Judy Kalnas keeps in mind thinking that Jessica, the youngest of her six children, resembled the elastic-limbed cartoon character Gumby.
As a kid, she stated, Jessica would topple off her bike and “get up laughing.” In high school, she fell throughout field hockey practice. Over the years, her worst injury was a damaged toe. She felt humiliated by her obvious clumsiness, which stuck out in an athletic household whose members include a shot-putter who received the U.S. Olympic trials.
But when Jessica tumbled off the bleachers while preparing to accept a math award at her South Jersey high school graduation, the indisputable truth that something more than mere clumsiness was at work ended up being glaringly obvious.
3 years later on, when her daughter got the shocking diagnosis, Judy Kalnas instantly remembered statements her own mother had made years earlier about another household.
Those remarks would come to have particular resonance after what Kalnas discovered her own children, particularly Jessica, now 31.
A diagnosis discarded.
The summer season Jessica was 14, her large extended family leased a house on North Carolina’s Outer Banks.
However over the next year, Jessica appeared to become significantly uncoordinated.
The graduation night fall from the bleachers in 2008, when Jessica stated her “knee simply provided out,” proved to be a catalyst.
