There's no stopping Jaide from running this weekend
inFrom http://thechronicleherald.ca/Opinion/836087.html
By Joel Jacobson BRIGHT SPOT
WHEN THE Doctors Nova Scotia Youth Run starts Saturday morning at 10 at Huskies Stadium in Halifax, 10-year-old Jaide Vietzke will be right there in the pack.
When the runners cross the finish line, an hour or so and 4.2 kilometres later, Jaide will be the one with the biggest smile, perhaps bigger than last year?s.
Jaide has cerebral palsy. She?s not supposed to run this youth race of the Blue Nose Marathon. Ten years ago, doctors told her parents she probably wouldn?t walk or talk, might be deaf and might never see.
As we sit in her Clayton Park living room, Jaide sees, hears, speaks and moves easily around the apartment and walks up and down stairs like most 10-year-olds.
Last year, Jaide and her Grade 3 classmates at Grosvenor-Wentworth Park School ran laps during gym class.
"I heard people say they were going into the marathon and I wanted to, too," Jaide says.
Her mother, Connie, didn?t pay a lot of attention ? until the night before the race when Jaide asked when it was taking place.
"We found out registration was at 8 a.m. the next day," says Connie. "Jaide said to me, ?I want to do it. I?ve been training.? "
Connie laughs.
"Trying to find excuses, we realized her shoes were too small but she tried on my size sixes and they fit. The next morning, we registered her."
By 8 a.m., Connie, her partner Richard Neville, Jaide and her little brother, Reid, 5, arrived at Huskies Stadium. Jaide was ready.
After speaking to paramedics and race officials, Richard received permission to run with her.
"I told Jaide to pace herself," says Richard, recalling how Jaide?s school friends all took off very quickly and how Jaide was saying, "Run faster, Dad, run faster."
Richard says he wasn?t sure if Jaide could finish, but "I saw a side of her I?d never seen before. Halfway through, I knew she?d finish. In fact, she started passing her friends because they were going too fast too early. Plus, Jaide had that determination to complete it."
He smiles.
"I was getting tired. I?m not a runner and I had just given up smoking because the kids were pushing me to."
Connie was standing at the finish line, waiting and waiting. She saw Richard and Jaide a few hundred metres away, Jaide wobbling with fatigue and some lack of balance caused by her cerebral palsy.
"People were encouraging her all the way to the finish," Connie says.
"Jaide was concentrating on her balance," says Richard.
"When they got to the line, my eyes filled with tears," says Connie, her eyes filling again now. "I was cheering and crying."
"Like you?re doing right now," says Jaide, reaching a hand toward her mother?s.
As Connie?s tears flow, Jaide says, "It?s OK, Mommy."
Connie wipes her eyes.
"What a moment. I was so proud of her. Part of me was thinking, ?She?ll never walk or talk? and here she was. It was one of the best experiences ever in my life, to see her cross that finish line."
Richard may have to miss Saturday?s run because of work ? he?s a musician and he also works on expedition ships in Antarctica after being a Newfoundland government wildlife technician.
"If he can?t, I?ll run with her," says Connie, who will complete her psychology degree this summer and plans to study addiction counselling to help aboriginal people in her native Labrador.
Jaide hasn?t let cerebral palsy slow her down. She played basketball in a summer program last year, is in the school choir and swims recreationally. She has a ton of friends.
"My best friend is Emma Logan," Jaide says of her nine-year-old classmate.
Connie says Emma has wings (like an angel), "only you can?t see them. Jaide has some problems with sequency, the order in which she?s supposed to do things. She?ll forget, but Emma keeps her on track. Emma does this on her own, from in here," Connie says, pointing to her heart.
"Her parents won?t let me keep her ? and I?ve asked," Connie says, laughing.
There are many laughs in this living room, laughs that haven?t always been there. When Jaide was born four weeks prematurely to Connie and then-husband Oliver in 1996, she had breathing problems. She spent time in hospital in St. John?s, N.L., far from her home in Goose Bay, Labrador.
Jaide, already diagnosed with cerebral palsy, never crawled, just "scooted on her behind," says Connie. She didn?t start walking until she was two.
Jaide visited the Shriners Hospital in Montreal at age five to reduce tightness in her leg muscles and then wore braces for support. Now that she?s in a growth spurt, she?ll return to the hospital in June for reassessment.
"She?s outgrown the braces now and doesn?t seem to miss them," Connie says. "She ran last year?s marathon without them."
Jaide beams when she hears the word "marathon."
"I?ve been training. I?m ready," she says, smiling.
Bright Spot appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Be sure to read Great Kids in The Sunday Herald. Contact Joel Jacobson by e-mail at jjacobson@herald.ca, by phone at 426-2811 ext. 2222 or by fax at 426-1158.