Faith McLuckie’s Health Messenger Highlight

Athlete Leadership, Health & Wellness, Healthy Athletes

Faith McLuckie has been a Special Olympics Montgomery County Maryland athlete since 2007. Throughout the years she has participated in track, kayaking, golf, cheerleading, tennis, bowling, and basketball. She also serves as an Athlete Leader and Health Messenger. Her goals in life are to be independent and active and to be the good person to all her friends. She became a Health Messenger because she likes to see her friends in Special Olympics staying active and having fun. When she is not participating in sports, one of her favorite activities is walking her dog, Snowball. Faith used to have a fear of dogs, but she conquered her fear! Snowball is a great walking partner and has helped Faith stay healthy and feel more confident.

“I was born with hydrocephalus. That means I have too much fluid in my brain and it causes pressure that is dangerous and painful. So when I was just three days the doctors had to go into my brain and put in a shunt to drain the fluid. A shun is a tube that goes from my brain to my chest or my abdomen and drains the fluid so it can be absorbed into my body. For me it worked for a while, but then it would get clogged up and fail, and they would have to do another surgery. I had a lot of surgeries all my life. I can’t count how many, but I was always a happy kid and now I’m a happy adult and I just have to deal with the surgery and then go on with my life. I also have seizure disorder. When I was little I had a lot of seizures, but luckily for me now my seizures are controlled by medication. The last year and a half have been challenging because my shunt tube kept breaking and I had to have a lot of surgeries and I had to drop out of all of my sports for a while. It’s a bummer but I have a lot of other activities and that helps me get through it with my friends and my parents and my dog supporting me.”

– Faith McLuckie

Strong Minds