For the first time in her life, a three year old girl in Brownwood with Spina Bifida has the ability, of mobility.
It’s thanks to the generous work of a local medical company that she can now move across the room to her mother for the first time.
For the first time in her life, Jacque McClure can move across a room on her own.
Until now she has had to depend on everyone but herself for everything.
Let’s put the McClure’s life in perspective for you. How often do you tuck your child into bed?
“A lot of time parents forget to tuck their kids into bed at night,” said Jacque’s mom, Amber McClure. “That’s just not something we can do with Jacque.”
They don’t take a single night for granted.
“When we go to bed at night I don’t know if the nurse is going to wake me up and tell me it’s over.”
She wasn’t even supposed to live this long. Doctors told them so.
But against all odds, even being told she could never operate a chair like the one she got, Monday, she did, and did it well.
“This is [like] Jacque walking for the first time,” explained Jacque’s mom.
“Doctors labeled her maybe not ever having the ability to do that,” said Travis Medical ATP, Rubin Mejia. “…We proved that case today.”
Mejia works with individuals with special medical needs and getting rehabilitation equipment prescribed to them.
In Jacque’s case as well as many other individuals’, Travis Medical works with Medicaid through a data collection process, making the equipment special for the individual.
Amber McClure relies on Travis Medical to help her through the challenging times.
“They fight the fights that I can’t fight,” she said. “I just call them and give them the tough jobs.”
Ever increasing restrictions on rules and regulations through Medicaid and other medical companies make it harder for Travis Medical to accommodate their clients.
Industry standards usually keep funding from Travis Medical for 90 days. With Jacque they got it in just a couple months.
Travis Medical made all this possible working with Jacque for years, through the best, and the worst of days when they thought she wouldn’t make it.
“I didn’t know if we were gonna get to see this day when she got her chair,” said DJ Callaway, who’s worked with Jacque for years. “It was my honor to get to see Jacque actually cross the room to go to her mom for the first time. That’s enough of a reason for me to do this forever.”
For just right now though, making circles in the living room floor is Jacque’s way of learning to crawl, walk and realize she’s doing it on her own, as any other child learning these things would.
There are still a few technical things to be worked out in Jacque’s chair. A vertical elevator giving her the chance to raise up and down is still to come, and even the possibility of adding Bluetooth, to control things like the television.
Controlling the television is just what Jacque’s mom foresees, and is afraid of from a stubborn three year old becoming a teenager.
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