Resilience, Faith and ZMIZ1: Mary Avera's Remarkable Journey

In this inspiring interview, Mary Frances opens up about her rare ZMIZ1 diagnosis, the profound role faith plays in her life, her deep love for animals, and her journey to graduating from the ULL LIFE (Learning Is for Everyone) Program. 

Transcript

Mary Baudoin 

Thank you everyone for joining us for this episode of This Ability podcast. I'm your host Mary Baudoin, and joining us today is Mary Frances Avera. Mary, glad that you could be here. So tell our audience a little bit about yourself.

Mary Frances Avera 

My name is Mary Frances Avera. I'm actually from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, right now in Baton Rouge. Just got a job today in Baton Rouge Petz Plaza. It really is-

Mary Baudoin 

What are you going to be doing there?

Mary Frances Avera 

Cleaning, taking dogs out, feeding them, doing daycare.

Mary Baudoin 

Okay.

Mary Frances Avera 

So my hobbies are taking long walks with my dog or new puppy, playing with her, seeing friends, taking golf cart rides around my neighborhood or around my house, and hanging out with family.

Mary Baudoin 

Now, you're going to be working at a place that you're going to be surrounded by dogs. I'm presuming you're a dog lover.

Mary Frances Avera 

Yes ma'am.

Mary Baudoin 

Have you always had animals your whole life?

Mary Frances Avera 

Yes ma'am.

Mary Baudoin

Yeah.

Mary Frances Avera

Yes ma'am. Actually, throughout my years I had cats, dogs, rat, geckos, chickens-

Mary Baudoin

Yeah, okay.

Mary Frances Avera

Have three chickens. Every Easter we get ducks for Easter, it's our tradition. Turtle, fish. I mean it was baby turtles, different things.

Mary Baudoin 

That sounds great. So let's go ahead and talk about, the first thing I have on our list is health. What condition are you diagnosed with, and when did you find out about it?

Mary Frances Avera 

So we found out I had ZMIZ1 called. It's relate to neuron development disorder. It was a rare thing. I didn't really recognize it. I did not have Down syndrome. We thought we had it, but we never did. It was pretty... Did not know, because all throughout my life was hearing impaired, vision loss, heart defect. I wear glasses every day, I have learning defect, learning problem. Not learning problem, but learning difficult, hard to learn and…

Mary Baudoin 

Okay. If someone is listening to this episode and they just found out that they have the same diagnosis as you, what would you want them to know?

Mary Frances Avera 

To me, to tell y'all is, it is very rare disorder. I didn't know how long it took to find this out. I want them to know about my disability. It's very rare. I mean, nobody talks about it. The most that we talk about in disability is autism, Down syndrome, some other disability that we heard the most, but we don't really talk about other disabilities.

Mary Baudoin 

Let's talk about your faith. How important is faith to you in your life?

Mary Frances Avera 

So yes, faith is very important in my life. Yes, listen to Christian music every day. Every day, every other day. I go to church every week, meeting up every Sunday. I listen to some prayer readings, I go through readings. Also, I listen to podcasts. And then recently, about a year ago, I went to a conference in St. Louis, Missouri called Seek.

Mary Baudoin 

Okay.

Mary Frances Avera 

And I actually love it. One of my favorite priests, who's actually from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, went there.

Mary Baudoin 

Nice.

Mary Frances Avera 

And he's a great priest. His name is Father John Johnson. He does, he does so much hearing. He's one of the best speakers.

Mary Baudoin 

You've been raised a Catholic?

Mary Frances Avera 

Yes ma'am.

Mary Baudoin 

Yeah. And did you attend a Catholic school, if I'm not mistaken?

Mary Frances Avera 

No.

Mary Baudoin 

No?

Mary Frances Avera 

So actually yes, when I was little, called St. Aloysius in Baton Rouge.

Mary Baudoin 

Okay.

Mary Frances Avera 

Through second grade there, and then I went through public school. But actually when I was in college, I attended,  they call it Catholic in Lafayette. And I love it.

Mary Baudoin

Nice.

Mary Frances Avera

I go a lot of events, I go there. I go their connect retreat, encounter retreat, different retreats. It's fun.

Mary Baudoin 

That's great. So when you went to Seek, you found out more information about Christianity and did you get to meet some new people?

Mary Frances Avera 

Yes ma'am.

Mary Baudoin

Make some new friendships?

Mary Frances Avera 

Yes.

Mary Baudoin

Oh, that's great.

Mary Frances Avera 

I mean, I've met so many people there. Actually one of the group in the Seek conference or the Seek... They had one little section was for only Greek. So it's for like swarthy...

Mary Baudoin

Fraternities?

Mary Frances Avera

Fraternity.

Mary Baudoin

Okay.

