see daughter’s ‘miracle’ steps
[Warning: you’ll need Kleenex!]
Little Cheyenne Leslie entered the Ocean Medical Center and ran into the arms of her physical therapist, to the cheers of smiling staff workers as the girl seemed unhindered by her arm and leg brace. It was a dress rehearsal of sorts.
Hours later, the 4-year-old who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy as an infant — and who doctors once said likely would be confined to a wheelchair for life — ran through an airport terminal Tuesday evening to hug a soldier mother who missed her child’s first unaided steps.
Cyd Leslie, a 24-year-old Army specialist who has served in Iraq, Afghanistan and other posts abroad for the past year and a half, had only seen video of her daughter’s first successes walking alone.
The last time Leslie saw Cheyenne in person, she would take a few tentative steps and stumble. So to finally see her walking, much less running, seemed nothing short of a miracle for this mother back on a holiday break.
“I’ll never forget this feeling,” Leslie said, wearing fatigues, moments after Cheyenne bounded into her arms.
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At the playground near her home, Cheyenne would watch other children on seesaws and swings, monkey bars and ropes. But it was the slide that captivated her.
“Grandma, why can’t I do that?” she said, watching the children walk up the steep steps.
It broke Grandma Dominga Leslie’s heart. “Someday you will,” she told her.
Doctors offered little hope when Cheyenne began having seizures only a few weeks after she was born. Soon after, she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Doctors said they would just have to wait and see if she could ever walk or talk.
Mother and grandmother were stunned at the news. Cyd couldn’t speak for an hour.
“I looked at her and said, ‘I know what the doctors say, but we believe in God and miracles do happen,’” Dominga Leslie said.
Dominga Leslie, who cared for Cheyenne and her 2-year-old sister, Niome, while their mother was overseas, prayed for a miracle ever since. By chance, she found Therapies 4 Kids…
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