Andrea was born with a congenital heart defect. When she was three and a half months old, Andrea received her first of many open-heart surgeries and suffered a stroke. Andrea’s heart defect and first stroke began a lifetime of much needed speech, occupational, and physical therapy services. After recovering almost fully from her first stroke, Andrea underwent another open-heart surgery and this time suffered an even more serious stroke at the age of nine. This stroke completely changed the life of Andrea and our family. Andrea was in a coma for a month and the doctors didn’t think she would live. Fortunately, this strong little girl came through, but her physical abilities were diminished and her speech was lost. With the help of a rehab team, Andrea began to get her physical strength back, but her speech did not return. After years of speech therapy and no return of her speech, Andrea was introduced to various AAC devices by a very special speech-language pathologist, Debbie. Debbie continues to be a very important part of Andrea’s life.

The public school system purchased a device for Andrea to use on loan throughout her school years. When she graduated from high school in 2002, OVR (Occupational Vocational Rehab) purchased Andrea a Pathfinder of her own, which Andrea has named, “Jessica.”

After graduation, Andrea became a volunteer at a local rehabilitation hospital. At the hospital Andrea had many duties, but what she enjoyed the most was visiting the sick patients in their hospital rooms. Andrea has no problem turning a frown upside down and everyone at the hospital knew Andrea. Soon after volunteering at the rehab hospital, Andrea began volunteering her time at a local grade school working with preschool and kindergarten children. It didn’t take long for the students, faculty, and parents to notice the special talent and compassion Andrea had for the children. It was about a year and a half later that Andrea got her first paying job as the Teacher’s Assistant. Andrea loves her job at the school tremendously and is very proud of her own achievements. In conjunction with her many jobs at the school, such as taking attendance using her Pathfinder, Andrea is most proud of being involved with the “Reading Program.” Andrea programs storybooks in her Pathfinder and then reads the books aloud to the children. Andrea has programmed at least 30 books in her device.

I could go on and on about Andrea’s strengths, but I will cut it down to just four: First, is her ability to keep on going and never giving up. She has an incredible will to live. Second, is her fun and loving personality. Her personality is contagious. Third, is her ability to touch the lives of everyone she meets. She is truly inspirational. I have yet to meet a person that Andrea has not touched in one way or another. Lastly, is her incredible ability to use her communication device. I am always amazed to watch Andrea use her device so efficiently. For my wedding, she wrote her maid-of-honor speech on her device. She made everyone, including myself, cry at the reception.

Andrea is not only an AAC hero, but she is my hero as well. Andrea has taught me so much in life that no one else could possibly do. She is the reason why I became a speech-language pathologist. I also feel that she is a hero because she teaches children at a very young age to accept people with disabilities and shows them that even people with disabilities can achieve their own goals and be very successful in life. One of Andrea’s former students won a contest that was titled, “My Hero.” This little boy wrote about Andrea and the use of her “talking computer.”

Andrea has many goals, but the one that stands out in my mind is that she would like to live on her own and be as independent as possible. I believe because of her Pathfinder, she may one day be able to achieve her goal.

Submitted by Selena Melesky
Andrea’s older sister