When Taylor Sanders was born, she had a stroke.
Diagnosed with monoplegic infantile cerebral palsy, doctors told Taylor’s parents that she couldn’t walk, she couldn’t do things her peers could do and she couldn’t live a normal life.
(Michael Murillo/Staff Photo)
So her parents gave up. Specifically, they gave up on words like “couldn’t.”
“We had a No. 1 rule. The ‘C’ word was not allowed in our house, and that’s ‘can’t’ or ‘cannot,’” said Taylor’s mother, Vanessa Sanders.
Now, 15 years later, the focus is on all the things Taylor can do. She can walk. She can make friends and fit right in at Zephyrhills High School. And, like many students, she can be an athlete, too.
Taylor is in her second season on the school’s swim team. And before anyone even thought about giving her special treatment when she joined, her mother eliminated that possibility on the first day.
“I went to coach (Karen Cooley) the very first day of practice, and I told her what she has,” Sanders said. “I said that there isn’t anything that she cannot do. Anything that you request the team do, I ask you to request that Taylor do the same.”
Cooley accepted those terms happily, and ended up with a productive, contributing team member.
“She’s an awesome member of the team,” Cooley said. “She’s a leader. She likes to be involved and she’s very creative.”
Taylor is supportive of her teammates, and is good at taking direction and working hard to get better, Cooley said. As a result, her technique, form and times have improved since she joined the team.
Being on the team allows Taylor to challenge herself and others while doing something she enjoys in a supportive group setting.
“I’ve always loved swimming since I was little,” Taylor said. “And I have a very competitive attitude, so competing while I’m doing something I love is just amazing.”
The team, she said, is her family. “Ever since I started, they’ve accepted me like nothing was ever wrong.”
Being an athlete might be a challenge for Taylor physically, but it’s also in her genes. Vanessa Sanders was a softball player in high school and college, and still competes to this day. Her father, Scott Sanders, was a golfer in college. Disability or not, they wanted Taylor to experience the camaraderie of team competition, and the benefits and challenges that come with competing in sports.
While she enjoys the competition, her cerebral palsy has made Taylor used to more painful challenges outside the pool. Her hips were growing at the wrong angle due to learning to walk in an unorthodox way, and she would fall up to 10 times on a daily basis. But two surgeries in the past year has helped reduce her pain, limited her falls dramatically, and allowed her to live somewhat more comfortably.
The only drawback in Taylor’s mind? It set her back in the pool, and her times aren’t where she wants them to be.
“Because of my surgeries, I’ve kind of started back to day one all over again,” she said.
But Hannah Cutkomp, a teammate and captain, is impressed with how far Taylor has come in her time with the team.
“There’s been a drastic change from what I’ve seen from last year. She’s swimming so much better,” Cutkomp said. “She’s an amazing teammate.”
If Taylor is focused and determined while swimming, she’s just as tenacious when she’s on dry land. She plays guitar for fun, but graphic design and animation is her calling.
The sophomore already is accumulating college scholarships with an eye on the best schools to help her with that career. She even wants to raise money for a trip to California to visit legendary graphic studios Dreamworks Studios and Pixar Animation Studios to get real-world perspective on the industry.
That kind of focus is just part of who she is.
“When I find something I love, I run with it,” Taylor said.
And her parents are proud to see the results of raising her without words like “can’t” in her vocabulary. They’re also vocal supporters at her swim meets, with her mother getting overwhelmed seeing Taylor accomplish so much when doctors warned them to expect so little.
“I cry every single time,” Vanessa Sanders said. “Every time.”
Published September 24, 2014
See this story in print: Click Here
