4MyChild: Help and Hope for Life

December 18, 2006

Woman Refuses to let Health Issues Derail Plans

Woman refuses to let health issues derail plans
By Julie Sevrens Lyons
Mercury News

Carol Picchi doesn’t ask “Why me?” even though it would be easy to.

Born with cerebral palsy, she didn’t walk until she was 2. The neurological disorder so crippled her right hand she had to learn to write with her left.

She went through years of physical therapy and attended a school for special-needs children until she was a teen. Then, at age 14, a hip surgery changed her world for good.

It left her unable to walk. Dependent on a wheelchair.

But it didn’t hinder her resolve to succeed.

“You take it with a grain of salt,” she says. “You have to go forward with life.”

Picchi has always insisted on going forward — even though life has had a habit of pushing her backward.

When she was a teen, she finally got the chance to attend a mainstream school, San Mateo’s Aragon High, and relished every minute of it.

“It opened the world to me being around regular kids,” she says. “It was a fun experience. I didn’t want to go back.”

Despite having to adjust to her sudden inability to walk, Picchi graduated from high school on time — making the honor roll. She learned to live independently and was pursuing an accounting degree at San Jose State University. She had a job at Stanford. She was close to graduating.

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