Maureen's Offerings


Hi I'm Maureen. I want to tell you just a snippet about myself.

I reside in Golden Valley, a Minneapolis suburb with my husband Paul, And my Service dog Ally.

The Lord is the center of my life, and it is through Him that I have been able to live with joy and contentment despite some unique challenges.

I was born three months premature and because of that came into this world with retinas that worked only partially and caused me to be legally blind. In addition to my ROP (retinopathy of prematurity) I was also born with a rare bone disease called Osteogenesis Imperfecta. This disease affects the way my body uses collagen. Though the disease has many other symptoms it's chief characteristic is that bones tend to be brittle and break easily. To date I've had a little over 100 fractures.

Despite these disabilities my life has been pretty much like any other persons'. I grew up in Lester Prairie Minnesota, graduated 4th in my class in high school, and went on to college where I obtained a degree in music therapy. After working as a therapist for a few years I attended the University of Minnesota and pursued a Masters degree in medical social work. However my graduate degree was 50% completed when I accepted a job offer to teach amateur radio for the Courage Handi-Ham System. The System is a nonprofit organization which is international in scope and assists disabled people to become licensed amateur radio operators. During the 12 years I worked for them as student coordinator I had the privilege of working with over 4,000 students from all over the world having various disabilities. Though that job was wonderful I grew tired of the constant need to educate people about disability.

Collage of photos of Maureen and her work.

I decided to do something about this lack of knowledge about disabilities and so left my position with the goal of completing my Masters' degree and working in the social services area providing both services and education about disability. But when I had 2 quarters of school left I was involved in a freak elevator accident on campus which caused me to become totally blind within 4 days. This was a devastating blow to me since cataract surgery in 1984 had given me enough vision to watch TV, read print and navigate without a cane or dog guide in familiar places. I felt that without some training to better accommodate my blindness I could not pursue my degree. So I attended Blind Inc, an adjustment to blindness center run by the National Federation of the Blind.

I learned to read Braille proficiently, use a long white cane, and do household tasks such as cooking without vision. Following this I started my own business doing both Braille transcription and public speaking. But again my life journey was slowed down a bit by a car accident in 1996. Because of a number of serious fractures and a spinal cord injury caused by the accident and my bone disease I was left a functional quadriplegic. I have good use of my left hand, a little use of my right hand (Hey! I can't hold things but can type) no use of my legs and very poor trunk muscles which means that I don't sit well enough to transfer out of my electric wheelchair unless I can lay down.

But heck, this hasn't really slowed me down! I'm still busy, speaking to groups, writing music, and doing Braille transcription. Through in all I have learned about the kindness of neighbors, the inaccessibility of much of the world, and the tremendous love God has for His children.

So, that's it. I hope you enjoy snooping around my other pages and do send me an email and let me know what you think of my site.

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