Year: 2019

First steps on a journey of recovery

Four-year-old Jack Teyssier works through a series of exercises each week at Schreiber. His physical therapy sessions include strengthening and stretching for his lower left leg, some core work and some myofascial release by Schreiber therapist Lisa Stachler-Volk.

Jack Teyssier, 4, finishes his physical therapy session with Schreiber PT Lisa Stachler-Volk.

Jack Teyssier, 4, finishes his physical therapy session with Schreiber PT Lisa Stachler-Volk.

It’s hard to tell what exactly Jack is dealing with until Lisa puts some kind of black brace-like device on Jack’s left ankle.

Jack has one of the rare disorders therapists at Schreiber see from time to time. In this case, he has myofibromatosis, a condition that causes benign tumors to grow anywhere in the body.

According to the National Organization for Rare Disorders, most cases occur in young children and there can be a familial link. Jack’s mother Kara Teyssier said she had them on her leg and back; they were surgically removed when she was a baby. Her youngest son, Levi, also had one inside his cheek that was treated through chemotherapy and surgery.

It hasn’t been so simple with Jack.

“He has quite the medical history,” Kara said.

While Jack did his exercises with Lisa, Kara went through the list of Jack’s issues.

When he was born, he was diagnosed with pyloric atresia, an obstruction in the part of the stomach that leads to the small intestine. Doctors at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia repaired that through surgery, and they also found the first his benign tumors.

At one month, Kara said she and her husband, Ben, noticed Jack’s left foot was droopy. Another of these tumors had developed and was pressing on a nerve in his leg.

So Jack went through a course of chemotherapy, and Kara said most of the tumors have shrunk or disappeared. But the one in his leg had caused permanent damage to the nerve. and Jack had lost the ability to flex his foot normally.

From the time Jack was 7 or 8 months old, Schreiber therapists began working with him at home. That lasted about a year and a half, until the Teyssiers decided he was doing well enough with a brace on his left leg.

Over time, though, his doctors wanted to try and restore more flexibility in his foot. They recommended another surgery, this time to take a tendon from the bottom of his droopy left foot and move it to the top of the same foot.

That surgery happened in March 2019, and he started coming to Schreiber for physical therapy in April.

Lisa has worked on helping him walk better. Before the surgery, the brace kept his foot in a neutral position to help him walk. But he couldn’t flex his foot at all.

“The surgery helped,” Lisa said. “He couldn’t lift his foot at all when we started. Now, he can keep his foot in a neutral (not drooping) position without the brace.”

She has been working on improving the strength of his left leg; his foot tended to roll and he would walk on the side of his foot. He’s also better able to flex his foot up and down. How far he will eventually progress isn’t known.

He can run around and play just like any other 4 year old. He rides a bike without training wheels. When he walks, you can’t even tell he has any kind of a problem, Kara said.

“We have been pleased with his progress,” Kara said. “At home, he doesn’t even wear the brace a lot of the time. Long term, we don’t know if he’ll have to keep the brace. Time will tell what happens as he continues to grow and get stronger. We’re blown away with how far he’s come.”

Schreiber therapy makes difference in Vietnam

In May, Denisha Roberts took her second mission trip overseas with Brittany’s Hope, a Lancaster County nonprofit that serves families and orphaned children, primarily in Vietnam and Africa. During her travels on this trip, Denisha worked with a 12-year-old boy named Quan. As we do in our therapy work here at Schreiber, Denisha’s visit changed Quan’s life. We talked recently about her trip. The interview has been edited for space and clarity.

Denisha Kline, left, with Quan, one of the many children she worked with during her trip to Vietnam in May.

Denisha Kline, left, with Quan, one of the many children she worked with during her trip to Vietnam in May.

Dan Fink: We talked earlier when you were getting ready to leave on this mission trip. You’ve since gone. I just wanted to hear a little bit about how the trip went.

Denisha: The trip was amazing. We stopped at a couple different orphanages in Vietnam. We started in Ho Chi Minh City and traveled from there to two central locations in Vietnam and then to Hanoi in northern Vietnam.

At the one location, there were quite a few kids who had special needs. There was recently a capital campaign done through Brittany’s Hope to build an adaptive living quarters and get some therapy equipment for these kids. That was my favorite part of the trip because there were about six kids that had special needs, with significant motor special needs. We were able to educate the staff on how to use appropriate equipment for those kids. My favorite part of that piece of the trip was a young boy named Quan. He was about 12 years old. He was recently brought to the orphanage by his grandmother because she was no longer able to care for him. Prior to coming to the orphanage, he would spend his days when she would go to work lying on the floor in their small living area. He never had the ability to sit unless somebody was able to hold him.

