Blind Frankfort Square teen: ‘I’m more of a fighter’

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Shelley McGrath-Myers, 18, plays an electronic keyboard and sings for her sisters, Marissa and Sam Myers, at their home in Frankfort Square. | Brett Roseman~Sun-Times Media

Shelley’s
support system

In the words of Shelley’s mom, Kim Myers:

“Over the past 18 years, Shelley and I have relied significantly on the Lions Club for costly items that were associated with her blindness one way or another. These items ranged from books, a piano and an amazing laptop computer to gift cards to grocery and clothing stores to help me provide Shelley with a Christmas when I wasn’t able to do it myself.

“Lions members have watched Shelley grow up and helped me grow. They provided summer camps and Christmas parties, and hopefully one day Shelley will qualify for a Lions scholarship.

“The Frankfort Lions Club is represented by the most amazing, kind-hearted, giving men and women, and I am honored that they have taken us under their wings.

“I have also relied heavily on the Illinois Parents of the Visually Impaired (IPVI) for educational and emotional support. IPVI is a network of parents who strive to support and connect families whose children are visually impaired. They rely heavily on donations or advertising fees from their monthly newsletter that is published. This newsletter educates parents on IEPs (individual educational plans) for school, technology training, fun activities, gifts to buy for visually impaired children, available scholarships and a whole lot more! IPVI is an awesome option for parents of visually impaired children. I would be lost without them.”

To help

Donations can be sent to Illinois Parents of the Visually Impaired at P.O. Box 2947, Naperville, IL 60567-2947. For more information, call (877) 411-4784, email ipvi@ipvi.org or visit www.ipvi.org.

Donations can be sent to the Frankfort Lions Club at P.O. Box 223, Frankfort, IL 60423. For more information, visit
frankfortlionsclub.com.

Article Extras

Updated: February 11, 2012 7:22PM

Shelley McGrath-Myers loves to talk on her cell phone, listen to her iPod and text her friends.

She’s more devoted to following her favorite TV programs than anyone else in the family, her mom says, and the Frankfort Square teenager can take good-natured ribbing from her stepfather Frank Myers and relishes the role of big sister.

In many ways, Shelley is a typical high school senior.

She would like nothing more than to be treated like she was typical.

But Shelley has a rare condition, bilateral anopthalmia, or the absence of eyes. And because of that, she knows she likely will always be treated differently.

“I’m just like everyone else, except I happen to be blind,” Shelley said. “I’m not contagious.”

Her spirit is, however. To spend just a short time with this quick-witted, articulate, eager-to-live-and-learn young woman is inspiring, those who know her say.

“I think her story needs to be told,” said her mother, Kim Myers, “because she’s had so many obstacles to overcome, and so many other people might have given up by now.”

Adversity from Day 1

The obstacles have been many — and daunting.

Shelley has endured 27 surgeries since birth, four of them for a serious heart condition that required a piece of a donor heart that now is deteriorating. Multiple scoliosis surgeries have left her spine looking “like a railroad track,” and then there are the surgeries to continually enlarge her eye sockets for proper facial growth — 23 in the first four years of her life.

“She’s really strong,” said Samantha Myers, 12, one of Shelley’s sisters.

Samantha and her younger sister, Marissa, 11, said Shelley is an inspiration to them, and they recognize her strength goes beyond just surviving her surgeries.

Marissa said her friends are curious about Shelley and are sometimes afraid of her.

“I feel bad for Shelley because I know she’s like everyone else,” Marissa said.

That’s when Shelley breaks into her favorite song, Gloria Gaynor’s, “I Will Survive,” singing just enough to show off a beautiful voice.

“It fits me so well,” Shelley said. “That song has my name on it. It’s my way of keeping positive.”

Shelley has survived more than medical issues. Perhaps the most difficult, she said, has been the way she’s been treated by others. Although she has gotten over the cruelty of kids who don’t understand that she’s just like them in more ways than she is different (“I think I’m not as sensitive as I was a few years ago”), there are some incidents that have forged her strength, perhaps because of their traumatic impact.

An experience at a camp for the visually impaired when Shelley was about 10 years old was Kim Myers’ first try at “tough love.” Myers sent Shelley to a Minnesota camp run by blind adults in charge of blind children.

