LAMBERTVILLE — Thanks to a medical diagnosis and therapy, Lambertville teen Brenden Koenig can do what he loves: care for animals.
Last spring, Brenden, 14, even became a beekeeper. “He needs to be able to see the bees and the small cells and pick out the queen. He is blooming. Without that therapy, I don’t think he would have been able to consider that,” said Brenden’s mother, Natalie.
For years, Brenden suffered from an undiagnosed visual processing disorder. “Things just weren’t clear. Words were moving. Certain things had no defined edges. A pile of peas looks like a pile of greens. He couldn’t see the little round balls,” Natalie said. “The words turned into two,” Brenden explained. ‘Everything was cut in half. I saw double. The second moved a little. I had no control over it at the time.”
Brenden is the younger of two sons of Jason and Natalie Kismarton. He is a freshman at Michigan Connections Academy, an online public school.
Brenden Koenig of Lambertville took care of his bees last summer. Thanks to treatment for his visual processing disorder, Brenden can see the cells of the beehives and identify the queen bee.
Around the age of seven, Brenden began to wonder if others saw life the same way he did. “I didn’t expect that to be normal,” Brenden said. ‘At some point I started asking others if they were also randomly seeing double.’
At the same time, there were changes in Brenden’s behavior. “It wasn’t something we found out about until elementary school,” Natalie said. ‘We noticed problems in the second grade. He was a straight-A student who completed his work faster than anyone else. He fell behind for no other real reason.”
In third grade, Brenden was diagnosed with convergence insufficiency, a condition that makes it difficult for the eyes to work together.
“It’s been called a hundred different things, such as ADHD, learning difficulties, an allergy. (Many) things had to happen before we found the right specialist,” says Natalie.
The specialist in Livonia is a developmental optometrist.
“He is a specialist in the eye-brain connection. At the time we lived closer to Detroit. It was quite a distance, but I would have ridden the entire planet,” said Natalie.
Brenden was fitted with glasses with prisms in them and began vision therapy.
“It forces the eyes to work in harmony,” Natalie said. “(In one exercise) they had a ball hanging from the ceiling. The therapist tapped it at him and he told the letter on the opposite side. It increases muscle strength. He had read several passages designed with changing colors and font sizes. It strengthens eye-brain communication. He had great therapists and he has made very dramatic improvement. He will always need some help with the muscles in his eye.” Currently, Brenden is not in therapy, but he will be continuously monitored as he grows.
“Now I am able to control (double vision) for the most part. If one of my eyes moves out of place a little bit, I can move it,” Brenden said.
He should even be able to drive a car.
“We assume so. It depends a lot on other developmental issues,” Natalie said.
Now Brenden is doing great again in school, his mother said, and he works with animals. At home, the family has chickens, guinea pigs, turtles, fish and a leopard geko. “We’re all just kind of animal people. That was his interest. (He had to have) animal books as a child. He wanted very specific stuffed animals; he had to have his own zoo,” Natalie said.
Brenden, 14, is a volunteer with the ZOOTeen program at the Toledo Zoo.
Last spring, Brenden began volunteering at the Toledo Zoo through the ZOOTeen program. “We help run the carts at the zoo. Greetership (jobs) provide rules for visiting a place. I am working on dealing with live animals, like snakes,” Brenden said. Natalie believes there are many more undiagnosed people suffering from visual processing disorders. ‘Probably a lot of children. It’s either undiagnosed or mistaken (for something else),” Natalie said.
Brenden Koenig of Lambertville keeps one of the chickens at his home. Brenden, who has a visual processing disorder, is able to care for animals thanks to diagnosis and treatment.
“I have a friend (whose daughter) also has a visual processing disorder. It took her a few years before the school system could give her the support. She was suspended because of her behavioral problems. They were finally able to properly diagnose her,” Natalie said. “I’m thankful we didn’t have an ugly process with (Brenden’s diagnosis). It has been a long process, a challenging process, but it has not been ugly. I’m grateful that he can do what he can. He has the right support and a school that understands. The special education team he has is extremely supportive. We have had a great support team along the way.”
Brenden’s bees
Brenden and his family sell honey from the family’s bees on Facebook.
His parents took a beekeeping course. Brenden joined them last spring.
“I’ve always been interested. I’ve never been afraid of bees. My mother found a scholarship. I said, ‘Sure, I’ll try,'” Brenden said.
Brenden and his father, Jason Kismarton, are shown next to one of the family’s beehives.
The grant came from the State of Michigan’s MI Impact Grant Program.
“MI Impact is a non-profit organization. They have a lot of grants for old fashioned traditional skills like canning, beekeeping and lost arts. They want teens to be involved. It is a very simple application. He wrote a little paragraph,” Natalie said.
Brenden’s Budding Beekeeper Grant provided him with everything he needed to become a beekeeper.
“His own hive, his own colony and equipment, tools, a suit. They had it delivered,” Natalie said.
The package even included a coupon for free bees.
“He picked up a three-pound parcel containing 10,000 live bees and a mated queen from JD’s Bees in Dundee,” Natalie said. “(The state) sent a book. He could read and do research. My husband had gotten into beekeeping and we took a course before, so we were able to guide him a little bit.”
Brenden took care of his bees last spring and summer.
“The first year you don’t get a lot of honey. They need most of their resources to survive the winter, but they have produced some extra,” says Natalie. “We harvested about 15 pounds (from Brenden’s hives) and 90 pounds altogether. We mainly sell it.”
Now that the weather is cooler, Brenden doesn’t have to do as much with the bees.
Subscribe now: For the latest local developments, breaking news and high school sports content.
“On a nice day you can open the lid for maybe five seconds and make sure they have food. You don’t want them to get cold. All our bees are tucked in for the winter,” Natalie said. “I check on them occasionally and make sure they are fed when they can’t make their own bees and there aren’t enough pollinators and flowers to survive,” Brenden said. Brenden is considering an animal-related career.
“I’m still deciding,” he said. “My brain keeps going back to raising animals and taking care of animals as a profession.”
— Contact reporter Suzanne Nolan Wisler at swisler@monroenews.com.
This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: ‘He’s Blossoming’; Lambertville teen overcomes visual processing disorder
