Meet Addison!
It is truly an honor to nominate Addison Tisdale in Project Mobility’s Adaptive Bike Giveaway. Addison was born pre-mature on February 10th, 2011. I thought I was having a St. Patrick's Day baby and it turned into a Valentine's Day baby. She spent the first 2 weeks of her life in the NICU learning how to breath on her own and learn the sucking reflex so she can eat. Addison was on track for all her milestones until September 23, 2011 she had her first seizure in the car while we where driving. That day we found out what a febrile seizures is. She had a 102 fever so it spiked into a seizure. Fast forward to Addison's first birthday and she ended up having a 15 minute seizure and a 105 fever, plus a week long hospital stay with lots of tests being done.
A year later we finally got some answers to why Addison was having so many seizures daily and failing over 4 seizure medicines, she has Dravet Syndrome. Dravet Syndrome is a rare catastrophic, lifelong form of epilepsy that begins in the first year of life with frequent and/or prolonged seizures. Dravet affects 1 in 15,700 individuals. Some common issues that go along with Dravet and that Addison suffers from daily are prolonged seizures, frequent seizures, behavioral and developmental delays, orthopedic conditions, speech issues, temperature control, and a constant worry of SUDEP (sudden unexplained death in epilepsy). Addison has been though many hospital stays including a 3 weeks in the PICU for double pneumonia. She has had to overcome so many setback.
Addison is a fun loving strong spunky 9 year old girl, She loves playing with her baby dolls and barbies. She also enjoys playing outside, playing with her cousin Dominick, and swimming while the weather is warm. Unfortunately this summer Addison had her first seizure in the pool so she isn't able to enjoy the pool that much. She does have a cooling vest she wears when she is outside to help keep her body temperature regulated so she doesn't have a seizure.
Addison had her first experience at physical therapy last year riding an adaptive bike. I had explained to the therapist that I'm not sure if she is going to be able to pedal the adaptive bike. Addison had tried to ride a 2 wheeler bike with training wheels at a friends house and wasn't able to pedal. Addison got right on the adaptive bike and started pedaling. She blew me away. I just was so happy for her i started to cry. Addison was so excited to be able to ride the bike at therapy that it became her special treat after therapy. She would ride it a few laps around the building. Since Covid we haven't been able to go to physical therapy. This has been really hard for Addison not seeing her therapist and not being able to ride the adaptive bike at therapy. Thankfully Addison was able to ride a friends adaptive bike a few times this summer when they came over to visit. I truly believe Addison would benefit socially and physically with receiving an adaptive bike. She would be able to ride her bike with her friends and her cousin Dominick like any kid would. We are truly thankful for a chance for Addison to receive an adaptive bike of her own.”