JDP senior Kayli has a smile that could launch a thousand ships. She smiles because she’s faced some pretty extreme challenges in the last 3 years but is starting to come out on the other side of them and won’t be held back.
Kayli was a competitive cheerleader when in 2015 she suffered a severe concussion from a kick to her head during practice. She was someone you could find in the gym 15 hours a week prior to her injury and suddenly she couldn’t count. Her world turned upside down as she could no longer even attend school. For 9 months she was home schooled, which was a major adjustment from having been so involved at school.
Sometimes when a person suffers a traumatic brain injury, it reveals an underlying auto immune disorder, which is exactly what happened to Kayli. She was diagnosed with Pots Syndrome which affects her autonomic nervous system and a connective tissue disorder, EVS as well. This diagnosis requires that she receives infusions weekly, which means she has to miss school regularly.
Pots syndrome is a condition in which a change from lying to standing causes an abnormally large increase in heart rate. Kayli has a mountain of obstacles to scale related to her concussion and Pots. She is on the list to receive a service dog this winter and an anxiously awaiting his arrival. She mentioned wishing she could include a German Shepherd in her session and I thought of just the family who could help! If this Shepherd looks familiar, it’s because Chewy belongs to the Barnes family and he was included in JDP senior Adam’s session a few weeks ago!
If you could have seen Kayli’s face light up when Chewey showed up as a surprise during her session! It was pretty priceless! Chewey represents the joy and assistance her own service dog will provide when she receives him. He will receive some of his training at boarding and he’ll go back and forth between training and Kayli’s house. Kayli will be involved in the training for her service dog through out the process. He will sniff for nuts (she’s allergic), alert her when her heart rate is increasing, get food and water for her and place himself under her legs for support if it seems she may loose consciousness.
Kayli couldn’t be more thrilled about the working with a service dog. She’s found a peace in the midst of her storm in nature and with animals. Understanding brain injury is a challenge for people who aren’t walking through it. Kayli looks perfectly healthy, but the battles are fairly silent that she faces in concussion recovery. She’s able to continue the same course load at school, but it takes longer to accomplish the tasks before her. Some of her therapies involve learning how to acclimate in crowded settings again, like a mall without over-stimulation. What may look like a carefree shopping trip, is actually therapy that is important to Kayli’s recovery. Surrounding herself with people who understand this has been critical because at our core, we all want to be understood and be shown compassion in our weakness.
Kayli loves spending time with her boyfriend Dalton on his farm, enjoying the outdoors and the animals, especially Dixie the donkey. Dalton lights up Kayli’s countenance in a way that sure looks like love between the two of them! And his face mirrors this joy when he sees her. They were close friends for years and then it blossomed into romance over camping trips. The day of Kayli’s pre-consult, Dalton waited for her to finish, then came to surprise her with flowers. He did the same thing again after her portrait session, after his 12 hour work day at CJ Miller! He was such a gentleman and just picked her up and spun her around after climbing out of his truck. They looked like a scene out of a country music video!
Kayli went underwater for part of her portrait time for us to create this fine art piece for her! Kayli I wish you all the best on this recovery road and can’t wait to hear about your dog when he arrives! Interested in your own portrait experience? Click here to contact us-we’d love to chat with you about that!
