On Christmas Eve 1999 I started feeling labor pains.  This was a concern because I wasn’t due for 2 months.  I went to the hospital and on Christmas morning I delivered a sweet little boy that we named Jacob.  While he was in NICU he got spinal meningitis.  We were told he had Cystic Fibrosis. This is a heredity disease that mostly affects the lungs.  The year to follow was the most difficult time in our lives.  At 3 months he was still not holding his head up, by 6 months he still just laid there like a little rag doll. At one year our hearts broke once again as we started the process of ordering a wheelchair for a sweet little baby that had the greatest smile and laugh. 

A month later, we struggled again, when the final diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy was handed down, most likely caused by the spinal meningitis.

The other 4 years have been up and down.  Dealing with a child in a wheelchair has been a challenge. Everything in our house has had to be modified to accommodate a wheelchair.  We had to buy a van and face many other complications that we had never thought about.  But as the time has gone on we have had to face the thought that our child may never walk even after intense physical therapy.

And then the light of hope came when we heard of a program called Conductive Education (CE).  At first we were skeptical of the claims of any program.  One thing that comes with our challenges is having many people tell us of the latest thing to help, most of which is very expensive.  But we looked into it.

What we learned is that it sounded like a great program for our son but was not in our state.  So Jake and I decided to go live in Tucson for 6 weeks, leaving Jakes dad and 7 year old brother at home.  What a sacrifice.  It was so hard on the 7 year old and it may have lasting affects on him.  But it definitely will have lasting learning effects on Jake.  As we did the daily program (4 hours a day 5 days a week) he built his muscles up to where he could sit up straight, holding on to the table for support.  The CE tables are slatted so there is a place to hold onto. 

He learned to pull himself up from sitting to a standing position.  He could even stand for a short while without support.  He learned to take some steps with assistance.  He learned to eat by himself, and he even goes to the potty on the potty about 1/3 of the time. 

He learned to clap, which seems like a little endeavor but it meant he learned to keep his hands open curling them in a ball.  Recently we put him in a walker and he walked across our living room with very little assistance.  The only thing we did was keep his legs from crossing.  He picked up his foot and placed it forward.  I know he has a long way to go but I now believe that he could walk with continued care of CE. 

Still, there is no way we can split up our young family for such long times.  It was really difficult for our children to be apart.  So we are bringing CE to Utah.  We have a conductor coming from Hungary to teach kids here.  We would also like other kids to have the opportunity to have their kids grow like our little boy. 

We are need of caring people to help us bring this program to SL.  It costs $400 a week per kid to bring the program here, with a minimum of 4 weeks for a child to really learn something that they will maintain.  We have to have a minimum of 6 kids to participate to have enough to pay the costs of the conductor.  We would be grateful if you could help in any way to help our kids so they can become people who can have some independence and great self esteem and can help others in the future. 

The parent organization of CE of Utah has been hosting CE camps in the intermountain west for a long time, now, and is offering their conductors to neighboring states.  As a result, any donations to help a child become mobile can be used as tax deductions, as it is a non-profit organization.