Case Study #79 - Cindy Making Homemade Runzas

"Cindy Making Homemade Runzas" Oil on Canvas. 30" x 24" 2020.

Cindy Lindsey was born Feb.18,1967 in Sidney NE. School and home life were a constant struggle due to the fact that she was suffering from unknown petit mal seizures. Thanks to a few caring elementary school teachers spending many days after school with her she maintained average grades. Junior high and high school were difficult with a lot of struggles. During this time her parents took her to several specialists each time being told several different things ranging from that there was absolutely nothing wrong except that she was a little slow and a daydreamer who would eventually catch up to that since she did not crawl as a baby this would always hold her back. Never once did the specialists do anything beyond giving a complete physical and running motor skills tests.

Prep Sketch

Being told she was nothing more than a daydreamer really discouraged her and ignored the fact that she had petit mal seizures. Cindy was often teased because of the many birthmarks she had on her skin, and how she liked to daydream but she learned to ignore it and just do her best.

As a teen Cindy taught kids beginning swim lessons including how to float. This was one of her favorite activities in addition to riding her bicycle. She could do either for hours just by herself. She graduated high school and worked as a dishwasher in a small local café where she fell for her first husband and gave birth to her first child, still not knowing that she had NF. Being from two completely different worlds the she and her husband divorced after eighteen months.

Cindy went on to college to make a better world for her and her daughter. During this time she met the love of her life, Gus McGee, and married. This union brought to them the birth of their son. After graduating college with honors which was a pleasant surprise she took a year to be home and to take care of their son. Later she went to work at Cabela's and stayed working there for 27 years.

While at her husband's doctor appointment the doctor looked at the tumors in her hand and took her case history including the freckling and café a luit spots. This led to a lot of testing and her first surgery for NF. It finally answered a lot of questions as to why she had all these birth marks and deep tissue tumors that she had been told throughout her life "were nothing to worry about". At this time she was 30 years old. After the shock wore off she had her children tested: her daughter was positive for NF and her son was not.

One thing that really disappointed Cindy was the fact that after several years of running her from one doctor to another is the fact that her mother did not live long enough to find out that there was a reason her daughter had struggled so hard and that there was a clinical diagnosis. Cindy lost her mother at age 24. Several years later her grandson was born with many outward NF signs and she fought for his testing. While it took arguing with the pediatrician, they were finally sent for genetic testing and he was diagnosed with NF at 2 years of age.

Cindy went on believing that she was a genetic mutation and the first in her family to have NF until her maternal grandmothers death in 2017 where she met a third cousin who also had NF and that rocked their worlds: her grandmother and Cindy's grandmother were sisters so they both found out they were 4th generation because for both of them being the same age and their grandmothers being sisters for both of them to be genetic mutations the odds would be astronomical.

Cindy is never afraid to speak up about her disorder and will tell anyone who will listen about NF. She lives in a rural area but is very vocal and even on her bad days she keeps saying that she will not let this beat her, even to the point of refusing help when she really needs it. She is learning to accept help when needed but with lots of stubborn pride, that is when she needs to be reminded that this is an opportunity to teach someone about NF. She has never found a person who did not want to know more.