Broadband growth gets support from state government: High-speed Internet means more than just surfing Web [The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.]

June 1, 2009

Morgantown, WV -- Gabrielle Ramirez, of Lewisburg, had foot and hand tremors from her earliest days of infancy. Despite local doctors' assurances, said her mom, Sherri Ramirez, the problem didn't go away. "'It's nothing,' they would say. We kept on and kept on," she said. When Gabrielle was 15 going on 16, she told her mom, "I can't take this anymore," Sherri said.

There were muscle spasms. It was affecting her eating, her drinking, her handwriting. She would fall frequently. "We call her 'Not So Miss Graceful.'" The positive attitude didn't diminish the growing frustration. Then, a doctor in Lewisburg mentioned WVU's Mountaineer Doctor Television -- MDTV. "We had never heard of it," Ramirez said. But they tried it.

Gabrielle, now 16, sat in a WVU studio in Lewisburg, with a computer and camera connected via Internet to a studio at WVU's Health Sciences Center in Morgantown. Dr. Margaret Janes, a pediatric neurologist, examined Gabrielle via the Internet connection. She had Gabrielle show her her foot...