Welcome to family friendly fun and disability support for families with special needs. Click the red tour bus to start the family friendly tour.

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Welcome to family friendly fun and disability support for families with special needs.

Click the red bus (top right corner of every page) to take a tour of our website and discover family fun and recreation, family health and wellness, family life and relationships, and disability support for families with special needs.

This website is dedicated to my daughter Monica, who was born with a life-threatening neural tube defect, called an occipital encephalocele. This encephalocele contained a substantial portion of her brain, and we were given a dire prognosis. On Christmas Eve, two days after birth, Monica underwent surgery. After 6 hours, Monica survived the brain surgery - our own Christmas miracle!

Monica is now 23 years old. Despite multiple disabilities (cortical blindness, cerebral palsy, developmental delays, and a complex partial seizure disorder), Monica is rarely ill and has tremendous motivation to learn and enjoy life. Monica is a delight and inspiration.

We hope you will enjoy your visit and then come back often, as we are always adding new family-related information, activities and resources. Click the red tour bus (top right corner of every page) to start the family friendly tour.

Articles wanted - Do you offer a service, write articles, or publish a website related to family friendly fun and disability support for families with special needs? Our visitors will want to know about it. Submit an article for review and we may publish it on this website free!

Here are a few of the latest articles at the family friendly fun website

No child who has experienced trauma is going to heal and learn to use different ways of coping without first feeling secure. The importance of environmental interventions is essential, in terms of providing the stable and safe place from which therapeutic work can be undertaken.

Developing childrens motor skills are important when they are very young. Teaching your child these motor skills in the form of a craft or a game allows him or her to learn while also having family fun.

Home safe for your special-needs child - Just as with any child, it’s important to make your home as safe as possible for your special-needs son or daughter. Here are suggestions to make your home a safer environment for children.

As health care reform comes to pass, there is a building momentum towards keeping patients in their homes whenever possible. Home care is quickly becoming an integral part of the care continuum.

When our children have special needs, traveling becomes more difficult to plan and research, but it can be full of surprises and memories you won't have wanted to miss. Use this guide to travelling with special needs children.

A message from Mary - a website visitors: "I am an adult with mild CP. I wanted to let you know that I've tried a LOT of things to make movement easier and one of the best has been music therapy."

The Child Development Institute organizes rehabilitation stays for disabled children, providing therapy for children with the following impairments: cerebral palsy, autism, ADHD, Down’s syndrome, Asperger syndrome, epilepsy, speech disorders, abnormal posture

Children can have strokes, often caused by birth defects, infections (e.g. meningitis, encephalitis), trauma, and blood disorders such as sickle cell disease. Learn more about childhood strokes.

family fun brings not only enjoyment but BIG family health benefits, too. And if you look carefully, you can find fun in whatever you do... it is only a matter of attitude. Enhance your family fun today!

Adventures with Monica - a young woman with multiple disabilities

Early pregnancy fetal tests showed no abnormalities. Mom is a nurse and was strictly following safe pregnancy practices. There were no warnings that this was a special needs pregnancy. Three days before Christmas, Monica was born with a life-threatening neural tube defect called an occipital encephalocele.

Within hours after birth, Monica was rushed by ambulance to a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at a large city hospital. After examination, the neurosurgeon gave us a dire prognosis - a short lifespan with multiple and severe disabilities. The encephalocele was "leaking" and chance of infection and death were imminent. Brain surgery with a 50/50 chance of survival was the only chance to save her life. Life or death - the choice was given to the parents. For me, there was only one option - do whatever could be done to save Monica's life.

Not knowing if she would live or die, family and friends quickly came to the NICU and visited Monica. With aching hearts, exhausted from days without sleep, their eyes red and faces swollen from crying, the parents bonded with their first born baby and gave her all their love.

Two days later, on Christmas Eve, after 6 hours of surgery, we were given the news - Monica survived the brain surgery - our own Christmas miracle!

The surgery removed a large part of her brain - dead gray matter inside the occipital encephalocele - presumed to be mostly from the occipital and parietal lobes. The missing portion of her occipital lobe would effect her eyesight and balance. Monica was subsequently diagnosed with multiple disabilities and disorders including cortical blindness, cerebral palsy and mental retardation. The neural tube defect had also caused malformation of the skull, called microcephaly.

Invitro Amniotic band syndrome caused a constriction in the upper left arm and loss of middle and ring fingers on the left hand and deformity of her little finger. The constriction was so tight around her right upper arm, that blood had to flow through the humerus to reach her forearm and hand. Within the year, Monica had surgery to relieve the constriction and reconnect blood vessels to her right forearm.

Monica had more surgeries in the following years, including hand surgeries and a spinal fusion for scoliosis, but after each one she recovered remarkably fast. As her early years passed, we did not see the bleak prognosis that had been given to us. Monica thrived and was enjoying life, so I decided to share Monica's success story to provide hope and help for other parents of special needs children. Thus was the concept and beginning of the construction of this website in 1997. Read more about Monica.

We hope you will enjoy your visit and come back often, as we are always adding new family-related information, activities and resources. Simply click the red tour bus at the top right corner of every page to take the family friendly tour.