I’m not sure where his parents were in this picture. His grandmother could no longer care for him and meet his needs, so she brought him to the orphanage hoping that he would receive some care there. We brought him to the adaptive living quarters, and through the help of a translator, we were able to talk to him. Sweet boy. Very quiet, soft spoken. Very serious young man. Had a lot of muscle contractures. Couldn’t sit up on his own, couldn’t really roll on his own.

Dan: Did he have a diagnosis?

Denisha: He was probably never seen medically. My pretty good best guess would be cerebral palsy. We asked him if he wanted to sit up; he said yes. He was very fearful about sitting, so we slowly brought him up into sitting on the mat table, and then we asked him if he wanted to sit in one of the adaptive wheelchairs that were donated. He said yes. So we transferred him to a wheelchair and really monitored him because he had not been sitting, just making sure that he was OK.

Dan: It can be unsettling for a kiddo who has been lying down most of his life to be in that upright position.

Denisha: Yes. Right. So once he was in the wheelchair, he had the biggest smile on his face. He was so excited to be sitting without somebody having to hold him. So I handed him a playground-sized ball and asked him if he could throw it to me. And he just looked down at his hands because his hands had never really been free to play because he had always been lying on the floor or being held. We helped him. He picked up his hands off the tray and held the ball and threw it. Then he realized he could do this. So he was playing ball a little bit with this big smile on his face. He got tired pretty quickly and went back to his room.

Later that evening, all the kids at the orphanage had a big celebration and did different skits that they had been practicing and songs and dances and games.

Dan: Just for you because you were visiting?

Denisha: Because we were visiting. We had a big buffet meal and a celebration with them. The children with special needs were not involved with this, for the most part. So I went into Quan’s room and asked if he wanted to come out and join the celebration. He said, yes, he did. We got the wheelchair, positioned him, went out. He had the best time. He was laughing, and talking with some of the other kids and the caregivers. He joined in, the kids would push his wheelchair around to the different locations. You could tell he was really enjoying himself. He got tired pretty quickly.

The caregivers took him back to his room after a few hours. I went in to check on him, and, with the help of one of the caregivers, who had a translation device on her cell phone, I was able to tell him I was really proud of him for trying new things. It can be a little scary to try new things, but his caregivers now know how to do some of the things we had done. And hopefully he will continue to work on sitting and using his hands more and doing some of the stretches we had given him to do. He smiled and said through the translator, today is the first day he was ever included in an activity. And it was the first time he was truly happy.

Quan was pretty articulate and very social and aware of what was going on around him and really craved the interaction with the other kids. And it was neat to be able to show the caregivers how it was so simple to include him in some of the activities.

Dan: Culturally and philosophically, the idea of including kids with special needs like Quan in group activities, they didn’t think about that?

Denisha: They didn’t think about it, plus they never had the means to be able to do it, unless you’re carrying some of these children.

Dan: So having a chair helps.

Denisha: Having a wheelchair makes a big difference. Otherwise, there would be no opportunity for him to be included. And for kids who are still living with families, there’s nobody who can stay home with them. There are no schools that have special equipment to accommodate the kids, or at least none that I’m aware of. It’s just much more difficult for these families. And medical care is hard for some of these families to afford.

Dan: Tell me a little bit more about some of the other things you did on the trip. You were there for how long?

Denisha: Almost three weeks. It was very hot, very humid. It was fun. We delivered some soccer equipment for some of the older children, mostly boys who enjoy playing soccer. We help the kids work in the gardens, plant coconut trees. We took two groups of children on field trips.

Dan: So these were not all special needs kids?

Denisha: No, not all special needs kids. We dedicated some houses to some families so that the mother could keep her children, because the mother didn’t have living arrangements for the children to stay. That was fun. We visited a large government-run orphanage and did some case studies with a physical therapist there and talked about some tips on working with children with autism, because they didn’t really have that bag of tricks or education to know how to help with those kids. At the large government-run orphanage, there were probably between 300-400 or more kids with pretty significant special needs. That was a little overwhelming, but you kind of just do what you can do to leave everything in a better position than when you got there.

Dan: What would you say you ended up taking away from the trip? Anything new that you learned?

