“People would make fun of the way I walked, the way I would talk,” she said. “Every little move I made, I was critiqued.”
Answer: These same words have been spoken many times about bullying teachers, but in this case, young people were the culprits.
Here's the story:
With help from friend, woman overcomes bullying
By Mike Celizic
TODAYShow.com
March. 21, 2008
Gabrielle Ford was 20 years old and hiding in her room, driven there by the abuse of vicious bullying she had suffered in school because of a degenerative neuromuscular disease. She asked her mother if she could have a dog, because she desperately needed a friend.
Ford not only got a faithful companion, she also got an entirely new and wonderful life.
Because of Izzy, the coonhound she got, Ford has become a highly sought-after speaker who travels the country in her wheelchair, talking to school assemblies and classes about ways to stop bullying.
Their story, as reported for TODAY on Friday by NBC’s Jenna Wolfe, is an extraordinary and heartwarming tale about shared love between human and canine. The bond the two share goes beyond the normal relationship of owner and pet.
When Izzy was just a year old, she was diagnosed with the canine equivalent of the Friedrich’s Ataxia that afflicts Ford.
“When she became sick, it was like she could, you know, relate with me,” Ford said. “I call Izzy my second life.”
In reality, it is more of a third life. The first chapter of Ford’s life was that of a normal girl growing up in Michigan who loved to dance. But as she hit her teens, she began having trouble with coordination, balance and speech. When she was 13, doctors diagnosed her with Friedrich’s Ataxia, a genetic, progressive condition that affects the central nervous system and erodes muscular control and speech.
Ford’s condition made her a target of bullies in school. “People would make fun of the way I walked, the way I would talk,” she said. “Every little move I made, I was critiqued.”
One boy took particular joy in picking on her. “He just tormented me every day,” she said. “He would just come by and punch me in the side.”
Her mother, Rhonda Hillman, suffered along with her daughter, watching the bright, outgoing girl she had known become withdrawn and depressed. When she graduated from high school, she retreated to her room, unwilling to come out and face a world that she felt had no use for her.
“I just didn't care anymore about anything,” Ford said. “I was really mean. I was angry to people. It was like I was wasting away.”
That’s when she decided she wanted a dog, and the droopy-faced, black-and-tan hound she named Izzy came into her life. Izzy provided immediate companionship and unconditional affection, but Ford’s life really began to change when the Animal Planet cable network picked up the story about the dog and the young woman who shared the same disease.
A teacher at a local school saw the piece, contacted Ford, who continues to live with her mother, and asked her if she would speak at a school assembly on bullying. Ford, who speaks from her wheelchair, was nervous about speaking in public, but agreed to do it.
She was so good, other schools started asking her to speak. Today, she does about one lecture a week, often bringing audiences to tears with her heartfelt testimony to the cruelty of bullying.
“I enjoy talking to the students at school,” she said. “And I like the feeling of being accepted.”
Ford, 28, can look forward to living many more years. But Izzy is defying the odds with every day of life. She’s still getting around at the age of 8, years after veterinarians said she should have been dead.
Ford is writing a book about her life. Entitled “Still Dancing,” it is scheduled for release next Christmas by the Christian publisher Zoe Life. A series of children’s books featuring Gabe and Izzy is also in the works.
“My life has gotten so much better,” because of Izzy, Ford said. “I've overcome my fears. I'm not embarrassed of what I look like anymore. And I deserve to live every day, just like everybody else.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23742908/
1 comment:
Ms. Larking you are raising some important questions and perhaps this case is relatively about other issues. As I read the case of Shawn Sarquilla I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something deeper to this story.
A). I wondered if this woman had advocated for her child and pissed off the Solana Beach School District.
B). Was one of her children a special education student?
C). how constitutional are these action and if they violated the mother privacy by hiring a
Private detective most revealing when the evidence supports the mother.
It is actually not unusual for a school district to abuse their fiduciary duty and usurp the civil rights of parents. As we all know too well when these school districts call the cleaner (Daniel Shinoff) they mean business.
SDCOE does not care much about the cost after all they will spend millions of our tax dollars to harass and damage the reputation of once reputable members of society.
Attorney Daniel Shinoff is more than eager to take on special ed. moms and special education students. He strategically slanders, orchestrates false information, and spends hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to investigate and destroy the reputation of these students and parents.
How can we forget Gabriel King v. San Marcos school district. Daniel Shinoff went on to destroy the life of this poor child and called him an out of control psychotic monster.
Yes, poor Gabriel’s life was destroyed forever and his predators got off because the jury was afraid to take money away from this poor starving school district. What Daniel Shinoff failed to inform the jury was that he makes millions of dollars going after disabled students and their parents.
In fact one could say that Daniel Shinoff hates disabled students but he loves them because they are his source of the millions of taxpayer dollars he makes. Daniel Shinoff is the most ruthless and gruesome lawyer in the state of California.
The SDCOE loves Daniel Shinoff because of his heartlessness and complete disregard for the law. One would think that human beings are not capable of such cold, manipulated and callousness and that these type of practices would have its toile on an individual’s nervous system.
Actually Daniel Shinoff gets some morbid joy out of destroying the lives of disabled children and their mothers. Heck DAniel Shinoff doesn’t care if they are disabled or not he just hates women period and the SDCOE is too complicit what a sick relationship SDCOE has with Daniel Shinoff.
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