“I was told to ignore the phone calls home,” Kim Myers said. She did until the fourth night, when she received a frantic call from Shelley, whose camp roommate had tragically died in a drowning accident.

Myers said her next attempt at finding a place for Shelley to learn independence also ended badly. While attending a downstate school for the blind about four years ago, Shelley said she was physically and verbally abused by an employee after medication used to help her sleep kept her from waking during the night. When the employee found Shelley in a wet bed in the morning, Shelley said the caretaker became angry and pushed her face into the urine-soaked mattress, beat her and threw her into a hot shower. Shelley said while the woman scrubbed her, she told Shelley she would never amount to anything or be able to take care of herself.

Kim Myers reported the incident to the Department of Children and Family Services and said she pursued legal action until it became clear to her that nothing would be done.

“I had to quit,” Myers said. “My whole life revolved around revenge.”

Shelley also moved on.

A new beginning

Shelley transferred to Summit Hill Junior High in Frankfort Square, where she finished her elementary education, graduating with honors, to the delight of her mother.

“This is the same baby that, when she was born, they tried to prepare me for the fact that she would never be more than a vegetable,” Kim Myers said emotionally.

Shelley’s journey continued, but when in her two years at Lincoln-Way North High School there was no measurable progress in her educational goals, and Shelley still was facing discrimination from other students who didn’t understand her special needs, something had to change.

“Some of the kids had a game I call ‘jump the stick,’ which meant they tried to see if they could jump over my cane,” Shelley said. She said others would call her on the phone, pretend to be the friends she desperately wanted, and ask her to sing. She found out later that her songs would be replayed to ridicule and laughter.

But Shelley still loves to sing, and she said nothing will change that.

Choir is her favorite class at her new school, Addison Trail High School, where she is enrolled in a program for visually impaired students through The School Association for Special Education in DuPage County (SASED).

“I feel more like an equal there,” Shelley said.

The 30 students in her program and students in her regular education classes mean Shelley has friends with and without disabilities.

“It’s nice to know I’m known as something else instead of being blind,” Shelley said. “I was just known as ‘the blind girl’ in high school before. I didn’t even have a name.”

Things are happily different, and so is Shelley. She’s not only resilient and strong, but she’s learning to become the independent person she and her family know she must someday become.

“I’m absolutely not blaming Lincoln-Way for not teaching Shelley because I’m no better,” Kim Myers said. “Shelley’s a very intelligent young lady and has always done well in school and is socially and conversationally appropriate, but she couldn’t cook or do household chores before. I don’t know how to teach (those skills to a blind person). Now she’s being taught. These people are trained.”

Big plans

Shelley’s special education class in daily living skills, the “Breakfast Club,” is helping her learn to cook and do laundry, even though her family jokes that Shelley is never more the typical teen than when it comes to doing chores around the house.

Nevertheless, Shelley’s taste of independence has led her to spread her wings even more.

“I was always free ninth period,” Shelley said. “I thought that was a waste of my time.”

When she spoke to SASED supervisor Joan Allison about possibilities for filling her time, Allison suggested a job and asked Shelley what she would like to do.

Shelley said she immediately replied, “Teaching kids Braille.”

Within weeks, Shelley found herself doing just that. She teaches Braille to a fifth-grade student and a sixth-grade student once a week at Albright Middle School in Villa Park.

“I taught Braille at summer camp in Colorado over the summer,” Shelley said. “People just learn well from me. It’s giving back. That’s why I like it.”

Now, she’s planning a second senior year at Addison Trail so she can continue splitting her school day between life skills and academic classes and continue her work program.

Everything leads to her goals for an independent adulthood. Technology assists along the way, such as her phone helping her send and receive texts via audio.

“I’m thinking about going to ISU,” Shelley said. She said Illinois State University has a program to teach the visually impaired, a career possibility.

Shelley also wants to continue pursuing her interests, but her most challenging goal is “to live on my own, definitely,” she said.

In many ways, Shelley’s future is not any less uncertain than that of any other 18-year-old woman. Despite her adversities, it’s not any less bright, either.

“Some people think being blind makes you weaker,” Shelley said. “Personally, I think it makes you stronger. I think it’s made me more of a fighter.”