Mother’s gratitude toward Charter School makes $25,000 HP grant
possible
Morgan Hill – Debbie Hernandez’s world turned upside down last year when her 9-year-old daughter had a spontaneous intracranial hemorrhage of the brain, causing her to lose control over her muscles.
Fernanda Hernandez, now 11, was just a typical elementary school student, enjoying her friends and her schoolwork at the Charter School of Morgan Hill, when the hemorrhage happened. She spent weeks in a hospital, recovering, but the cerebral bleeding left obvious clinical manifestations.
Fernanda is now in a wheelchair, under the care of a 24-hour nurse.
But emotionally and intellectually, her mother said, she is the same girl. Maybe the events have caused her to feel frustration at her body’s limitations, maybe the pain she sometimes suffers has strengthened her, made her mature beyond her years, but as her mother, Debbie can still feel Fernanda’s personality.
“One of the things we see now is that she can push herself, if it’s the right environment, the right motivation,” Debbie said. “That’s why interaction with her friends, with people her own age, is a good thing for her.”
But though Fernanda can watch TV, can understand what she is watching, can go to the park with her two sisters and brother, she is extremely limited in her activities. She spends time with a speech therapist each week and receives physical therapy every day.
According to an article written by Dr. Ruby Chang, a neurologist, spontaneous intracranial hemorrhage affects 37,000 people in the United States each year, accounting for between 10 and 20 percent of all strokes. Intracerebral hemorrhage occurs when damaged arteries bleed directly into the brain.
One of the limitations Fernanda must deal with is scoliosis, a curvature of the spine. Debbie said that the condition is a result of the hemorrhage.
As often happens with children in this situation, Debbie said, Fernanda entered puberty early, had a tremendous growth spurt, and that may have contributed to the scoliosis. She is scheduled for major back surgery this month.
It might be easy to get lost in the tremendous physical challenges, but Debbie said her family does not forget the mental and emotional components.
“She’s just like another 11-year-old,” Debbie said. “She watched a movie and laughed in all the appropriate places. She just can’t communicate with her voice.”
As friends visit, Debbie said, they watch TV or movies together, and the friends talk with her about what’s happening with them, what is going on at school. Fernanda appreciates the time with her friends.
What has become clear to Debbie as she faced the challenges daily, she said, is that her faith is helping her endure the trial, and the people who have rallied around the family have been examples of how, she believes, things always work out.
The family attends the First Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sunnyvale; its members have been very supportive.
“We could not have made it without them, without the families from the Charter School who have been so helpful,” she said. “They were wonderful with day-to-day help, with encouragement, sending us cards, calling to let us know they were thinking of us. Sometimes they would come and sit with us, reading the scriptures, and that was so comforting. Other times, they would tell me they would take care of things at the house for a while so that I could get out and take a walk, get some fresh air. Sometimes you forget you need to do that.”
Fernanda is one of five children of Debbie and Jacob. Older sister Alejandra, 14, is a freshman at Presentation High School, while Andres, 5, will be entering preschool soon, and the youngest, Elena, is 18 months old.
Debbie was five months pregnant with Elena when Fernanda’s trauma occurred. She had a job with Hewlett-Packard, and she and her husband had just bought a home. They went from a two-income family to a one-income family overnight.
The Charter School of Morgan Hill staff and families were generous with their time and help for the family, Debbie said. She wanted to do something for the school, so she arranged for a $25,000 grant from Hewlett-Packard. The school received 12 desktop computers, five laptops and several software packages, she said, and because of the family’s plight and the grant, the school named its new computer lab after Fernanda.
Fernanda has her own Web site, www.caringbridge.org/ca/fernanda, where the family posts updates about her condition, her activities and the family’s needs.
“God puts before us many trials,” she said. “Things work out, just not sometimes in the way we think they will.”
Marilyn Dubil covers education and law enforcement for The Times. Reach her at (408) 779-4106 ext. 202 or at md****@*************es.com.
