Meagan Cheney,  —

Meagan Cheney lives in Paris, Texas with her three children, dogs, cats, and a turtle named Carl. She is a preschool teacher by day and a caregiver to her daughter, Austen, who was diagnosed with Dravet syndrome in 2016. Meagan has relied heavily on her "village" of other Dravet syndrome caregivers in the years since Austen’s diagnosis. She writes her column in the hope of paying it forward to other parents who are fighting each day to help their child thrive in spite of their circumstances.

Articles by Meagan Cheney

Special Needs Siblings Are the Unsung Heroes

The world of special needs parenting isn’t necessarily a club any of us signed up for. It’s one we were thrust into and had to accept to simply survive. When you think about it though, an initiation into the special needs siblings club might be even…

The Journey to the Truth

When my daughter, Austen, first started seizing at 5 months old, we were told that it was probably just febrile seizures … even when she went into a status seizure two days later, had to have a code blue called, and was transferred to a bigger hospital with…

The Seizure That Changed Our Lives

“It’s probably just a febrile seizure. It happens to one in 25 children, and 60% of those kids will never have another one. She’s going to be fine.” Those were the words spoken to me by the emergency room doctor, a…