Mary Frances Avera

And then I met so many people from [inaudible 00:04:46] and their culture and everything is so nice. So I can tell they're learning so much. I was pretty scared. I'm not scared to meet people, but I'm also scared to go

Mary Baudoin

Right. Yeah, I think on some level many people are a little intimidated to approach somebody new, but nine times out of 10 you find that you can just find something in common with that person, get to know them a little better, and never know, make a new friendship.

Mary Frances Avera

Yes ma'am. About two years ago, yes, two years ago, I actually did my first confirmation, and it was actually a great thing I did. It was fun, it was exciting. And one of my favorite saints of all is Mother Teresa.

Mary Baudoin

Okay.

Mary Frances Avera 

Yes. And a lot of people tell me that Mother Teresa but also one favorite part I hear is, Mother Teresa came to Baton Rouge in the church called Saint Agnes in Baton Rouge. And she sat there and there's a little cart, or not a little cart, but a little something, and it says like, "Oh, I sit here-"

Mary Baudoin 

Oh, like a plaque.

Mary Frances Avera 

Yeah, a plaque. And every time I walk there, it makes me feel joyful.

Mary Baudoin

That's great. Yeah, because she was there in that spot.

Mary Frances Avera 

Yes.

Mary Baudoin 

Why is she your favorite saint?

Mary Frances Avera

Because she makes me laugh. I can see small things. I don't remember what the quote said, but I remember if I see it and it's so beautiful.

Mary Baudoin 

That's great to have a favorite saint. Let's talk about your education. What teachers have you taken classes with that have made a positive influence on your life?

Mary Frances Avera 

So I have two, but I'm actually going to do two. One of them is Dr. and Dr. Donald Watson, one of the best teachers I ever had in the college. They taught me so many things.

Mary Baudoin

Now that's at the university here in Lafayette?

Mary Frances Avera

Yes ma'am.

Mary Baudoin

Okay. What did they, they teach you? What do you remember?

Mary Frances Avera

So one of them taught me different things. Social skills, different things. I don't remember off my head, but one of them, Dr. she taught one of our classes. It was freshman year or sophomore year. She taught me a computer class. Not a computer class, but something about a job and she just taught us so many things about writing or emails and stuff.

Mary Baudoin 

Yeah. Yeah, professionalism.

Mary Frances Avera

Yeah, professionalism.

Mary Baudoin

In writing. That's great. That's great. That certainly comes in handy.

Mary Frances Avera

Yes.

Mary Baudoin

And also when you were at UL, you were through the LIFE program, which stands for Learning Is For Everyone.

Mary Frances Avera

Yes ma'am.

Mary Baudoin 

Last year, I recorded a podcast interview with Jade Viator and Caroline Billeaudeau from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette LIFE (Learning is for Everyone) Program. Here are a few excerpts from that interview so you can hear what the program has to offer:

There are two aspects of the academic portion of the program. The students, they audit UL LIFE classes, which are classes within our program that are functional academics. Those are things like self-advocacy, social skills, career readiness. And the other aspect that involves academics is that the students audit UL courses. They are fully inclusive. They are with other UL students. They are paying to audit these classes. They are taking classes within their focus area, which ultimately lead to their career goals.

We teach career classes, like Jade said. So those are in every year a student is taking at least one career class within our program and that's really to help hone in on those skills like emailing, workplace etiquette, how to communicate with coworkers versus bosses versus customers. We role play and we practice these things and make sure that they're ready to be in the workforce. Using that aspect of the program, we put them in internships. These are all student chosen. The internships are really based on what they want to do after graduation. And like traditional college students, they don't always know what they want to do.

They can start in one aspect and then move to different things to try to test out other ideas that they have. So one, we're not choosing an internship for a student and two, we're not making them stay in that internship. They want to try something else out. Students do, they start on campus, we have so many on-campus partnerships like the Career Closet, the academic departments, the library, fitness centers, anywhere on campus, students really have been welcomed and embedded as student workers.

Our independent living component has grown tremendously over the past few years. We have independent living classes where we're teaching students how to live independently and what that entails. We also have our students living in the dorms, and so they're able to take what they learn in those classes and applying them to their lives on a regular basis. And we have about half of our students, I think this year we'll have 21 or 22 students living in the dorms, over half. And then we also have a life skills lab in our building, which has been amazing for teaching our students independent living skills such as cooking sessions.

We have a fully equipped washer and dryer, dishwasher, sink, all the things you would have in your kitchen. So they're learning all the skills needed to live with all those tools and whatnot. We also have computers there so they can access those computers and use that for different business type skills, copying, printing out things, different tasks like that they would also be doing in the workplace. So that skills lab has been really great. Classes, they can take what they learn in the classes, apply them to the skills lab, and then applying them at home if they live at home or in the dorms if they live there. Yeah, it's been amazing.

All of our information and things about the program can all be found on our website, which is basically go to the UL website, louisian.edu, search UL LIFE. First thing that comes up is our page. That, our social media. We are on Facebook and Instagram, UL LIFE. Anyone that's interested learning more about the program, if the website doesn't have the answers, our email is on there to contact us. But also the preview days will be, those dates will be listed fairly soon, hopefully for the fall. And we always encourage people who are interested to attend preview day.

