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Kim Gwang-min, center, runs with his family on September 16 at a charity for children with incurable diseases in Seoul.
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After treatment, boy has improved leaps and bounds
Six-year-old Gwang-min, though small at 120 cm and 19 kg, ran a five-km race on September 16 wearing a smile. His family, including his parents, 11-year-old sister and 10-year-old brother, followed him with broad smiles on their faces, as well. They were definitely hero or heroine among some 8,000 participants for a marathon in Seoul organized by Severance Hospital on the morning of September 16. The marathon was held to help children with incurable diseases. Gwang-min, who has cerebral palsy, completed a 5 km run for the second time in two years. The course took him one hour and nine minutes, but he shortened his record by some 20 minutes compared with his performance last year. Last year, Gwang-min had more difficulty completing the course, his parents having to hold his hand as he crossed the finish line. Gwang-min is becoming healthier. Gwang-min’s mother gave birth to him after only 32 weeks of pregnancy. He weighed 1.49 kg. While his father believed the hospital’s diagnosis that the son has no particular problem, signs of his disability soon crept in. Twenty months after his birth, in November 2001, Gwang-min began walking, but his father was saddened by what he saw. "Gwang-min was walking with a strange bounce in his step. We immediately went to a hospital and my son was diagnosed as being disabled," said his father, Kim Chang-su. With the diagnosis, Kim realized why Gwang-min was unable to babble like other children his age. The son, who cannot walk normally because his calf muscles and ankle tendons are hardening, also has a speech disorder related caused by his disability.To give ‘normal feet and speech’ to Gwang-min, Kim and his wife spent tens of millions of won on treatment at three different hospitals. When Gwang-min was in the hospital, they lived there with him, for an average of one month each time. In late 2002, Gwang-min twice received botox treatment with the help of Severance Hospital and a botox manufacturing company. The botox treatment helped Gwang-min’s muscles relax and allowed him to walk on the soles of his feet, rather than on his toes. Recalling the first time Gwang-min was able to walk "normally," Kim described the moment as "unbelievable." After muscle surgery in 2004, Gwang-min’s condition continued to improve. He started to get into running last year. About a month before the race, the father and son had trained together by running through their neighborhood every morning. As a result of such efforts, Gwang-min unexpectedly was able to finish the 5 km course. "I really hope to become a soccer player," said Gwang-min, whose heroes are soccer stars such as Park Ji-sung and Lee Young-pyo. Gwang-min’s father said, “While he needs four to five years to completely recover, we wanted to give hope to other disabled children and their parents by showing them that Gwang-min could complete the run." Kim said he plans to enroll the son in a regular elementary school next year like other children, while Gwang-min is now in a kindergarten for disabled children. For today, Gwang-min is happy running and playing with his sister and brother.
