Liam had not yet been born when doctors gave his mother the hardest news.
At the 22-week scan, in Cincinnati, they discovered he had an encephalocele: a rare malformation in which part of the brain protrudes outside the skull. He was born in March 2023 and was immediately taken to the neonatal ICU, where he needed oxygen to stabilize. At just one month old, he underwent his first brain surgery for severe hydrocephalus.
In September, at six months old, he spent 11 hours in the operating room having the encephalocele removed and his skull reconstructed. He was hospitalized for 11 days and could not open his eyes during the first week. Then came the diagnosis of cerebral palsy, a permanent condition that affects mobility and coordination.
But Liam kept making progress. Between occupational, speech, feeding, aquatic, and music therapies, he learned to walk, talk, and eat without a feeding tube. Hannah, his 32-year-old mom, celebrates every small achievement as a victory and sums it up this way: “This isn’t the life I imagined, but it’s more beautiful than I dreamed”.