Denisha: I learned a lot about the culture. It was just fun to work with the kids and give attention to some children who maybe don’t get a lot of attention because the caregivers are so busy with large groups of children. I think the best part was being able to share ideas and discuss therapy ideas with staff, and for them to be able to apply it for the children who were there. From that, we realized it was probably something we want to do frequently so I’m looking at getting some therapists to go back every year.

(laughs)

But the kids are amazing. They’re resilient. They’re willing to help each other out. They have amazing dreams. My sponsor daughter in Kenya wants to become an artist. My sponsor son wants to become either a lawyer or a police officer. These kids are going to college. And they are making these things happen.

Schreiber volunteer all about the Duckies

Melissa Warner sells hundreds of ducks a year as a volunteer for Schreiber’s Rubber Duckie Race.

Melissa’s connection to Schreiber goes back to the beginning of the Lititz Chocolate Walk.

Chocolate Walk started in 2001 as a project of the Kiwanis Club of the Lititz Area. Melissa was a member then (and still is today). One of the Lititz club’s founders was Ralph Sherrif, who also happened to be a Schreiber board member.

“When we did the first one, we were talking about where the money we raised was going to go,” Melissa said. “It was because of Ralph that we decided Schreiber would be one of the places we supported.”

Her connection to Schreiber grew through her work as a math teacher at Manheim Township High School. She was also a Key Club advisor, making students aware of community service opportunities.

“I would always mention Schreiber,” she said. “I’d tell them: ‘They are helping kids that really need help.'”

She retired from teaching in 2009, and initially she spent many days caring for her ailing father. After he passed in 2013, she had more time for volunteering. Her thoughts turned to Schreiber.

“I came in to drop something off for Chocolate Walk, and I took a little tour,” said. “I saw one of those classrooms… I knew I wanted to be more involved.”

That same year, she signed up to sell tickets for the Rubber Duckie Race. Dozens of people sell tickets for us every year. These Duck Patrol sales people are a critical part of our selling. Melissa takes it to another level.

She will sell Duckies to friends and neighbors. She will sell them at Kiwanis meetings and some of the other volunteer groups she’s involved with. She takes them to church. Last year, her minister was reluctant to buy one. Melissa wouldn’t take no for an answer. He ended up with the Noah Duck — as in Noah’s Ark — that was part of our Animal Kingdom theme.

She has the no-nonsense air of a teacher, but she’s all heart when it comes to Schreiber. She signs out hundreds of ducks each year to sell, and she rarely brings any back unsold.

“I love talking to people about what you do here,” she says. “Who can say no to spending $5 to help kids? And the ducks are just a fun way to do it.”

Want to join the fun?

Selling Duckies for Schreiber is fun — and easy. Just download one of the Sales Patrol applications, fill it out and bring it in, and you can sign out some Duckies to sell. Take 10 or take 100; any number helps and is appreciated. And you will be making a difference for all the children of Schreiber.

Schreiber goes to the moon with therapy

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. And Schreiber’s Occupational Therapy Department is using the occasion to add some moon fun to therapy sessions.

Wyatt Dennison makes quick work of a ‘moon rock’ during a recent occupational therapy session at Schreiber.

Eli Cole climbed to the top of a lunar hill (actually a huge pillow) and jumped into a small lunar lake (actually a big ball pit).

Wyatt Dennison turned a piece of paper into a rocket, slipped it over a plastic straw then had it blast off with a puff of air from his mouth.

Schreiber OT Bernie Hershey was the mission control commander who made all this lunar fun happen. Bernie likes to use current events to add a little spice to her therapy sessions.

Wyatt, 6, comes to Schreiber for OT and speech-language therapies. His mom Liz says Wyatt is on the autism spectrum, and he’s been coming to Schreiber for more than three years for help with his fine and gross motor skills and to work on sensory issues.

Wyatt Dennison and Schreiber OT Bernie Hershey launch their straw rockets at the same time to end Wyatt’s therapy session.

For the lunar crafts, Wyatt has to use fine motor skills to cut out the piece of paper that will become the body of the rocket, then cut out the fins. He then has to wrap the rocket around a pencil to form it, tape the fins to the body, then slip it off the pencil and onto the straw.

“The kids don’t really know much about the moon landing, so we’re incorporating our therapy goals into activities with a NASA or a moon-landing theme,” Bernie said. “NASA’s website had lots of ideas we were able to use.”

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory actually posted the instructions for the straw rocket on its website.

