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North Stafford mother wasn't satisfied with the reports she heard from doctors, so she kept looking for help, until her quest led her to alternative therapies. Date published: 10/8/2004 By CATHY DYSON FOR FOUR YEARS, Theresa Milner searched for a doctor who could help her daughter. She heard the same discouraging diagnosis from 17 different physicians, who looked at little Lacey and said nothing would improve her condition. The baby girl, and third child of Theresa and Edward Milner of North Stafford, had been diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Doctors said her brain was damaged, either during birth or when she was in the womb, and she simply wouldn't develop as other children do. Lacey had grown so slowly by her fourth birthday that she wore the clothes of an 18-month-old. She couldn't sit up or hold a crayon, and she barely spoke. She was a baby in arms and probably always would be, said one specialist, who told Milner to stop "doctor shopping" and accept her daughter the way she was. Milner couldn't. The little voice inside her kept telling her to keep looking, that the girl she'd always wanted was capable of more. Besides, if she accepted the notion that her daughter would never get any better, she'd be giving up, and that wasn't part of Milner's makeup, according to friends. "She's always been a fighter, she's never been a quitter," said Cathy Morton, a Maryland woman who has known Milner since childhood. "I don't think she's ever thrown up her hands and said, 'I can't do this anymore.' Never ever, not her." A 1,200-mile trip to the doctorMilner's quest led her to a clinic halfway across the country in Houston, Texas. There she met Dr. Gail Henry, a specialist in chiropractic neurology, a field outside the realm of traditional medicine. Chiropractors don't have medical degrees, prescribe medicine or perform surgery. They deal more with manual adjustments of the spine and physical manipulations, according to the American Chiropractic Association. Chiropractic neurologists also use physical therapies to stimulate the brain to send messages to the rest of the body. During Lacey's first appointment with Henry in August 2000, the doctor used several methods Milner had never seen before. She held a metronome, a device that measures time in music, against Lacey's ear. The steady click-click-click would help give Lacey's brain a rhythm, the doctor said.
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