Lacey Buchanan

Blog

Leading the Blind

On February 18th, 2011, our lives were changed forever when our son Christian Taylor Buchanan entered the world. He was born with a bilateral cleft palate and lip and almost completely blind. This blog is the story of his life, the joys we share, the challenges we encounter, and the amazing and trying journey ahead of our family!

Christian's bio in short - had to write this for something else and wanted to post it here!


Christian is a happy little boy who loves life. His favorite things are his Mama, his Nana, swimming, and music. He loves playing musical instruments, especially piano, guitar and drums, although as of yet he is still learning melody! :)

Christian was born with a birth defect called Tessier cleft lip and palate. This birth defect has only about 50 documented cases in the world. Christian's classification of Tessier cleft caused his eyes to cleft as well as his mouth, which means that he is blind.

Christian has had 3 surgeries so far and faces dozens more to repair his cleft. He has defeated all the odds and defied what doctors have said over and over. We were told that Christian wouldn't live once he was born. Not only did he live, he is a thriving and healthy little boy. We were told that Christian would be mentally impaired as well. Christian has proven to be smarter than many kids his age who have sight. Christian has never let his disability define who he is, or allow it to hold him back!

Our journey has not been an easy one, but it's definitely been worth every minute and every step we've taken. It's been hard dealing with people's reactions to Christian's appearance. We've had people stare or make rude comments to us about the way he looks many, many times. But recently, I posted a video to YouTube about our journey and how amazing Christian is, and the response has been amazing! Around 11 million people have watched the video and Christian's life has changed lives all over the world. Thousands of people have contacted me to let me know how Christian has touched them and helped them in some way.

I know that Christian is fearfully and wonderfully made, and that God's plans for him are so good! I am so proud of Christian for everything he has accomplished in his short life, and I can't wait to see all God has in store for him!

Cleft Lip & Palate Foundation of Smiles

As you may have seen in a recent post, I have been asked to be on the Board of Directors for the Cleft Lip & Palate Foundation of Smiles. I am so honored to accept this position and I can't wait to get the ball rolling and dive in! I thought it might be appropriate to let everyone know a ...

Surgery, Hospitals, and All That Yucky Medical Stuff

I love writing in my blog, and even more I love that people are reading about my family and enjoying and being inspired! Someone asked me to elaborate on Christian's surgeries, which  led into me realizing that a lot of people don't know much about Christian's actual condition. "Cleft lip and palate" isn't really an accurate word to describe it ...

Team Christian T-Shirts

Many people have noticed the Team Christian shirts in some of my Facebook pictures and asked how they could get one. I debated trying to package and ship shirts, and didn't really want to get into that. I sold them locally for a fund raiser for Special Kids in March and it was difficult enough trying to get them to ...

Raising A Child Who Can't See

Our family - Raising a Child Who Can't SeeAfter Christian was born and we realized that he was blind, it was devastating to say the least. Our initial reaction was absolute heartbreak. We didn't know what we were going to do or how we were going to manage raising a child who couldn't see. We had no experience or background ...

Donations

As you might notice, to the right of this blog post is a new button. I am not one to ask people for money - EVER. But since so many people have asked me how they can contribute to Christian, my IT guy hooked me up and helped me create a button where people can donate directly to our PayPal account. ...
Copyright © Lacey Buchanan 2024. All Rights Reserved.