5K Your Way

My name is Jhazmin and I'm Martin's mother.

Martin has autism,

he's epileptic, and he has a trach for his lung failure.

When Martin was six months old, he started at Easterseals.

There have been a lot of ups and downs.

Wonderful moments and sad ones.

We’ve all felt sadness because of his situation.

The doctor said he could never get off of his machine...

could never do anything in life.

From the beginning they said that he would never

be able to walk and yet he still gets up and walks.

So I think when we see him in that wheelchair,

we knew he was going to get up and start walking again.

My goal for him and his family's goal was just to get him more...

get his endurance up, get him to be able to

run around with his sisters and a big thing was the bike.

It's important for their social development

and for him to feel like a regular kid,

and we started him on the bicycle here in the clinic,

and I just saw and mom saw how happy he was.

My son is very strong.

Since he was born, he’s been fighting

and now he’s stronger than ever.

I am proud of my son and proud to be his dad.

We've been through so much

that it's just like we've grown together

and we've grown stronger together.

We've become a family full of people who are compassionate.

The rest of the family just likes to see him happy.

I trust Easterseals.

I've been with them for eight and a half years.

They've raised him just as much as I've raised him.

They have not just taught him, they've taught me

who has taught my girls.

I feel like we are who we are because

of all these diagnoses and Easterseals.