We created this web site to give encouragement to other parents of CHARGE Syndrome children and also to motivate other children, like our daughter Melissa, who have CHARGE Syndrome .

This site is our first attempt to at answering questions being asked to us by other parents of children with CHARGE Syndrome .  Most parents that we talk to have young children looking to us to see how Melissa has grown and coped with problems.  We do understand that some children have more problems than others.  We don’t have medical backgrounds and won’t give you medical advice.  But we will give you our experiences in dealing with issues.  Though still limited, there is a lot more information available on CHARGE than was available when Melissa was born.

Here's Melissa in her high school year book photo. She graduate high school with the "Class of 2000". Melissa will turn 23 years old in March of 2003. She has her driving permit and is working on getting her license. She also has a part-time job with a clothing story. Melissa volunteers regularly at the elderly day center working with visitors and preparing "meals on Wheels" dinners for delivery. She has als taken up ceramics and has learned to knit. "I just got a scarf for Christmas, it was the best scarf I ever got..." Keep checking here for any updates and the latest news.

Feel free to e-mail us with questions, comments, and anything that you might like to see here on this site and please don't forget to sign our guest book.

Most of the photos here are a few years old.  We’ll see if we can update them from time to time so please keep coming back.

Melissa was born on March 2, 1980. We’ve placed a lot of photographs and information here on how Melissa’s grown, things she’s accomplished and hurdles she’s had to overcome. We realize that no two children with CHARGE have the same physical, emotional and other problems. But, we know that these children and their parents will experience some of the same things that Melissa, as a child with CHARGE and her parents, having experienced her growing up with this. We hope this will help other parents who are today dealing with CHARGE and also give the encouragement these children need to be able to accomplish things that may seem everyday to others.

We hope this will help other parents to see what kind of things some of these children can accomplish when encouraged. The most important thing we can give to any child is perseverance and the willingness to try. You ‘ll find it may take some a little longer and may not always be 100% but, they will surprise you. Remember they will fail at times. But, we think it’s more important to teach them to deal with failure than to go untried in fear of failure. If you let something you want go untried for fear of failure, you’ve already failed. We’ve seen Melissa accomplish many things that we had doubts about and we believe she can and will have many more accomplishments in her life.

We’ve also placed links to information pages and links to other pages that have inspired us. We hope our page will inspire you.

No, it’s not sideways. That’s just Melissa showing off her personality.

If you have any questions, comments or something you would like to see here
feel free to e-mail us...

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This "CHARGE Syndrome Ring" site is owned by Brian, Kathy and Melissa. Want to join the The CHARGE Syndrome WebRing?
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