The story of Kevin Surprenant is the story of shaken baby syndrome, six years after the terrible fact.
The shaken baby has become a little boy.
Kevin celebrated his seventh birthday Friday, spending the day with his adopted mother and family. He got his own party and played with his new toy school bus and alphabet game.
He’s a generally happy boy with a good life, largely unaware of his troubled past and the resulting limitations. He is no longer in the household where he was born to a 16-year-old girl, who has since gone on to have three more children.
And he is far away from the man who was her boyfriend, who served two years in prison for the violent head trauma he inflicted on Kevin.
Shaken baby syndrome is a serious brain injury that occurs when an infant or toddler is forcefully shaken, according to the Mayo Clinic. It can result in permanent brain damage or death.
The injury swelled Kevin’s brain and caused both mental and physical challenges for him.
With his Beatles haircut and big eyeglasses, Kevin is well behind children his age. His mental retardation has placed him in special education classes, and his cerebral palsy forces him to wear braces to support his left leg and left arm.
The Decatur boy has learned his ABCs but can hardly write his name.
“He still can’t draw a triangle,” said Michele Surprenant, his adopted mother. “We’ve been working on that for four years.”
Kevin was featured in a September 2005 article on foster care in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. At the time, Surprenant was his foster mother and he was 2 years old. She has since changed his name.
Kevin has progressed much since then, but there have been significant setbacks, as well.
When Kevin first came to her, he had to wear a big white helmet to protect his head. Part of his skull had to be removed to alleviate the brain swelling, and he could maneuver little more than to sit up.
After 97 doctor visits over nine months, Kevin could walk and talk in full sentences.
But the momentum of that early progress has not sustained, his mother said. Back then, she had dreams for his future — that he could develop enough to get a minimal job such as bagging groceries. That he could live on his own some day.
The prognosis, however, has changed. For the past two years, Kevin has suffered from brain atrophy, meaning that his injured brain has reduced in size, pushing him further and further behind other children.
“Yes, it’s a disappointment,” Surprenant said during a recent physical therapy session in Decatur. “I had dreams of what I would do with him.”
She added, “I thought he would understand more of the world by now.”
At Decatur Therapy Solutions, where he goes twice a week, Kevin joyfully jumps up and down on the little trampoline, bats an orange balloon around with a badminton racket and runs to his mother to provide regular updates.
“I don’t want to go on the treadmill,” he told her.
But he loves to ride the specially designed bike that exercises his arms and legs. Surprenant wants to buy him one, but it costs more than $1,000 and money is tight for the part-time hospital social worker.
Surprenant has had to adjust her own dreams for her boy. She realizes now that she will have to care for him for the rest of her life, and she worries about his future.
Still, those concerns often get lost in the daily joys that arise between mother and child. He dressed as Spider-Man for Halloween. He loves to feed his dog, an American bulldog named Joe.
“He’s very loving. ... He makes friends easily. He has a sweet relationship with animals,” she said. “He’s kind of like a bumbling puppy.”
Deep down, she knows she has given him a better life. Most recently, she gave him a sister, Marie, a 3-year-old she recently adopted. Marie was also abused and cannot walk. But she has a high intelligence and is bubbly and social.
“They fight, they make up, they love to hang out with one another,” Surprenant said.
For now, she does not know whether Kevin’s brain atrophy will stop or continue. She is pretty wrapped up in the doctors’ appointments, physical therapy sessions and the everyday ups and downs of mothering.
“The other day, he stepped off the school bus wearing a paper turkey hat,” she said, “and he gave me a hug on my leg.”
Thinking about it, she laughed and gave what only can be described as a mother’s smile.
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