Southwest Plans Sweet Surprise for 11-Year-Old Girl Returning Home After Surgery for Rare Syndrome
On the morning of Dec. 8, 2011, Kerry and Chris Lynch welcomed Mary Cate into the world. It was only moments after her arrival, though, that they began to understand that something was wrong. Mary Cate was whisked away…
On the morning of Dec. 8, 2011, Kerry and Chris Lynch welcomed Mary Cate into the world. It was only moments after her arrival, though, that they began to understand that something was wrong.
Mary Cate was whisked away to the neonatal intensive care unit, and by that evening, her concerned parents had a diagnosis: Apert syndrome.
The condition is marked by extra bones and cartilage, which causes fused digits and a misshapen skull. Apert syndrome is so rare (only around 25 children are born with it in the U.S. every year) that mom Kerry couldn’t find much information on it at all — but she did her best to correct that as they went forward by blogging and posting about their journey.
While Mary Cate may look different and struggles with some milestones, she has many of the typical interests of her peers. By age 2, she’d visited many classrooms as part of an effort to help schoolchildren become more understanding and accepting of differences like hers.
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“This is our life,” Kerry Lynch said, according to DNA Info. “We are not going to hide. We are not going to hide her.”
Surgery is a big part of Mary Cate’s life, as her skull does not grow as her brain does, which can cause a long list of complications. She’s now 11 years old, and in September she went in for another surgery that required her to travel from her home in Chicago to Dallas