Iolan Chelsea Shrum, age 36, wanted to be a teacher, a task made challenging because she was born deaf and with cerebral palsy.
After she graduated from the Kansas School for the Deaf, she wasn?t able to finish college. She studied at Allen Community College for a year but struggled without an interpreter. When her brother, Chance, died in 2007, Shrum sank into a four-year depression.
?My life was a mess after Chance passed away,? she said.