vMS WHEELCHAIR continued from page 17 need help because they want to do it themselves but then for other people it’s kind of nice if you ask to help,” she said. “I’ll be at WalMart and there will be things on the top shelf I can’t reach so I’ll ask someone who’s walking by to grab it for me. Some people look straight at you so you know they heard you and they still walk right on by. I prefer that they ask because then I can say, ‘no thanks, I’ve got it but thanks for asking,’ but it’s kind of a play-by-play situation. It’s better to ask and be rejected than not ask.” Eisenbraun was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy when she was nine months old and learned the importance of selfadvocacy at an early age. “Pretty much cerebral palsy is when you have bleeding in the brain and I have very tight muscle spasticity,” she said. “It’s difficult for me to walk and balance and do things like that. Like I was the only person in a wheelchair in the entire school district and I got picked on a lot. In my school district I didn’t have a bathroom that was wheelchair accessible for me to use in elementary school until my last year there. They said things like, ‘We don’t have to do this, we don’t want to do this.’ We had to constantly have South Dakota Advocacy on the phone. We had to have a physical copy of the ADA at our house to take to the school and say, ‘Where in here does it say you don’t have to do this?’” Eisenbraun learned to stand up for herself all the way through high school graduation. “They knew about me since when I was in the birth to three category so they knew about me before I came to kindergarten,” she said. “They still wanted me to accept my diploma on the floor while everyone else was on stage. No, that was not going to happen. I did everything they did and I shouldn’t have to accept it down here while they’re up there. It was a simple fix. They went and rented a ramp from a hotel.” Eisenbraun’s peers were also very negative in addition to the school district being unhelpful. “I had to learn to have a big backbone and stand up for myself,” she said. “I learned that the school district wasn’t going to help. They were better when I was in high school because I had a different special ed teacher. She was very much into helping me become as independent as I could be.” Programs like Vocational Rehabilitation, Catch the Wave and Youth Leadership Forum also helped Eisenbraun find her voice. “After YLF I went home and I was talking to my special education teacher and told her how we were talking about how it’s important to run our own IEP meetings. She had been going to different special education conferences and she thought it would be a good idea for me to run my own IEP She helped me . put together an agenda and I put together a Powerpoint.” From then on, Eisenbraun took charge of her meetings, making sure her voice was heard, listing her strengths and weaknesses and how she felt about herself. “Then I listed my current goals then after each goal I would explain how I felt about that goal, whether I liked it or whether I wanted to try something new,” she said. “After I was done explaining how I felt then the rest of the team put their input in. That way my voice was being heard.” Eisenbraun emphasized that change is possible if you are willing to take charge. “I want everyone to know that if you don’t like services you’re getting in high school you have the right to research other services and figure out if there’s something better for you,” she said. “It was my very first IEP meeting that I ran by myself with the help of my parents and special education teacher that I actually fired my physical therapist because they were not meeting my needs. This wasn’t something I did just by myself. I made sure I consulted other people in my life.” Eisenbraun continued to work with Vocational Rehabilitation counselors to help her find success in her college education. “I graduated in May from Southwestern Minnesota State,” she said. “I moved to Sioux Falls in August and got crowned in September. I was going to look for a job but then I realized how much was involved in this Ms Wheelchair stuff. I’m somewhere at least two to three times a week speaking whether it’s to Senator Rounds or mayors in towns, newspapers, Department of Human Services or whatever. It would be difficult to take that time off with a brand new job. So I decided to take this year with Ms Wheelchair my full time job. So my whole job this year vMS WHEELCHAIR continued on page 31 Honoring the life of your loved one... • Sensitivity • Compassion • Respect Tami We’re here for you... Guiding and serving families with compassion and trust. Funeral Home & Crematory, Yankton Memorial Resource Center, Tyndall • Memorial Chapels, Tabor, Menno & Tyndall 665-9679 • 1-800-495-9679 • www.opsahl-kostelfuneralhome.com Penny Somer HERVOICEvMAY/JUNE 2016v29