Grande Ronde Hospital | Life & Health | Spring 2019

foster home to join others in group apartments and enter the workforce. Dawn remembers the first time they saw Kristina in person when the final papers were being reviewed, and thinking how tiny Kristina was, and then how beautiful her skin was. But the most profound realization from those moments was how poised Kristina appeared. “I couldn’t help but wonder how she managed it,” Dawn recalls. “She was about to leave her home, her country, her culture, and get on an airplane with complete strangers to fly to another country.” To say the past year has been a learning curve for them is an understatement, with language the biggest challenge by far. Kristina had to learn the English alphabet, which is very different. Mandarin is a tonal language, Dawn explains, with very few consonant sounds—maybe two or three. Words with hard consonants at the end are very difficult for Kristina to pronounce. For Ram and Dawn, the Mandarin equivalents to English ‘vowels’ are a grouping of characters which have more than one sound. Incorrect pronunciation changes the meaning of a word, sometimes with funny outcomes. “Kristina has a quirky sense of humor, so sometimes she just laughs at us, or puts her hand over our mouths to show we should just stop talking,” says Dawn with a chuckle, adding, “She is so resilient, when I think of all she has had to adapt to in the last year.” As a special needs child in foster care for most of her life, Kristina needed assistance with several issues. Glasses, for example—she had refused them in China, and her foster parents didn’t insist. So before they left China, Ram and Dawn had her eyes tested again and confirmed that Kristina definitely needed glasses for school, as well as to generally improve her life. They did not push, but they took their role as parents seriously and eventually got her to try them. After that success, Ram and Dawn also brought up her need for hearing aids and braces, and were surprised by her response. “She really didn’t push back. Her attitude was, ‘Oh well I got used to glasses, I guess I will get used to this as well.’” Dawn says. “Every change—and she has had so many—she has done what she needed to do.” In addition to glasses, hearing aids, extensive repairs to her teeth and braces, Kristina also has cerebral palsy. She needs physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy as well as special academic tutoring to bring her American education level up to the grade where she should be. It is still a work in progress, but Kristina is smart—she is, for example, good at math—and works hard. Her parents have no doubt she will get there. Kristina goes to school part time at Grande Ronde Academy and part time at the La Grande Middle School. The mix seems to be working well. And the students at both schools have accepted her. “I can’t say enough about her teachers and tutors,” says Dawn. “We are so very grateful for them. They are all so patient and kind in working with her.” Asked about being a new mom, Dawn says she has ridden the highs and lows and struggled with the angst that her patients have experienced as new mothers. “Was I scared? Yes! I was. There is this self-doubt that hits you. ‘Will I be good enough? Will I be strong enough? Can I do this?’ But I have no doubt that God has a purpose for Kristina’s life. That we three are together for a reason,” Dawn says. Dawn has learned new things about herself and seen a new side to her husband as an extremely patient new father to an often typical—and other times completely atypical— teenager. They have discovered that Kristina loves the wide openness of La Grande—and that she loves walking through snow in her socks. She always loves being outdoors, either hiking or learning to ride horses. Dawn says she and Ram are also learning about Kristina’s culture, so she does not lose that part of herself because it is important. “Kristina is smart enough and resilient enough to do anything she wants to do,” Dawn says. “She has a chance for a future that otherwise she would not have had. Our purpose as her parents is to do everything we can—give her every opportunity we can—to prepare her for that.” Left: Kristina taking riding lessons. Dawn and Ram were amazed to discover she is a natural on horseback. Right: Kristina reaches the top of the hardest rock wall to climb at Eastern Oregon University in summer 2018. When Dawn looks back at this moment, she is still inspired by her daughter’s determination, saying, “So much for cerebral palsy.” “Kristina is smart enough and resilient enough to do anything she wants to do.” —Continued from front page And Kristina makes three 2 LIFE AND HEALTH SPRING 2019