Christopher was born prematurely at 29 weeks and was transferred to Children’s Specialized Hospital in New Brunswick for inpatient rehabilitation at just four months hold.
He spent six months at CSH and worked closely with his care team in physical, occupational, speech, and feeding therapies in order to help him reach important milestones.
After several evaluations, it was determined that Christopher was developmentally and physically delayed, suffered a chronic lung disease, and would need a gastrostomy tube for proper feeding for the foreseeable future.
Christopher’s mom, Ashlie, said she felt powerless when she first arrived at Children’s Specialized Hospital. “I kept asking myself how I would learn to properly care for my child,” she said.
After several meetings with Christopher’s team of physicians, nurses, and therapists, staff at CSH provided Ashlie with every resource she needed to learn about her child’s condition and helped her feel empowered to provide him with the care he needed to thrive in his home environment. Finally, at nearly 10 months old, Christopher was safely discharged home and began attending outpatient therapies at Children’s Specialized Hospital in Mountainside.
“If it weren’t for Children’s Specialized Hospital, I would not know how to do anything relating to Christopher’s care,” she said. “The team brought me up to speed daily and taught me how to tend to his needs, including the more intricate pieces, like helping him with his feeding tube.”
By Christopher’s second birthday, he was attending a rigorous outpatient therapy plan and Ashlie began noticing major differences in her son’s development right away. “It just worked,” she said. “We began to see our baby grow!”
During that time, Christopher began to crawl and showed progress in balance by standing and walking just after his third birthday.
“Chris is 5 now, and I can’t keep up with him!” shared Ashlie. “Our boy is running, dancing, jumping, and moving all over the place.”
Therapists working with Christopher say that dancing has played a huge role in his physical therapy sessions. Since incorporating music into his sessions, Chris shows a major interest in getting up, moving around, and staying active.
Chris is still working with the team at Children’s to reach his full potential. Climbing stairs, strengthening his core, maintaining balance, hand-eye coordination, and proper feeding are still major part of Christopher’s therapy. He is also working diligently in speech therapy to be able to pronounce all syllables in various words and phrases.
“I hope that one day Christopher will grow up to inspire other children by telling them about all of the trials and tribulations he went through as a kid,” said Ashlie. “I want to instill in him the lessons we learned here, that no challenge can stop you from reaching your goals.”
In offering advice to other patients and families faced with similar challenges, Ashlie encourages parents to stay strong, trust in the process, and to take an active role in their child’s care. She says, “Along with their course of care, you can help your child go as far as you want them to go - you just have to believe.”