Eli works on his balance and core strength when he’s climbing the lunar hill. He also practiced his handwriting by pressing gently on “zero gravity” paper (paper on a soft surface that would allow for easy punctures).

Eli Cole jumps into a ‘lunar lake’ during a recent occupational therapy session. The exercise added an element of space fun to therapy.

Both boys also used a small hammer to smash “moon rocks” during therapy, another exercise that worked on hand-eye coordination, and walked in moon boots, that helps them practice balance and coordination.

“With everything that our families have to deal with on a daily basis, adding variety with a special theme improves motivation on even the most difficult task, like the handwriting practice,” Bernie said.

There is a little bit of the Apollo spirit in all of this, the creativity and the experimenting and the striving to be a little bit better.

And that’s a good thing. For Schreiber and for the kids.

John Hatch, longtime Schreiber volunteer, passes away

John Hatch was a familiar face here at Schreiber in the past few years. H  was a neighbor, whose Homestead Village villa was close enough to our campus that he could hear of the squeals of the kids playing on the playground.

John Hatch (Photo courtesy Homestead Village)

When Schreiber and Homestead talked about starting a new intergenerational program to bring residents into the center to volunteer, John took the lead on Homestead’s end.

When the women who organize the annual Homestead Village Mother’s Day Jewelry Sale wanted a man to join their effort, John raised his hand.

When a group from Homestead attended our annual gala two years ago, John reserved the table.

In every case, he was a gracious, gentlemanly presence.

We hadn’t seen him much recently, though. We heard a little more than a year ago that he had received a difficult medical diagnosis.

Last week, we learned he had passed. His loving wife Louise stopped in to tell us and to share a few memories as she looked through some of our archives to check details about his connection to Schreiber.

As Louise already knew, it was a long, faithful connection.

John came to Lancaster in 1976. He moved here as the director of purchasing for Howmet Aluminum, later Alcoa and now Arconic Mill Products, according to his obituary.

By 1979, he had joined the board of directors for what was then the Lancaster County chapter of Easter Seals. By the early ’80s, he was leading the fundraising for the organization and was a key player in launching Buck-A-Cup and the Rubber Duckie Race as major community fundraisers. In 1985, he was named president of the board of directors.

After his time on the board ended, and after Schreiber became an independent nonprofit, John continued to stay involved with the center for another 30 years.

It would be difficult to find a more dedicated servant for Schreiber. We will miss him.

Rest well, John.

Bernie Hershey, right, guides Owen Hull as he rides on the new therapy bike built for Schreiber by students from Penn State Harrisburg. Nicole Linke, left, was one of the students. Owen’s mother Monica watches them work.

Another Arconic connection. Back in September, four Penn State Harrisburg engineering students approached us looking for a senior capstone project. Two of the students had been interns at Arconic in the summer of 2018 when they joined a group of Arconic employees who visited Schreiber on a volunteer day.

After talking with Schreiber Occupational Therapist Bernie Hershey, the students decided to modify a therapy bike and fit it with variable resistance.

The students brought their first version of the bike to Schreiber in February. After taking time to refine their concept and make adjustments, they brought in the completed bike last week. Owen Hull, a Schreiber kiddo who took the first bike out for a spin, was here again to greet the students and test out the final product.

The big smile on his face told the story.

Thanks again to Nicole Linke, Cody Mackanick, Michael Ruch and Andrew Saienni for their creative work on behalf of Schreiber. Nicole and Michael graduated and had jobs waiting for them.

At Arconic.

We’d like to think that John Hatch would be pleased.

Thanks to two longtime Schreiber volunteers

Around Schreiber, we have a shorthand for talking about Tina Edgell and Patty Watson.

Tina and Patty. Or sometimes Patty and Tina. It may as well be PattyTina.

For most of the past 20 years, Tina and Patty have been reliable Schreiber volunteers. It’s not a stretch to say they are among the most dedicated of all of our amazing volunteers, and that’s saying something.

We wanted to take the time this week, during National Volunteer Week, to tell the Schreiber community about their support of Schreiber.

So it turns out their involvement started with the old Schreiber Buck-A-Cup campaign. (By the way, we’re bringing that back this year, right now, and you can learn more about how to participate here.

Tina was the first sister to connect with Schreiber. She and her family owned then (and still do now) the Histsoric Revere Tavern restaurant.

