This is
Kendal Rae Cassandra Serre. 
She was born on July 25, 2004. Our first year
with Kendal was a challenge. She cried often and had
difficulty sleeping and feeding. Kendal could only drink
small quantities of formula at a time and therefore wanted
her bottle every 1 ½ hours – even through the night. Once
she reached 8 months I started to worry because she wasn’t
sitting up yet, and had no interest in solid foods. In
fact, she would start to cry whenever I tried to feed her
anything and push it away. At nine months she was
diagnosed as Failure to Thrive and hospitalized. After a
lot of testing at our local hospital, they were still
unable to determine what the problem was and we were
transferred to Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto. The Genetics
team quickly suspected she had Williams Syndrome based on
her facial features, delays and medical problems. This was
confirmed by the FISH Test. Our initial shock of the news
quickly turned to relief because now we knew what the
problem was so that we could help her. Kendal has
hypercalcemia which we are now hoping her body is starting
to regulate and she is sensitive to sounds and touch. We
have regular appointments to monitor her heart, kidneys,
eyes and calcium levels. So far there have been no serious
problems other than the elevated calcium. Kendal is now
approaching her 2nd birthday. While she is be a
bit slow reaching milestones, Kendal is a very determined
girl and she does reach all the milestones when she’s ready
to. Kendal is doing great with the help of her Infant
Development Worker, Feeding, OT, PT and Speech Therapy.
She is starting to walk and is now eating AND CHEWING
regular food. Kendal loves spicy food, pizza, pasta, and
anything with garlic. She does not like any fruits or
vegetables yet. Kendal is a joy. Any temper tantrums are
quickly forgotten when she’s redirected to something she
enjoys. She always has a smile on her face and a twinkle
in her beautiful blue eyes. Her first word was Hi followed
closely by Hello and she says it to everyone she sees when
we go out. She loves her dogs Woody and Nikki, her pet
rabbit Toby and her TV - especially the Baby Einstein
DVD’s, the Wiggles, Barney and Teletubbies. Kendal has a
lot of energy, sometimes going from 8:00 in the morning to
9:30 or 10 at night, solid. I call her my little energizer
bunny but at least she’s sleeping through the night now.
Her dad, big sister Stephanie and I love her very much. It
doesn’t matter to us that she has Williams Syndrome because
watching her laugh, enjoy life and grow always puts a smile
on our face. Kendal lives with her mom and dad, in Ontario
Canada. Kendal's sister Stephanie is an adult with a
home of her own, but she loves showing her
precious little sister off to her friends and colleagues
whenever she can. Her mom would be happy to talk with
parents of other Williams kids and can be contacted at
kimberly.serre@sympatico.ca.
