A Tryke for the Tike

One of the "perks" or lessons in having a child with physical differences is that God has been teaching us to receive grace and the generosity of others. We've been so amazed and blessed and often surprised by how giving people are! Our medical expenses are huge and obviously they will be for life for Will. Therefore, receiving a free, custom trike is such a blessing for us as we would not have been able to spend hundreds of dollars on a customized trike for Will. This week, Will was presented with a custom built tricycle from AMBUCS and Amtryke! We are so thankful for their investment in our son and our family! Years ago, the Longview chapter of AMBUCS (http://www.longviewambus.com/) worked with a physical therapist to invent a tricycle for children with differences. To date, this national organzation has given more than 10,000 tricycles and bicycles to children with special needs and physical differences! The parts for Will's tryke came from Germany and Japan and were built with his body in mind. The process began last summer and then, this week, we travelled to East Texas, where the service club for men, AMBUCS, presented the tryke to Will. This organization is further blessing us as they have offered to follow Will for life as long as I send updated pictures. They told me that when Will outgrows his trike, they would like to provide him with customized bicycles! These are high-end bikes, folks... not cheap! They want to continue to provide this service for Will as he grows! Wow! We are overwhelmed by their generosity. We are indeed blessed!
I love the tryke because it is colorful and looks like any other tryke so it normalizes life for Will. I love that it will work muscles in his hands, arms, and legs. I love that it has a removable parent bar so that we can push Will & his legs will still get a workout before he is ready to ride independently. I love that statistics (& our experience) show that when we do something new with Will, he tends to make huge strides in his gross motor skills. For instance, as soon as Will learned to swim last spring, he suddenly mastered several skills we had worked on for months. And today, after only riding his tryke for a day, Will took 21 INDEPENDENT STEPS IN A ROW, TURNED AROUND, & STOOD STILL IN ONE PLACE!!!!!!!!! I put that in caps as his previous record was only 6 steps in a straight line! WOW! Huge strides - no pun intended!:) I believe this tryke will push him physically to master new skills!
Will did great at the presentation yesterday! He actually ate from a glass plate without throwing any food or throwing the plate for that matter! :) He did great with the media as well, although the flash of all their cameras made him very curious!
Disclaimer: The reporter in the below tv spot mentions several times that Will was born with "no feet." Perhaps I'm just an overprotective mom but it is really important to us to make sure that Will knows he has feet. His feet are just different than the feet of others. He does, in fact, have heel bones so we usually tell the media that he has partial feet and we refer to it as "feet differences." Apparently, the reporter yesterday decided to not use my terms and go with "no feet." Guess I'll have to be even more adamant in the future regarding the vocabulary used by the media regarding Will. Disappointing for me but, thankfully, Will is not of an age yet to have heard and understood that so at least it didn't bring up any questions or emotions for him. I just want to clarify that the reporter is not quoting me with that phrase!
http://www.cbs19.tv/Global/story.asp?S=9758688&nav=menu1493_2_8