Defying Imagination, One Step at a Time

Oh, gosh. It was an interesting beginning, an adventurous beginning because he was born during COVID and had a traumatic birth and a hypoxic brain injury. He was about a year old, he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, which was associated with global motor delays, including particularly on his right side more so than his left. JD's early intervention therapist knew of the acquire therapy program because she'd had other kids who had gone through the program as part of some of the research trials that all have done. We did our first round of therapy and it was unbelievable. I mean, it was just unbelievable what he could do from before towards after. After a few hours of working with Kelsey, he picked up a water cup with his right hand and drank from it. And at the end of the day, I hadn't really seen him ever do much with his right hand up to that point. I just cannot believe how much progress he's made with independent walking. I mean, we had a goal set through early intervention that he would be walking back and forth across the room by August and we had made a bunch of progress towards it, but to be honest, I had said, Well, to myself, we may not make that. But now I'm seeing him do it today. I just saw him do this multiple times this morning and I'm just over the mood about that. You're not watching it occur over months or years, which would be expected. You're watching it occur over sometimes hours, if not hours, than days and a few weeks. The change, the improvement, the strength that you see after a few weeks is almost defies imagination. I just really want to thank the whole acquire community and just feel so grateful. I mean, everybody says it takes a village to raise a child, and I think that's true for all children. I think it takes sometimes a slightly bigger village for some kids. And I know that whether it's the therapists or, you know, the researchers, anybody else who's involved, it takes a huge donors, everybody. It takes a huge group to make this type of thing happen, and just to know that it does make a huge difference for kids and for families, and we're just grateful.