My name is Christian Joseph Dubisky and I am a victim of Shaken Baby Syndrome. It all started on June 9, 1996. I was born at 3:46 PM and I weighed 7 lbs/14 oz and I was 21 and a half inches long. I was born to Donna Knight and Michael Dubisky (they're my parents). I was really cute and everyone was there at the hospital to see me and they all made funny noises and goofy faces at me, which I thought was very strange. My parents were really proud and loved me. My mom nick named me "Boober" and my Grandma Knight nick named me "Snuggle-bunny" As time went on I got  to know everyone. Mom, Dad, Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles. They were all making those same funny noises and goofy faces that people made at the hospital. I figured that this must be normal for people. My mommy was always showing me different things likes birds and flowers and took me everywhere she went. Except when she had to go to work, we were always visiting people and she loved to show me off. Sometimes I stayed at Grandma and Grandpa Knight's. I always had fun there because they would play with me and make me laugh.

Some strange things happened to me at three and a half months old. I wasn't sure what this strange feeling was but I knew I didn't like it. My dad would twist my arm and legs. I thought he was playing with me but later I knew he wasn't. Things he did, didn't feel good. I hadn't learn to talk yet so I couldn't tell him that it didn't feel good. Then, at age four months old, on October 5, 1996, my dad got really mad. I was crying because I didn't feel good and he was mad at his mommy. So, he got mad at me because I was crying and picked me up and shook me very very hard. I quit crying then and he put me in my crib and went to take a shower. I felt real bad then, and had a hard time breathing. I was all alone in my crib. Mommy was at work and Daddy was in the shower. I couldn't cry and I thought that was strange, because all the other times, I could cry whenever I wanted to. After a while my Daddy came to me and he got real excited and started running around. Pretty soon my mommy came home, she took me from my crib and laid me on the floor and was crying really hard. Then some people came in and they looked like doctors. Soon they took me to the hospital and then put me in a helicopter and took me to Arnold Palmer Hospital in Orlando Florida. I heard one doctor say that I wasn't going to make it through the night. He said I was a shaken baby. He told my Grandpa and Grandma Knight all kinds of bad things that was wrong with me and they started crying really hard.

They put me in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and had all kinds of tubes hooked to me along with machines too. I was feeling real bad and all I wanted to do was sleep because I was so tired. Sometime on the seventh day my mommy and grandma and grandpa Knight took some pictures of me. I heard them talking that they weren't sure why they wanted to, but they needed some pictures of me. After 23 days I left the hospital and went to live with mommy and grandma and grandpa Knight. 

I couldn't see anymore. It was dark. They said I was blind. They said my brain didn't work and the cognitive part (whatever that is) was destroyed. All I could do is scream and cry. I could breathe and move my arms a little but my hands wouldn't open. I always had my hands closed making a real tight fist. I think I was mad. I wondered why my daddy did this to me. I thought he loved me. I hurt real bad. Mommy and grandma and grandpa Knight cried a lot and held me and talked to me and told me they loved me. 

I knew I was loved very much by those around me because I could feel it. I never learned to walk or talk or play with toys, because I can't control the movements of my body. Here is a list of my problems today.

• My cognitive (thought process) was destroyed. I'm hydrocephalic and survive in a vegetative state.
• I'm blind (retinas detached), and I have cataracts and glaucoma.
• I can't eat by mouth but I get food through a tube inserted in stomach.
• My thyroid doesn't work right.
• My brainstem was twisted so my hypothalamus isn't working and my body temperature is uncontrollable.
• I need oxygen 24 hours a day.
• I have an intermittent gag reflex which means when I swallow sometimes it goes down to the lungs.
• I also have congestive heart failure.
• I have cerebral palsy. 
• I have epilepsy which means I have seizures, (about one every minute).
• My hip is displaced (the ball slips from socket joint).
• I also have severe osteoporosis.
• I take about 30 some medications a day.

My mommy and Grandma and Grandpa Knight were so mad about all this and never wanted this to happen to another baby. They had one of the pictures they took of me in the hospital enlarged. They wanted to let the world know what happens to babies when they are shaken. They talked one night, and said that I could tell my story to the world and even if I couldn't talk, my picture could talk for me and they would put the right words with it. So, I became a poster baby for Shaken Baby Syndrome. If I could talk, and could tell everyone just one thing, I would ask everyone to protect all the babies in the world and to not let what happened to me, happen to them. I would say, we are just little people and we should be loved and protected. We are helpless and we rely on all the grown-ups to help us. We want to live a normal life so that we can grow up to be doctors, lawyers, teachers, and others from all walks of life, maybe even President of the United States. I would tell you all, that you should: