Cameron Henderson can walk.

He's pushing through pain and frustration, but after 17 years he is taking his first steps.

The Fort Erie teen is still learning to place his feet flat on the floor. And he has to remember to keep his back straight.

His knees aren't quite steady, his balance is slowly coming around and he needs support for every step.

And it hurts, a lot.

But he's determined to walk across the stage when his high school class graduates in June.

"I could never go through the amount of pain he has," says his mom, Brenda, who has waited 17 years for this day.

"I couldn't even imagine."

Cameron's story was reported here last October: Born with cerebral palsy and confined to a wheelchair, his lower limbs suffered from years of inactivity.

His muscles withered and tightened, contracting upward and bending his legs out of shape. To get around at home, he dragged himself from room to room and was unable to roll over in bed.

He suffered muscle cramps and poor circulation in his legs and was susceptible to chest colds and pneumonia.

As well, he is intellectually delayed, meaning he has difficulty communicating and needs help from an educational assistant at school.

In December, he underwent surgery at SickKids hospital in Toronto where a doctor cut the bones in his legs so they could be straightened, then reattached them using plates and screws.

Afterwards, he was transferred to Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital in Toronto where he remains, taking rehab daily.

Brenda can't forget the first time he stood upright, strapped to a tilt-table for support.

"He was excited to find out how tall he was," she says.

"He's taller than I am. But he didn't know, and out of all things he was most excited about being taller than mom."

He'd never been measured. Even in bed, he couldn't straighten out. It turns out he is 5-foot-10.

For six weeks after surgery, he was confined to bed. Every day he was attached to a CPM machine - continuous passive motion, the kind more often used for people who have had knee replacements.

In short sessions every four hours, it lifted, bent and lowered his leg slowly to gently stretch the tendons and muscles.

Now Cameron goes through a daily routine of an hour of physiotherapy working on range and motion, plus stretching exercises and spending time in the tilt-table so his muscles can slowly learn to bear his weight.

During physiotherapy in a swimming pool, Brenda says, "he's basically walking with a noddle in the pool, which helps him put his feet down flat."

In a gym at Bloorview, therapists help him walk between two parallel bars that support him. He is taking steps using only a walker, too.

"Just because he had the surgery doesn't mean he knows how to walk," Brenda says.

The operation didn't just cut his bones, which would be traumatic enough. It also affected all the nerves in his legs and back, and tendons that had contracted are being stretched now.

"It's like a child learning to balance himself," she says. "To stand upright on your hips, how to move them. That's the state where he's at right now."

Bloorview is a pediatric hospital, so Cameron and the other patients go to school there.

There are classrooms, with lesson plans sent in from Lakeshore Catholic High School in Port Colborne, where Cameron is in Grade 12 working from a modified program.

"It's made it easier for Cameron, because he didn't have to feel like nobody understood," says Brenda.

"He could see the kids in different stages. There are teenagers here who are his age . he has something in common with them.

"He communicated and made new friends here that have a disability. They could understand where he was coming from."

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It's been a revelation for Brenda, too. A single parent from a small town, it was easy to feel like no one else was going through what she and Cameron were.

"You seem alone and overwhelmed with paperwork and doctors appointments and trying to find funding and managing to work," she says.

At Bloorview, she says, they bring parents together to share their experiences and support and motivate each other.

The hardest part might have been while Cameron was at SickKids, though.

"It's very humbling when you walk through . you think your life is so tough, but then you see parents going through things you couldn't even imagine," she says, choking up for a moment.

She saw parents who knew their child might die, and others who were recovering from life-saving surgeries - "and you're thinking, oh my goodness, I'm just worried about my child not being able to walk."

"It's amazing, it's humbling to see all this. It makes you value your life."

At the start, she was worried she wouldn't be able to afford a room near Bloorview and Cameron would be alone in hospital - something she says he couldn't have endured.

The community's response after the first article, though, overwhelmed her. She more than surpassed the modest fundraising goal she had set on a GoFundMe page, and has been able to remain with Cameron throughout.

"It's amazing. Fort Erie, and everybody that supported the GoFundMe page, has been absolutely amazing," she says.

"If it wasn't for the kindness of the community and everybody that has been involved . I wouldn't have been able to be here.

"Even while we were gone, my dog was lost . there were over 100 people looking for my dog, just because of Cameron. That's Cameron's dog.

"It's amazing how this community has come together and what it's done, I can't even thank people enough."

It's looking like he will be sent home in mid-March. There's still some work to do getting home ready for his return, changes his new-found mobility will require.

The same for school, to where Brenda guesses he will return in April.

He will likely always need some sort of assistance to walk, depending on his balance. But she can't wait to see him cross the stage at graduation in June, using a walker.

"He said he's going to," she says. "He's determined."

@gordhoward | 905-225-1626