Breaking Barriers

Taking off in the Blue Valley Southwest pool during the invitational swim meet, junior Travis Collins tried not to focus on his legs. This was only the second time he had swam the 500-meter freestyle in a meet, and he wanted to prove that he could do it. Collins was born 12 weeks premature and had minor medical issues. When he was around the age of three, doctors had to place a ventriculoperitoneal...

Squeezing a nearby nurse’s hand, senior Whitney Epps counted backwards from 10, all while surgeons carefully removed a seizure-causing lesion from her brain. Whitney first noticed symptoms of the seizures in seventh grade. Initially, only her face was affected, occasionally clenching up and going numb. By freshman year, she experienced fully developed seizures in which the right side of her bo...

Walking out of her heart exam, freshman Grace Lovett never expected to exit with news of having an abnormal hole in her heart. However, this unexpected experience had a drastic effect on her future outlook. The trouble began when a company called Athletic Testing Solutions provided an exam at De Soto High School that tested the function of Grace's heart. After Grace's baby sister had a heart murmu...

In preparation for a musical rehearsal, sophomore Marissa Olin takes a deep breath and briefly closes her eyes in concentration before performing her set of vocal exercises. Ever since she learned to speak, Marissa has had to deal with a lateral lisp, which is a speech impediment that causes air to flow out of the sides of her mouth instead of straight through the front. The lisp makes it particularly...

After the first couple months of their AP Studio Art class, art teacher Erica Crist looked at her student, sophomore Tyler Orbin, in shock at the information she just heard. She was unable to come up anything to say except for, “Wait, you’re colorblind?” Tyler was born with red-green colorblindness, a condition that, according to Tyler, is hereditary but usually skips a generation. With the condi...

It was just another day in the middle of October for every other student, but senior Sara Pietig felt nervous walking into school for the first time. She had just moved, in the middle of her sophomore year, from the only place she had ever lived — Plymouth, Minnesota. “[Mill Valley] was a little different,” Sara said. “I wasn’t comfortable because it was hard. I felt sad because we wer...

After experiencing symptoms of mononucleosis for nearly three months over the summer of 2014, junior Claire Rachwal went to a doctor to determine why she had been sick for such a long period of time. The results lead Rachwal’s doctor to the conclusion that she not only had mononucleosis, but had genetically contracted Crohn’s syndrome from her father. Crohn’s syndrome is a condition where a...

The school fight song, “On Mill Valley,” rings proudly throughout the football stadium as the marching band strides orderly along the track to their designated seats in the bleachers. Among the sea of midnight blue band hats is freshman percussionist Matthew Santaularia. Ever since he was a child, Matthew has been fascinated with the marching band, and it was a dream of his to someday be a part...

Junior Seohee Shin arrived in Kansas City in 2009, a place full of unfamiliar faces, new cultures, and a new language. Shin moved to Kansas from South Korea in fifth grade, not knowing anyone except for her family and unable to speak English fluently. According to Shin, learning English was hard because of the large differences in phrasing and common expressions. “I knew basic English words [when I moved]...

At six months old, sophomore Ike Valencia was using sign language to sign the words, “milk,” “cookie” and ”more”; by kindergarten, he was better at signing than he was at speaking, reading or writing. Ike’s parents, Bob and Debbie Valencia, worked to ensure American Sign Language was his first language and natural for him, because his mom was born deaf. Having a family member who is deaf has defin...

Pulling her insulin pump out from her waistband, freshman Kaylee West checks her blood sugar range between classes, one of the many things she must do as a result of having Type 1 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes, also referred to as insulin-dependent diabetes, is an incurable disease which results from the pancreas failing to producing insulin. Kaylee was diagnosed when she was nine. Experts believe that...

During her freshman year, senior cross country and track runner Ellie Wilson began experiencing pain in her feet during the cross country season. Her feet would begin to hurt at practice and fall asleep when she was running. “I kind of assumed something was wrong, but I didn’t really care because I just wanted to finish the season,” Wilson said. After an MRI, Wilson found out she had stress fr...