May 28, 2007 - 05:08:44 CDT
She had to make extra plans for graduation - like how she would be able to manage making it up the steps to get her diploma at Mandan High School's Sunday graduation at Faris Field.Because she has those crutches, and that cerebral palsy.
But there's nothing wrong with Chelsi Collins' mind, and so she made the necessary plans, communicated with the principal, got someone to assist. Basically, got it all figured out.
Like she nearly always does, say her parents.
She's going to be off to college soon, to study psychology. And she took care of what needed to be done there, too - doing such things as making her own doctors' appointments for needed immunizations and so on, said her mom, Becky Collins.
But first she had to graduate.
So at 2 p.m. Sunday at Faris Field, Mother Nature, an apparent fan of the Class of 2007, was cooperating.
She offered a blue sky. And warmth, but not too much warmth, so that sitting in the sun was pleasure rather than pain. Puffs of breeze early on played with a music stand near the podium, causing it to rotate like a weather beacon at times near the speakers' platform. But the wind got tired of playing and died off as as the important roll call of more than 200 names drew near.
Graduation speakers talked about the importance of overcoming obstacles. Cassandra Kelsch, class president and basketball player, talked about her athletic injuries, and how overcoming them made her a stronger person.
"Dreams can come true if we have the courage to make them,"she said.
A couple speakers later, and it was time.
When the name Chelsi Anna Collins was called, there was a pause, and then a couple more. She had an obstacle to overcome.
First was to get up out of her motorized wheelchair, with some help from two adults. Then she had to steady herself on her crutches, and start moving on wobbly legs, and leaning forward as if fighting a head wind. She had about 20 feet to travel through grass, and did so, mainly by herself. And then there were three steps and a guard rail on both sides that she grabbed and let her crutches go. She swayed up the steps, and there were hundreds of quiet people watching. As she made it to the top, great applause.
She didn't have to do it that way. She had been given the option to get her diploma without the stair climbing. But she insisted.
She has spent years putting in extra effort. For every two hours of homework other students did, she did three to four hours, because her motor skills, her slow writing speed, made it so.
"She did three to four hours of homework religiously a night,"her mom remembers.
In class, she couldn't keep up with note-taking and listening to the information at the same time. Eventually, teachers decided to provide the notes, so she could just focus on the lectures.
She thinks there are a lot of kids, such as kids she has seen in hospitals during her 10 surgeries, who have it worse than she does.
But she misses the little things. Like how she's never been able to make it up to the top row of bleachers to watch a game. And she'd really like to travel to Texas. That's because she'd like to leave the land of snow and ice for safer walking terrain.
But her mother, Becky Collins, 40, comptroller for the city of Mandan, isn't quite ready to let go, and so Chelsi's plans to immediately leave the area and head south changed.
"I told her, 'Wait a minute, you have to wean me off for about a year'," Becky Collins said and laughed.
So Chelsi Collins is going to attend Bismarck State College this fall instead, her ultimate goal to study psychology. But she didn't want to live at home.
She wanted to see how much she could do on her own, said her dad, Eddie Collins, who's a counselor at the Youth Correctional Center.
"She tries to do everything on her own," Eddie Collins said. "She wants to see what she can do on her own."
So she will live in a dorm on campus in a handicapped-accessible room.
Eddie Collins said it's a little worrisome. But the Mandan family, parents and two siblings, won't be far away. And actually, sometimes the parents will be quite close. Eddie Collins is an assistant coach for the BSC Mystics basketball team. And Becky Collins will be there off and on, too, when she teaches an accounting class there.
Chelsi Collins' reluctant legs can make it several city blocks before she tires. And Eddie Collins said when winter hits, BSC is good about cleaning off the sidewalks, and she can use her motorized wheelchair then.
She knows about falling. For a while, she was slipping and falling almost daily at Mandan High School as she tried to traverse the area where high school swimmers entered the school after swimming at the Mandan Community Center. Eventually, she had to change her route.
The rubber tips on her crutches aren't dependable when they hit water, or snow or ice.
"Winters are really rough,"Eddie Collins said.
That's why Texas, among other reasons, remains appealing and is still the future goal.
Chelsi Collins said it was when she was in sixth grade that she made a realization. No one played with her at recess as she sat in her wheelchair and watched the other kids play basketball.
"It kind of hurt,"she said, about being alone.
Collins remembers that her sixth-grade teacher didn't like that she spent recess alone and had the students sign up, if they wanted to, to take a day each to play with her during recess. Only two kids didn't sign up, she remembers.
"It made me uncomfortable," Collins said about the idea of kids having to sign up to play with her.
And she remembers thinking she was responsible for changing that.
"I have to stick up for myself and be outspoken,"she remembers telling herself.
And now, she's taking steps.
(Reach reporter Virginia Grantier at 250-8254 or at virginia.grantier@;bismarcktribune.com.)
Applause wrote on May 28, 2007 7:50 PM:
Kathy Maier wrote on May 28, 2007 8:13 AM:
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