if you could send one message to the world what would it be one message would be that you don't have to change yourself and you need to show who you are and be yourself I can tell they're talking about this makes me a little bit emotional why does it I have a lot to be thankful for welcome to SBS K join me as I travel around the world an interview individuals living with a condition to prove no matter how you communicate but what obstacles you face you're always deserving of love and acceptance so without hesitation
let's meet today's friend what are you thankful for this house my animals my gecko and my family some days I'm not not thankful and they should be why were you drawn to adopt somebody who's living with the same condition finally reason I have a very unique perspective on how we grow up and on the world and I think we wanted to just share that with our child did more than just sharing it with stories but you know tell her through the same struggles that we had to deal with this younger this morning I said I
love you mum and they love you dad and they love me grandma and see that pretty much every day why mr. Milan we've been waiting about two and a half years to get an easy and finally they said you can come down and just meet her Oh always remember she was sitting outside the front of this kind of like yellowish building and she was in her stroller and um she was sitting there her bags were packed and she was ready to go oh she didn't want to look back do you remember the first time you
met them my parents yes yes I do and it was it was just so amazing and I was happy to have a family and I could just see the gates opening and I knew that everything was going to change I was happy I just really want to do you part some of our life wisdom with having Ally Chris and I both have had so many experiences that we want to share that with the child and maybe make it easier growing up for them what is it like to have parents who live with the same condition
like having a regular normal family um they know how to push you through your life and how to I like to feed you in the morning and it's pretty normal she has physical challenges and we all do we both deal with that but mentally we want her to be happy yeah I'm to be passionate about you know something with school and with a professional in the future what is your diagnosis um my diagnosis is osteogenesis imperfecta it's a brittle bone disease and I can break a bone very easy just by coughing being and this morning
I was getting out of bed and I broke my rib well crack my rib but I didn't cry because I been through that Oh time my whole life my mom always says that when you get older it gets easier and and it does get easier you're young you break a lot when you um when you're you know five six seven years old you break a lot how many bones have you broken um about between 150 and 200 and then as you go to puberty mature and things like that it happens less and I often say
I don't know if it's because your bones actually get stronger or the person gets smarter I don't know what was it like growing up in an orphanage um growing up in an orphanage it's pretty difficult um the kids usually don't really pay attention to you that much especially when you're different than them she is so so courageous and um good and it just so many ways and not just the ways like you see here you know um talking about her past it's tough for her and she did an excellent job and it's something that's very
rare she doesn't do for a lot of people so it was pretty special that she was able to communicate what she did here is it hard for you to talk about the first seven years of your life yes it is very hard to talk about that just because of you know my birth parent and my birth mom wasn't always wasn't there for me all the time and now my mom is and it's hard to talk about that because now I have a good family and I don't need to go back in the past you know
what's the number-one thing the world needs to understand about you I'm that I'm no different hey I need to feel normal and and not different just because I'm in a wheelchair or I'm small nobody says hi or nobody looks at me or sometimes people like little kids they're like I'm on one of my god and I went to the to the movies one kid said hey there's a fat guy you know bleep in a wheelchair and he's so small and very unstable I wanted to punch that kid uh-huh but you know that's how kids are
and I think that you know pad should be aware that when somebody makes your Caesar family for the first time what do you hope they understand um I want them to understand that we have the same feelings and go through the same stuff as every other family goes through right you know we're just a normal family sure we have some special challenges but we can all we get through them right yeah we're just a normal normal family that struggles with the same stuff yeah mm-hmm do you believe the world is a good place or a
bad place I think it's an in-between place because I think that people should be more aware of what's around them and they should be more aware of the people that are different but I also think that it's good because they have Chinese food and I like Chinese food we have some interesting ways of doing various things that other people take for granted mm-hmm you think I'm probably most every day thing is dropping something on the ground you guys mean walkers quote-unquote they just leaned down and pick it up no problem don't even think twice about
it but for us it's really a kind of pain could you explain what this is this is a Reacher I'm not gonna hit you this helps us my they take things up like for instance paper tip that's really flap we have these Reapers all over the house where we read stuff and we have purl and we have yep perlers served our dog this is a customer I need service done mmm can pick up everything before us now so that's really a wonderful thing and my mom she pushes me to do things she pushes me to
be myself and and it's amazing we had some things made for us here in the apartment the most important thing to me is the kitchen I do a lot of cooking I love cooking I want the counter I want the stove to be down where an AC can reach it the bathroom counter so that she can possibly be as independent you know she can be as independent as possible I want her to cook I want her to do the dishes that all that kind of stuff it's important my grandma is it's this crazy woman and
she's so funny and she always makes me laugh in my mom last minute I saw her I fell in love I knew that that you were it that she was gonna be my granddaughter and uh yeah we you know I I hugged her and smoke straw around she probably thought oh god who are you yeah get away from me but um yeah I I knew that that she was going to become the joy of my life my dad used to work at NASA and then if you moved to Lockheed to live with my mom and
to be with her as your dad told you to be yourself all the time all the time he says things like I may see you are who you are and you you can't change that and to put yourself out there and you need to show who you are I mean you need to be yourself and and that's it that will get you far and what's your biggest hope my biggest hope it's for people Walker's to think of us differently what could the public do to make you feel more included I think that people should have
more handicap doors or buttons and I love when there's that because it just helps me to be independent and not always ask for things there are some ways people treat you differently that they might not even notice they're doing um one is that they might talk in really high voice and be like oh hi sweetie or something like that or um or they look down and they kneel and not a huge fan of that because it makes us look smaller and I know that we're smaller part having them kneel like that it just doesn't feel
do you find it easy to make new friends um sometimes I'm a little shy but you know um people kind of find me like my friend Maci she just kind of came up to me and I was sitting all alone at lunch and she said hey I'm gonna sit here you know I'm gonna sit here and and I don't want you to go and and then she just kept rambling on and on about her and I that's the best thing that's ever happened to me one of the best things when somebody sees you for the
first time what do you hope they think um I want them to think that it's okay to cry because my family always cries and everybody cries in the world and sometimes at a price and sometimes it's at guys and whatever it is like however you feel watching this that it's okay and we're we're a good family word we are always there for each other and yeah you're very close you're very connected um yeah even with it easy on me and my mom as well we kind of are all on the same vibe right so we
understand each other a lot bye is she English name each other a lot and that makes things nice how important is family to you family's family is so so important and my mom is my idol and my grandma and my god and if they were not in my life I don't know what I would do thanks for watching if you appreciate what we're doing and want to see SBS K grow make sure to LIKE comment and subscribe this will help us reach even more people and make the world a better place thank you when someone
meets you for the first time how do you hope they greet you just like how you can you said hi and then you just mind your business and yeah so you mean like a normal person yes like a normal person like shaking of the hands and and saying hi
