18 CHICAGO TRIBUNE Ô FROM PAGE ONE Ô SECTION 1 Ô SUNDAY, MAY 11, 2008
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absorbed lectures in calculusor thermodynamics or cir-cuit analysis, Rosa sat not faraway, just in case Lucy neededa sip of water or began chok-ing.
Lucy, who is 24, was told shehad a rare genetic degenera-tive disease, spinal muscularatrophy, when she was 4. SMAis a progressive disease thatwithers the muscles that con-trol the arms, legs and lungs,and makes breathing a strug-gle.
Lucy’s type of SMA usuallytakes away your ability towalk by the time you’re inyour teens—she began usinga wheelchair at age 9—but un-like some other types, doesn’tnecessarily affect life span.
Lucy, who is the oldest offour, has a younger brother,Hugo, who has the same dis-ease. He, too, uses a wheel-chair; he’s a freshman at theUniversity of Illinois at Ur-bana-Champaign, studyingarchitecture.
Parental dedication“Lucy’s story is about the
sacrifices our mothers makefor all of us,” said Pete Nel-son, interim dean of UIC’s en-gineering college. Trevino’steachers, he said, “werepounding down my door” toask for some recognition forthis mother-daughter feat ofunconditional devotion.
At UIC, where nearly athird of the students are thefirst in a family to go to col-lege, Nelson said it’s not un-common to hear tales of par-ents working two or threejobs, sending money fromoverseas and just plain strug-gling so their kids can getwhat parents weren’t af-forded.
“But this is sort of the pin-nacle in terms of the amountof dedication,” said Nelson.“This is what makes thisbusiness worthwhile.”
One of the professorspounding on Nelson’s doorwas Michael Cho, who teach-es mostly graduate courses incell and tissue engineering,but who has gotten to know—and been amazed by—theubiquitous mother-daughterduo, so often spotted wendingtheir way up a ramp, on or offan elevator, or tucked awaystudying in some secludedcorner.
“The first thing that comesto my mind is this can’t beanything else but a mother’s
love,” Cho said. “It goes be-yond commitment. It is sacri-ficial love. And I am just over-whelmed. It’s not just onemonth or one semester. It’s ev-ery day for the last four yearsthat I can think of.”
In fact, it’s six years, be-cause Lucy had to take timeoff when she got really sickher junior year; she suddenlycouldn’t lift her arms and wasquickly losing memory.
It took months before asleep test showed she stoppedbreathing 30 times an hourwhen she was asleep. She nowsleeps with a machine thathelps her breathe, and, with-in a week of using it, she said,she regained her memory, ifnot her arm strength.
“Ever since I was little, Iloved science,” said Lucy, whoshares her mother’s deep co-coa-colored eyes and rollsaround campus in a purplewheelchair with back wheelsthat sparkle, like fireworks,
with tiny neon bits. “BecauseI went to doctors a lot and hada lot of medical exams, Iwould always wonder, ‘Howdo those devices work?’ ”
In her senior year at Mor-ton West High School in Ber-wyn, Trevino learned from acounselor about a summercamp in bioengineering atUIC, so she signed up, andfound her life’s work.
She once dreamed of work-ing to find a cure for her owndisease, but decided “it wouldbe too stressful if I couldn’tfind it.”
The first one in her familyto ever go to college, Lucy Tre-vino said she was “too afraid”to venture down to the U. of I.in Urbana-Champaign,where there’s a whole dormfor students with disabilities,and the nation’s oldest col-lege-level disabilities-serv-ices program providestrained personal assistants,physical therapy, even wheel-chair repairs.
“I didn’t know if I shouldrisk going all the way downthere,” she said.
Sticking closer to homeseemed like a better plan. Butbecause UIC doesn’t have apersonal-assistants program,she was stuck trying to findsomeone who could help herin a thousand little ways andbe there whenever sheneeded.
“In college, you have such acrazy schedule. You stay afterto study with other students.You need to talk to a professor.I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, howam I going to find someonewho’s going to put up with allof that?’
“My mom was like, ‘Well, Iguess I’ll just go with you.’
“And then it was gettingcloser to the start of the firstsemester, and I still hadn’tfound anybody. She said,‘How would you feel if I wentwith you?’ I was like, ‘Oh, mygosh, would you?’ ”
Because Rosa Trevino, whois 47 and moved from Mexicowhen she was 17, had two chil-dren with special needs, shehad long since become a stay-at-home mom, giving up a se-ries of baby-sitting jobs.Rosa’s husband, Hugo, re-tired last year after 32 yearsas a CTA bus driver. Rosa her-self had never even been tohigh school.
On the day back in 1987when doctors said her littlegirl would “someday need awheelchair,” Rosa recalled,crying at the memory, shepromised herself she woulddo “everything I can.”
Mother keeps busyEven if that meant sitting
through more than 2,100hours of 51 classes, countlessstudy sessions and hourlongtrain rides, back and forth,each day. Most often, Lucysaid with a laugh, her motherspends time cutting recipesand coupons, because shegets bored with all the bioen-gineering in a language shedoesn’t fully understand.
At first, Lucy admitted, go-ing to college with hermother wasn’t exactly with-out its bumps.
“I had never spent so muchtime together with my mom.We would sometimes get oneach other’s nerves,” shesaid, chuckling. “But then wegot to know each other reallywell. We’re like best friends.Now I tell her everything. Be-fore I wouldn’t tell her every-thing that happens when youhave a disability. People whoaren’t in a wheelchair can’tunderstand. But now, sincewe do everything togethershe knows.”
Semester after semester,year after year, Lucy and hermother found a way. Shepassed 400-level exams. Shewrote up labs that took hertwice the time of everyoneelse, simply because the push-ing of a pen on paper is sohard for her.
Once, a civil engineeringprofessor noticed that be-cause of Lucy’s wheelchair,she couldn’t write on herdesk. He challenged her to de-sign a light-weight writing ta-ble. Then he went and built it.She got an A.
Mostly, the Trevinos reliedon each other, and on unflag-ging faith.
“One time I think in thenight, almost for an hour. Icry to on high, ‘Why me? Whyme?’ ” Rosa said. “I heard avoice, ‘Why not me?’ ”
For those who watchedtheir unswerving per-severance, the simple factthat the Trevinos never stum-bled inscribed a lasting honoron Lucy’s college transcript.
“One time last year,” Lucysaid, “a student told me she’dfelt like ditching class, stay-ing home. But then she looksand says, ‘There’s Lucy, she’salways here. There’s nothingwrong with me. I’m just lazy.’
“Wow, I didn’t even thinkthat anyone noticed me.”
Come Mother’s Day week-end, when Nelson tries tomake it through his heartfeltsalutation to a student and amother who taught them all alesson, chances are Lucy andRosa Trevino will finallyunderstand just how much awhole college noticed.
Tribune photos by Antonio Perez
Lucy Trevino (center), 24, of Cicero checks her e-mail as her mother, Rosa, reads a newspaper in a computer lab on the University of Illinois at Chicago campus.
Rosa Trevino (right) presses a button to lift her daughter, Lucy, a UIC engineering student,into their van while Lucy’s father, Hugo, watches outside their Cicero home.
For video andphoto gallery ofRose and LucyTrevino, go to
chicagotribune.com/lucy
IN THE WEB EDITION» LUCYCONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
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