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Lori and Donna Joy Vance

Over the years I’ve read a lot of news items about people with disabilities. One newspaper report on Donna Joy and Lori Vance, of Rogersville, Tennessee, especially caught my eye because of the last name.

“When I was seven-months pregnant with (Donna Joy), an obstetrician said her condition was ‘completely incompatible’ with life,” said 42-year-old Lori Vance in a telephone interview. Though doctors were urging her to abort late-term because they thought the unborn child would die outside the womb, Vance gave birth anyway in November 1991.

Donna Joy was missing over half her brain, and what was left was “small and wrinkled, abnormally disfigured,” said Vance. Donna Joy had cerebral palsy, holoprosencephaly, hydrocephalus, and arnold-chiari malformation. At birth her head was swollen, and brain tissue protruded through a small hole in her head.

“And yet she was absolutely gorgeous,” said Vance. Doctors told Vance that Donna Joy didn’t have any speech center, independent thought processing center, memory, or gross and fine motor abilities. They said she had a damaged visual center. To keep her alive that first year, Vance fed Donna Joy formula drop by drop through a syringe.

What became of Donna Joy sixteen years later? Said Lori Vance, “She just won an honorary title in a beauty contest and was Honorary Miss Fourth of July Rogersville Princess. She talks almost constantly, and is quite ambulatory, even taking track medals in the Tennessee Special Olympics.”

Donna Joy is mainstreamed at public school for art, music, and physical education. According to Vance, Donna Joy is the highest functioning special education student at her Rogersville school, and often is called upon to help other students.

More on Donna Joy and her mom here.

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