By Janet Nagle
About the article’s author:
Janet Nagle and her husband adopted a beautiful baby boy in 1981. They named him John Vernon Nagle. They knew John had Muscular Dystrophy at the time of the adoption and found out later that it was Duchenne. Below is the story of how their Duchenne journey began.
A Baby Boy!
This was one of the happiest day of our lives.
My husband and I wanted to have a child after ten years of marriage. We found out that we were going to have a baby boy birth by adoption.
I recieved a phone call from the adoption agency one day as I was at work. It was a long road to travel to have this precious baby as our very own. The call was from the adoption agency informing me that a five month old baby boy was up for adoption. I was so excited that I could hardly focus on my work at that point.
Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy
I was also told that there were five others that were selected to be his parents. Fortunately by the grace of God my husband and I were the chosen ones.
As we were told our son had a form of Muscular Dystrophy the day I was called, that made us want him home for us to love and to give him all the love and care that he needed. This picture was the day John Vernon Nagle was going home.
We did later have a muscle biopsy and it was confirmed that our son did indeed have Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. We wanted him that much more.
No Cure
It was a hope that a cure would be found during his lifetime but it was not meant to be. John lost his fight on April 29th, 2007. John was with us to love and care for twenty-six years.
We have so many memories of our angel. I never told him goodbye. My last words were, “I will see you later.” John was truly God’s gift to us both.
We would do it all over again if we had the chance.