Biography of Jerusha Mather

Jerusha Mather is a Ph.D. student in the Medical Sciences at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia. She investigates the neuromuscular and motor effects of strength training programs in adults with cerebral palsy. Jerusha’s thesis is grounded in her own medical history of athetoid cerebral palsy.

Jerusha was born in Sri Lanka and her family emigrated to Australia to access medical interventions she needed. The creative and energetic 25-year-old was formally recognized as a STEM Changemaker by the Australian Academy of Sciences. She loves to travel, cook lasagna, and is an accomplished Instagram poet and writer. Her goals are to enroll in medical school and become a published author!

You can listen to Jerusha on Episode 26 on the Raising Kellan Podcast and read her inspirational poetry @jerushamather. Jerusha is also a motivational speaker and you can reach out to her @motivationwithjerushamather. Here is a sample of her word art. Enjoy!

You can also read other amazing stories of adults with cerebral palsy making a difference in the Raising Kellan Blog! Check out Todd Williams, DPT who ran the New York Marathon and blogs at ptwithcp.com and Wesley Page an Occupational Therapist that works with Shrine School at Memphis, Tennessee.

October 6, 2020 is World Cerebral Palsy Day and you can learn more about Jerusha and her journey at https://worldcpday.org/jerusha-mather-makes-her-mark-on-medicine/

Transcript

Kellan Julal (00:21):

Testing, testing, Testing one to one, two. Testing. Welcome to the episode of Raising Kellan. The podcast that motivates and inspires raising kids with special needs.

Marsh Naidoo (00:40):

Hi guys, welcome to this episode of Raising Kellan and I am your host Marsh Naidoo. And today we chat with the beautiful Jerusha Mather. Jerusha Mather is a PhD student from Melbourne, Australia and I first heard about her on the website WorldCpDay org.

(01:05):

This website basically is to celebrate the upcoming world CP Awareness Day, which is slated for October the sixth. And that is not far away y'all. That's basically a month out. Anyways on this website you could hear inspirational stories of both young adults as well as organizations out there that are creating awareness for cerebral palsy worldwide. So if you have a moment, go ahead and give them a checkout. And that is again, WorldCPDay org. I can't wait for you to hear Young Jerusha's origin story as well as what her plans for the future are. So sit down, relax, grab a cup of coffee, open your ears and open your heart to this amazing young lady. Jerusha Mather is a PhD student in medical sciences at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia. She investigates the neuromuscular and motor effects of strength training in adults with cerebral palsy. She was formally recognized as a STEM change maker, STEM being the abbreviation for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. She was recognized as a stem change maker by the Australian Academy of Sciences. She's also an avid Insta poet at Jerusha and a motivational speaker at Motivation with Jerusha Mather Welcome to the show. It is so good to have you here.

Jerusha Mather (03:19):

My Pleasure!

Marsh Naidoo (03:20):

I have to start off by actually reading one of your quotes that has touched me deeply and it is celebrate your diversity and uniqueness. So let's dive straight into it Jerusha. Tell us a little bit about you and your original story.

Jerusha Mather (03:43):

So my name Jerusha, I was born Sri Lanka where the doctors said, I would never walk or talk. I came to Australia when I was two years old. When I came to Australia, things got better here. I received therapy and it really made a huge difference to my life and <affirmative>. Now I'm able to do a lot of things that I thought I was told I wasn't able to do. So I proved the doctor's and I proved a lot of people wrong in my life.

Marsh Naidoo (05:32):

Jerusha. Tell us about years about those school-going years

Jerusha Mather (05:40):

In my school I did quite well.

Marsh Naidoo (05:54):

Was math and science always your favorite? Did you kind of just automatically get into the science subjects?

Jerusha Mather (06:08):

Not really. I didn't like maths when I was kid or I didn't have a very big passion for it. When I was a kid and I like to read and I like to watch storys. Then when I got to high school, I took science subjects and I really enjoyed it. Slowly begin to love it and my teachers or some of my teacher were very motivating of my choice to pursue a career in science. So I feel little discouraged but I managed to motivate myself. And I did really, really well in my science degree in university and I an honors degree at university. Now I'm doing my PhD.

Marsh Naidoo (08:51):

How old are you now? Jerusha?

Jerusha Mather (08:56):

I am twenty-five .

Marsh Naidoo (08:59):

Oh my word.

Jerusha Mather (09:01):

Yeah. You're

Marsh Naidoo (09:02):

Doing your PhD at five. That's remarkable.

Jerusha Mather (09:09):

Yeah, no it's crazy

Marsh Naidoo (09:12):

Do you stay with your parents or you staying at the university? Where are you at right now while you're going to school?

Jerusha Mather (09:23):

Well my university is about one and a half hours aware. so my support worker drives me there and picks me up. So it's a bit far away, and it's very long drive have but it doesn't bother me cause I love what I'm doing.

Marsh Naidoo (10:10):

Your research work is basically, and I would like to read this so that I make sure I'm saying everything right. You investigate the neuromuscular effects of strength training in adults with cerebral palsy. What? So what does that involve?

