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Thank you to Chase’s Educational Assistant Teresa for taking the time to write and share this testimonial! Melanie describes her 14-year-old son as a child who enjoys going for walks and car rides, riding his bike, swimming, and eating! Chase has Lennox-Gastaunt syndrome, a severe form of epilepsy. Affected children experience several different types of seizures, most commonly atonic, tonic and atypical absence seizures, which cause increased muscle tone and muscle stiffness, as well as sustained muscle contractions. These muscle contractions cause mild abnormalities such as a slight bend of the body. They can also cause more significant problems

When asked about his daughters’ personalities, Patrick Powell describes Remi, 9, and Nico, 7, as fire and ice. “Remi has a real fiery personality,” Patrick said. “If she wants something, she’s going to be very vocal. If something’s wrong, she’s going to tell you.” Patrick said she’s also very loving. “She still expects me to carry her around, even at nine years old. She lays on me and wants to cuddle and she can be the most loving kid ever,” Patrick said. “She’s such a sweetheart.” Nico, on the other hand, is more laid-back. Patrick said if he sits

Julie describes her son Cristian as a happy 12-year-old boy who loves to laugh, go swimming, go to the beach, and play with his toys. Cristian has Kabuki syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that only affects one in every 32,000 people. The symptoms of Kabuki syndrome can be similar to those of Autism and have affected Cristian physically and mentally. “He’s made huge strides from what the doctors originally expected of him,” Julie said. Cristian didn’t sit up on his own until he was two and a half years old and didn’t crawl until he was four. Now, Cristian

Scarlett Ferguson is a fun-loving, 10-year-old girl who loves to read, sing and act. She’s done voiceover work and has been in commercials, YouTube episodes and a TV show. “She’s got big dreams and big goals for herself,” Scarlett’s mother Keri said. “We’re just doing our part to help her reach them and achieve them.” Keri said that when Scarlett was diagnosed with diplegic cerebral palsy when she was 18 months old and a non-specific brain injury when she was six months old, their family didn’t know what to expect. “We were told she may not walk, or talk,

In 2011, Alia Wright and her son Sammy Jackson were in a car accident where Sammy suffered a traumatic brain injury that left him unable to walk and talk. “At first he couldn’t move anything, but he’s gotten a lot better over the many years of physical therapy,” Alia said. “He has some seizures here and there, but overall he’s doing pretty good.” Alia describes 11-year old Sammy as goofy and silly, with lots of personality. “He’s almost sarcastic a little bit, even though he can’t talk. Even his therapists agree,” Alia said. “And he’s very, very charming. He

Courage can be shown in many ways. Some people show it through their actions, some people show it through their words, but the most courageous people can show it without doing either. Karter Goodchild just turned four years old. He wasn’t even supposed to live to be four days old. Karter was born with severe spastic quadriplegia, a form of cerebral palsy. From the moment he was born, the doctors didn’t think he had any chance of surviving. At first, they said he wouldn’t survive a day. And then they said five days. And then they said