Resilient teen overcomes odds through multiple health challenges

Just 18 years old, Dylan Law has faced numerous health challenges, but has never given up when faced with adversity. 

At birth, Dylan didn’t have a heartbeat for 22 minutes. Doctors told his parents, McKenzie and Jesse Law, to prepare for the worst. If their son survived, they said he would likely never walk, talk or eat on his own.

“They immediately rushed him up to the NICU,” McKenzie Law recalled. “He wasn’t supposed to make it … through the first night.”

But Dylan beat the odds.

His first moments in the world led to his diagnosis of ataxic cerebral palsy, a condition that affects muscle movement and control. For Dylan, it impacts his arms.

“My hands tremor all the time, every day, seven days a week, every millisecond, every second,” the high schooler explained.

As he grew, the tremors grew stronger.

Dylan’s family and his occupational therapist, Amy Moss, refused to let the shaking define his life.

“I started treating him when he was 6,” Moss said. “Then he came to me and said, ‘Well, I really want to be a chef.’ So … somebody with tremors using a sharp knife, as a therapist immediately I think of safety.”

Adaptive tools helped unlock possibilities for Dylan — but the real key was his perseverance.

In 2022, Dylan made a life-altering decision. He wanted to stop the tremors and had a surgery called DBS, or deep brain stimulation.

“At the time, deep brain stimulation was kind of the only option to try to fix these hand tremors. It’s used a lot for Parkinson’s patients. And so they put 10 wires deep in the brain,” McKenzie Law explained.

Soon after the surgery, she knew something was wrong. Her son’s speech was slurred, his memory faded and suddenly he couldn’t walk. At 14 years old, Dylan had a stroke.

“You just pray and hope that these people who know way more than we do … are going to bring that back, you know, for him,” McKenzie Law said.

Over the course of a year, Dylan’s resilience helped him achieve various milestones. 

“I wanted to give up,” he admitted. “I didn’t, though, ‘cuz I don’t do that.”

His speech returned and he learned to walk again.

Dylan credits Moss for her unwavering support, calling her “one of a kind.”

“She has been there in the best moments of my life and she has been there in the darkest parts of my life,” he said. “She is the reason I’m sitting here in front of you today.”

Moss refers to Dylan as “the comeback kid” because he “never gave up, and I think everybody should do that in their life.”

As Dylan looks toward his next chapter, he’s focused on helping others as a youth pastor.