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A blind teenager regains her passion for running thanks to her guide dog

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Nobody prepares you for the barriers that, suddenly, life. Nor a Sami Stoner, 16 years, legally blind for any type of competition since a disease attacking his eyes to the 13 years and his vision was reduced to diluted shadows and emborronadas lights. But athletes, well well professional amateurs, les is born a sense of overcoming that multiplied in Stoner. The cross-country races he participated in would not be dangerous despite his eyes., Chloe, your guide dog, I would accompany his strides and his breath.

Stoner started playing soccer at school.. It was his way to socialize and with which their parents got that you are interested in sports. But this teenager from Ohio balloon ran out because had already not enough girls in the Institute. You have chosen then the a.tletismo, but in its mode of cross-country. Nothing like it, hated it, although the disaffection lasted only a few days. Soon running sneakers were your routine, one that liked to participate.

But, something not marching well into your eyes. He started to do not see clearly the slate, to confuse the colors, to have a constant fog. After many tests the diagnosis did not solve too: the Stargardt disease. No cure or treatment and with the only possibility of getting worse. "I could only cry and cry. Sometimes out of anger that it had happened to me, others because I was terrified", acknowledged in an interview with ESPN.

He was afraid of not being able to continue competing. The tartan is safe, a forest, not. But Stoner needed to continue doing the activities she did to keep feeling normal.. Her friend Hannah Ticoras came to his aid. Era teammate of the cross country team and became their guide. But also the Idyll was broken, two years later, because Ticoras graduated and went to College.

Stoner, It was already beginning to miss the details of his face and his family, found one again in the darkness of which can not fit shoes by far that they claim attention. And then came her, Chloe. "A dog at home changes your life, but it solved it for me".

Chloe turned in his guide, inside and outside competitions. There would no longer be problems in the institute or on the street or even in the woods in which he competed.. "She watches over the roots and obstacles and I guided by the more flat terrain», confesses Stoner, He got a dispensation from the State Athletic Association in order to compete with Chloe. Both come out 20 or 30 seconds later than the rest of competitors, to prevent some and others are nervous or have accidents. But Stoner doesn't care you: «I don't run to win or to make times or anything like that, I run because I love. And now, What I can't keep running thanks to Chloe, much more".
Athlete without end, Stoner learned that a disability is not the end of the world: "You can always keep doing the things you set your mind to, You just have to find a different way to do it.". She has found it, or rather, Chloe finds it by it.

Via: abc.es

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