Within days after his birth, Anes began having seizures. The lack of available medical treatments in Bosnia lead his parents to ask The Hemi Foundation for help.

 

 

 

Brian had a right hemispherectomy for Rasmussen's shortly before he turned four years old.  As he grew, he had difficulty riding his training wheel bike as his strong right side was overpowering his weaker left side.  He eventually became too big for his bike and would fall over every time he pushed against his training wheels.  Like many older children, he just stopped riding.  When Brian was eight I discovered a bicycle camp called Lose the Training Wheels. 
Lose the Training Wheels is an adaptive bicycle camp that teaches children with mental and/or physical disabilities how to ride regular bicycles without training wheels.  Children start off on stable, roller-wheeled bikes and progress to increasingly less stable bikes.  By week's end, the majority of children are on regular bikes without any support.  Each participant has an individual trainer to guide them through the five day camp. Participants attend camp for 75 minutes each day.  Seven or eight children ride at one time.  Children must be at least 7 years old and be able to ride a regular bike with training wheels.  They must be able to follow directions and pay attention during the 75 minutes of continuous riding each day.  Lose the Training Wheel has successfully helped children with numerous disabilities or challenges including mild autism, mild Down's Syndrome, amputations, brain injury, mild cerebral palsy, spina bifida and ADHD.  
What is important to realize, though, is that unlike a typical child - "once you learn to ride a bike you never forget", our kids and others with disabilities will forget how to ride without a lot of practice.  I have always told interested families that the whole family needs to commit to riding if they want their special child to be successful.  It takes months of practice every day after camp to keep this new skill progressing to true independence.
After some research I decided to bring LTTW to Cleveland, Ohio as I knew there were multitudes of children who could benefit from the program.  Brian was 9 years old when he and 34 other kids took part in this amazing camp during the summer of 2006.  My prayers were answered when Brian rode a regular bike, unassisted on the third day of camp!  The tears in our gym flowed for five days as child after child rode on their own for the first time.  Thirty-five miracles occurred that week, and with that I decided to host the camp again in 2007 and 2008. 
The success rate for any given camp is between 70 and 90 percent depending on the disabilities present.  Any parent will tell you that going through the camp has changed both their child's life and the life of their family.  I cannot begin to express how incredible it was to take our first family bike ride with Brian and our two daughters.  Brian is now 12 and rides his bike daily.  We take family bike rides several times a week and take our bikes on vacation as we will this summer on a trip to Hilton Head Island.
Our hemi kids are amazing and riding regular bicycles is certainly within their reach!
To see a video from the Cleveland LTTW camp, go to the YouTube site on the HemiFoundation website.  For more information about participation in a camp go to www.losethetrainingwheels.org  or contact me at nancy@hemifoundation.org