And now, back to our interview with Mary Frances Avera.

So tell me what that program was like for you.

Mary Frances Avera 

When I was there, I went there in 2019. I applied there, I came on campus. It was actually a new experience. It was a new culture, it was a lot of new things. I was actually pretty scared.

Mary Baudoin 

Were you? Okay. Okay.

Mary Frances Avera

I did not know what it looked like. And when I first came in there, I was pretty happy about. One of my favorite thing about Lafayette, or call it the UL, my program in Lafayette University, is their culture. Their culture is Cajun French.

Mary Baudoin

Yes.

Mary Frances Avera

And I love Cajun French.

Mary Baudoin

The culture here, there's some great food.

Mary Frances Avera

Yes.

Mary Baudoin

What's your favorite thing to eat in Lafayette?

Mary Frances Avera Gumbo.

Mary Baudoin 

Yeah.

Mary Frances Avera

Crawfish shrimp. Gumbo. Gumbo is my favorite, yes.

Mary Baudoin

Especially when it's nice and cold outside.

Mary Frances Avera 

Yes.

Mary Baudoin

Nothing like some good gumbo and rice in it. Yk?

Mary Frances Avera 

Yes.

Mary Baudoin

I know that as a student, the LIFE program, it changes people for the better. You get to meet a lot of new people and you get to learn a lot of great things. Would you recommend the LIFE program itself to other people?

Mary Frances Avera 

Yes. Yes. I would recommend other students to attend this program because it has so many things to do and learn about the new culture, the history of the university because there's so many things about the program teach you so many things, dance or here's about this. You could go to a game, you could go to any kind of events. I was actually in a lot of events this year.

Mary Baudoin 

That's great to get out there and do things, ma'am. Maybe that you wouldn't have done otherwise. Yes. Yeah. Whenever you were in the Life program, I'm sure they also had, I know they have internships or places that you could work. Yes ma'am. Do you find that the skills that you learned at UL helped you to get the job that you've

Mary Frances Avera 

Gotten today? Yes ma'am. Actually it does because pretty much learning from the college helps you to get into the world, learning to be independent, how to learn to do stuff independently, especially when you learn for job. You do your own, you look for your own, you go look online to go find a job, do your own interview and be patient. And yes, it will take time to do all this stuff, but we need to keep positive, keep going and you will get there.

Mary Baudoin 

That's awesome. Mary, are there any fun facts about yourself that you would like our audience to know? And she says this and she's giggling, so I can't wait to hear her answer.

Mary Frances Avera 

Ashley had two fun facts. One is I actually have, when I was little before or after I was born, I actually has six fingers. It was pretty cool. On which

Mary Baudoin 

Hand? Left hand. Left hand.

Mary Frances Avera

Okay. So when About a couple of years later I had surgery and now I have five hands or five fingers. So that's one of them. And then another one I actually have, they're chickens, eggs from the

Mary Baudoin

So do you sell the eggs? No ma'am. No. You just use them for cooking, ma'am and all that? Yes ma'am. What are the chickens names?

Mary Frances Avera 

I don’t Remember. You just call them chicken 

Mary Frances Avera

One two, chicken do chicken. And also this past year, I have another fun fact. This past year or this past couple months, I actually got a new puppy. Her name is Pearl

Mary Baudoin

Pearl

Mary Frances Avera

And she's a golden doodle.

Mary Baudoin

Oh, golden Doodles are so

Mary Frances Avera

Beautiful. I know. I hear so many. I hear so things and she's still learning. And I love just learning to pie, train. Don't jump on people just don't bark when just nothing out there. She's learning so

Mary Baudoin 

Much. Good. That's great. And you enjoy spending time with her? Yes. Yeah. And get train her. It takes a lot of patience to train an animal.

Mary Frances Avera

Yes ma'am. That's very true. Because it's like I get mad at her. She's still learning.

Mary Baudoin

And dogs are always happy to see their own, right? Yes. She'll never get mad at you. You might get mad at her, but she'll never be mad at you. She's going to love you unconditionally. Yeah. Isn't that a good thing? Yes. Well, Mary Frances, it has been a pleasure to interview you. Are there any topics that we did not talk about that you would like to talk about?

Mary Frances Avera 

One thing is during college, have fun. Life is too short just to do craziness, but just life too short. And then be happy about

Mary Baudoin 

It. It is. Life is very short and that's a great give way to close out the show. It

Mary Frances Avera

Is my motto.

Mary Baudoin

Love it. All right everybody. Well thank you for listening to this edition of This Ability podcast. If you enjoy listening to our podcast, be sure to like our Facebook page and subscribe to our YouTube channel for our video podcast for updates and new episode postings. Goodbye everyone, and thank you for listening.