Meghan King announces son Hart, two, has cerebral palsy

Meghan King revealed on World Cerebral Palsy Day, which fell on Wednesday, that her two-year-old son Hart has the illness.

The child was diagnosed only this Tuesday, slightly over a year after Meghan revealed he had the rare brain disorder periventricular leukomalacia (PVL).

‘So his specific diagnosis is hypotonic cerebral palsy which essentially means that his muscles are loose or floppy,’ she said in an Instagram video. In the caption to her post she added: ‘I am choosing to celebrate what makes Hart different.’

Meghan shares Hart, his twin brother Hayes and their three-year-old sister Aspen with Jim Edmonds whom she is in the process of divorcing.

Last July amid Jim’s cheating scandal she revealed Hart had PVL, writing on her blog that he had ‘irreversible brain damage’ and was at risk of cerebral palsy.

Since his diagnosis with PVL last year Hart has undergone treatments including physical therapy and the use of a hyperbaric chamber. 

When she was finally told this Tuesday that he does have the condition she was ‘shocked’ to discover she was ‘totally unfazed.’

She explained her reaction in her Instagram video: ‘I knew that Hart has CP and had it and it was just a matter of you know getting that name to it.’

Meghan also shared that ‘you can reconfigure the neuro-pathways within your brain, my brain, anyone’s brain to learn to do things that the active parts of the brain wouldn’t normally have to learn how to do.’

She noted that ‘what I did was through help of therapy and these amazing therapists teach Hart how to walk and how to perform other physical skills by using different parts of his brain. Now it’s not natural but his brain was able to rewire in those ways and learn those skills with a lot extra work.’

The former Real Housewife Orange County star reflected that ‘diagnosis’ was ‘a hard-hitting word’ and pointed out that Hart will now be ‘known as officially, you know, a kid with a disability and that can be very heavy.’

Meghan recounted a story of being at a Trader Joe’s checkout line with Hart, who ‘kinda moves a lot’ even while standing still as one of his symptoms.

Another woman in the line who was ‘not being mean’ asked him genuinely if he was dancing and when he realized her misconception, he began to actually dance.

What this meant to Meghan was that ‘he is not the kinda kid to internalize somebody else’s preconceived notion or idea of what his you know physical behavior looks like, which looks like dancing, which is really standing.’

She said: ‘He’s not thinking: “Oh, shoot, I’m looking – that looks weird, that looks silly.” He’s thinking: “Oh, she thinks I’m dancing! Well, I’m not but I’m going to.”‘

Meghan confessed it can be ‘frustrating for me as a parent to look at my kid and know that his brain is working in a way that I cannot possibly understand.’

Hart can have trouble verbalizing his thoughts because of problems moving his tongue, resulting in ‘temper tantrums’ when he grows ‘frustrated.’ 

However he is ‘cognitively typical’ which is to say ‘his brain learns normally, you know whatever normal means. He perhaps can overcome some of those behaviors that should be social norms because he understands what is normal or looks normal and so he can adapt in those ways.’

She argued: ‘You know, you can react in a lot of different ways and it’s important – I wanna stress this – it’s important to feel all those ways.’

Meghan said: ‘If you are sad, cry. If you’re angry, scream. If you’re frustrated, if you’re jealous, feel those feelings, okay? Feel all of them. But you have to change your mindset, because without changing your mindset as a conscious decision you will continue to wallow in what could have been or you know what others have.’

She added: ‘Do I wish my son didn’t have CP? Yes, of course! Of course. His life would not have the same challenges that he’s going to have but you know what? All of my kids will have challenges. They will all have challenges.’

‘Something I’ve learned is that a diagnosis isn’t limiting, people are. We are all born beautiful and perfect and then we learn we are too fat, too short, too ugly, too inept, too… everything,’ Meghan wrote in the caption of her video.

‘We place others in boxes dependent on their labels and we unconsciously allow ourselves to live within those boxes: woman, college graduate, high-school dropout, professional athlete, Cerebral Palsy.’

She wrote: ‘I am choosing to celebrate what makes Hart different and raise my children with the encouragement to live their lives out loud and to never let their differences limit or define them. So today we CELEBRATE World Cerebral Palsy Day.’