When doctors recommended that Christa Trinchera’s daughter join a Special Olympics swim team, it came as something of a shock. Yes, the exercise would be therapeutic for Karissa (in addition to having cerebral palsy, then 10-year-old Karissa had just been diagnosed with Stickler syndrome, a rare bone and joint condition). But a near-drowning experience earlier in her childhood had made Karissa deathly afraid of going anywhere near water.

So it was despite her own worries, and her daughter’s fears, that Christa visited the Special Olympics Northern California Web site, connected with Team Elk Grove, and took Karissa to practice one evening. Karissa’s fears dissolved almost immediately as she connected—for the first time—with other kids her age. “When she saw other kids there just like her, she felt really safe and secure,” Christa recalls. “They just accepted her immediately.” Karissa had a ball, and her mom realized something.

“I remember driving home that night,” Christa says, “just crying my eyes out, because for the first time in her whole life, I saw my daughter accepted in a group of kids her own age, giggling and laughing, and just being a pre-teen girl… I had always seen her off by herself or struggling to fit in. That first night at Special Olympics was the first night I ever saw her just completely accepted.”

Besides making friends and meeting the encouragement of coaches (“Her coaches are some of my very closest friends now,” says Christa), Karissa discovered that she is an excellent swimmer. “It’s the one thing that she is really, really good at,” her mom tells me. “She’s almost at an advantage,” Christa says, referring to Karissa’s extremely flexible joints (part of having Stickler syndrome).

Sink and Swim
“At her first swim competition,” her mom recalls, “the pool was 11 feet deep.” Karissa had been practicing in a fairly shallow pool, where she could always touch the bottom. Her mom worried, but Karissa insisted on starting from the blocks. The race started. Karissa dove. And she sank straight down to the bottom. “Like any mom,” Christa says, “I was ready to dive right in after her, but my husband held me back, telling me to, ‘Wait. Just wait a little.’” After a few seconds which felt like hours, Karissa “bounced right back up, took off swimming, and won the gold!” says Christa, the surprise and delight still fresh in her voice.

Now 16, Karissa has enjoyed many triumphs, both in and out of the pool. “She went from being shy and afraid to try new things (because she had always been ridiculed by other kids) to having such confidence,” says Christa. “She is so strong and so sure of who she is, and that would never have happened without Special Olympics… Now when she sees me apprehensive or worried about her, she’ll grab my hand and reassure me, ‘I’m a gold medal-winning athlete. I can handle this – it’s a piece of cake!’”

Karissa and her best friend/teammate tried out for their high school swim team and made it. Both are global messengers for Special Olympics, and the girls went to summer camp together for the first time last year. “That’s a big step for all of us,” says Christa, explaining that she never would have let Karissa go alone. Christa, too, has made friends through Special Olympics. “It’s one of those rare opportunities,” she says, “when parents can meet people who have the same frustrations and experiences that you do and who understand what you’re going through.”