Jerusha Mather (10:34):

Well, now I am doing a systematic review on that topic I was gonna do a clinical trial on brain simulation and strength training.

Marsh Naidoo (11:01):

So they may be some folks so that may not know what a systematic review is. Tell us what a systematic review of the literature please

Jerusha Mather (11:15):

So a systematic review is a review of all the literature in the world about a particular topic

Marsh Naidoo (11:39):

Thank you Jerusha,

Jerusha Mather (11:40):

But we need follow really strict guideline, gonna do a 12-week trial that focused on strength training and brain stimulation.

Marsh Naidoo (12:11):

Guys, we're gonna take just a short break right now and while we do that, I would love to read y'all a poem by Jerusha Mather. This is the creativity of this young lady. This poem is titled A Rock on This Body Temple of Sweet Water. You built a rock strong, firm, solid unbroken forever past time, past space and moved and unshakeable speakable whispers of a soulful reign. Dials of smiles in the house of blossoms.

(13:00):

What are your hobbies? What do you enjoy doing? I know we mentioned the poetry and reading. Any other hobbies that you would like to share with us?

Jerusha Mather (13:13):

I love to travel. It, it's a bit of a hard time here in Australia to travel right now due to the pandemic. I have been to a lot of countries and it's been really beautiful experience to see a lot of see a lot of countries, meet a lot of people and experience different cultures and foods and just sight seeing

Marsh Naidoo (14:02):

Do you visit back to see family in Sri Lanka? Do you still have aunties and uncles and grandparents living

Jerusha Mather (14:12):

Well not really because my family moved to Australia and Canada

Marsh Naidoo (14:34):

Canada. Okay.

Jerusha Mather (14:35):

All right a few years ago. So there's not when mean people left in Sri Lanka.

Marsh Naidoo (14:49):

What have been your favorite travel destinations?

(14:57):

I love Paris. Paris,

(15:01):

Paris.

Jerusha Mather (15:04):

Paris was wonderful because you could see a lot of beautiful places and also Jeruselum

Marsh Naidoo (15:28):

Really?

Jerusha Mather (15:29):

Wow, very lovely. It was very beautiful and the mountains were very nice and yeah it was miracle too see it all.

Marsh Naidoo (15:50):

In terms of traveling and the mobility involved with traveling. Can you tell me more about that because that's obviously something I want to have an idea, especially moving into the future with my son. How do you manage to negotiate the actual mobility that comes with traveling?

Jerusha Mather (16:16):

Sure, so I can walk quite easily but for someone in a wheelchair there are many, many other options like wheelchair assistance there's really good strategies that you can use. I l let get out of plane and I kinda went until everyone outta the get off

Marsh Naidoo (17:30):

Before you get off

Jerusha Mather (17:34):

I otherwise its too hectice

Marsh Naidoo (17:43):

Ty.

Jerusha Mather (17:43):

Also what I do, I usually have a backpack <laugh>, there're lots of hotels with rooms for people with disabilty. So I think if you are the hotel they could be able to direct you i

Marsh Naidoo (18:17):

Jerusha. What is up for you for the next year girl? What plans are do you have?

Jerusha Mather (18:26):

Well, I don't really know what the future hold, but I hope they're right and beautiful and I really hope to empower others, empower others with a similar experience as mine so that can do everything if they put their mind to it and that's what I really want to motivate other people to live their best's, to make really good choices, to think about their life think about being that can drive them, that what really gets them up in the morning. And I think, yeah, I do have doing question that I would like to see come to pass. I have been working on publishing my poetry collection and I have been working on tmy PhD topics and I have also applied to medical school.

Marsh Naidoo (21:23):

Oh my what you so many <laugh>. That's amazing.

Jerusha Mather (21:30):

I don't really know what will happen but it all in the hands of God.

Marsh Naidoo (21:38):

Absolutely.

Jerusha Mather (21:40):

Absolutely.

Marsh Naidoo (21:42):

Also jerusha. Any, as for passing words, would you like to give any advice to parents that are raising a child with cerebral palsy? Any advice or anything that you would like them to know?

Jerusha Mather (22:17):

To give that to the opportunity to be independent and it's very hard for parents

Marsh Naidoo (22:40):

To let go

Jerusha Mather (22:42):

I was party to really do that because I know my mom and dad are both protective of me they don't want me to get hurt or anything but I think its really, really important to kids to try do things on their own no matter how slow or hard it may be. The reason I say this is because parents,will not be there for ever and its important that they train they kids to be independent

Marsh Naidoo (24:22):

Jerusha. We would like to thank you for gifting us with your time and your grace. Thank you for sharing your wisdom as well as your poetry with us guys. I am going to attach Jerusha's poems to a blog on raisingkellan.org. So be sure to jump over there to check out more of Jerusha's poetry. I would love to hear from you and your thoughts about this episode as well as ideas on any forthcoming episodes you guys would like to hear about. You can reach out to us at raisingkellan.org, which is the website and there is a contact form on there all through Facebook or Instagram. We would really appreciate a review so that you could let us know how we doing and what you would like to hear from us guys, until we talk to you the next time, take care and as always remember, get to the top of your mountain. This is Marsh Naidoo signing off.