“I was president of the Lancas County chapter of the Pennsylvannia Restaurant Association,” Tina said. “We used to be really involved in the Buck-A-Cup campaign. I chaired that event for a few years. I would help get all the Lancaster restaurants involved and put the materials together and everything. And we did BINGO (fundraisers) here for many years.

Patty Watson, second from left, and Tina Edgell, second from right, spent a recent Saturday night volunteering at the Schreiber Gala. They are with Marybeth Tearpock, another Schreiber volunteer, and Susan Fisher, Schreiber’s volunteer coordinator.

“There was a man named Wilmer Lapp. He was the one with the restaurant association who told me how important Schreiber was and what we had to do. He was the one who instillied my passion for Schreiber.”

After leading Buck-A-Cup in the 1980s, she started volunteering at the Gala and then at Duckie. In 1998, after Patty and her husband moved back to Lancaster, Tina recruited her sister into the Schreiber family.

“At that time, Tina was volunteering for the Duckie Race,” Patty said. “She said, ‘You want to come with us?'” And that’s where it all began for me.”

At Gala, they have registered guests together for at least the past 10 years. At Duckie, you can find them running the information tent on the day of the race, overseeing ticket and merchandise sales, working with Schreiber staff and just making sure things run smoothly.

“The Duckie Race is my all-time favorite,” Tina said. “Because we see so many of the (Schreiber) kids coming in that day. It truly is a kid event.”

That’s what keeps Patty coming back, too.

“The kids,” she said. “They’re so awesome. You see the smile on their faces. And you see kids come back year after year. Like Carly Long. To see her grow up through the years, and to see how much she benefitted from Schreiber’s services, is just amazing.”

The Schreiber spirit soon seeped into the next generation. Children in both of their families became volunteers. And Patty’s daughter Erica switched her college major from accounting to speech therapy because of Erica’s time volunteering and working as a counselor at Camp Schreiber.

Schreiber can get in your blood. It’s not something either one of the sisters want to give up anytime soon.

It’s so rewarding,” Patty said. “I’m going to keep doing it until I’m in a walker and can’t make it anymore.”

“You’re stuck with us,” Tina said.

Around Schreiber, we wouldn’t want it any other way.

Schreiber’s reach stretches around the world

When Denisha Kline had the chance to work with kids at orphanages in Vietnam, it didn’t take her long to say yes. Denisha is a physical therapist at Schreiber and a board member at Brittany’s Hope, a nonprofit based in Elizabethtown that provides support for children in orphanages in Vietnam and Africa. Brittany’s Hope is coordinating the trip.

Denisha Kline, a Schreiber occupational therapist, will make a humanitarian trip to serve children in Vietnam. The trip is organized by Brittany’s Hope.

She had been on a similar trip to Africa a few years ago and was eager to do another one.

She’s leaving May 19 and will be gone for 17 days. They will visit several different orphanages, working with staff and teachers on best practices for caring for children, including those with special needs.

She will be joined by two occupational therapy professors and a handful of social work and occupational therapy students, all from Elizabethtown College.

“We’ll have a chance to train staff and problem solve and do therapy with kids,” Denisha said. “Most orphanages lack to the staff to provide (an adequate) level of care, and they don’t have the equipment or the building space. We’ll do what we can to help them.”

Another thing Denisha is hoping to do is to take along some supplies to leave with the orphanages, the kids and their families. She’s asking for donated items, particularly adaptive feeding tools like spoons, bowls and cups.

“If we have Schreiber parents whose kids are older and don’t need some of these smaller items, this is a real opportunity to pass them on to families that have a need,” Denisha said. “It might help a child over there learn a skill that will help them be more independent.”

MAKE A DONATION

Do you have adaptive feeding tools that you aren’t using anymore?

Bring them to Schreiber between now and April 26. Denisha Kline would like to deliver the items to the orphanages and families in Vietnam she visits during her trip with Brittany’s Hope.

Contact Denisha at 717-393-0425 ext. 153 or by email at dkline@schreiberpediatric.org to learn more or make arrangements to donate.

Penn State students build a better bike for Schreiber

We have a lot of therapy bikes at Schreiber. But there was a certain kind of bike we were missing: a hand bike, no pedaling, for school-age kids. Enter a group of senior mechanical engineering students from Penn State Harrisburg.

Bernie Hershey, a Schreiber occupational therapist, was the one who suggested the project to the group in September.

Bernie Hershey, right, a Schreiber occupational therapist, guides Owen Hull as he rides on the first version of a new therapy bike. The bike was made by a team of four mechanical engineering students from Penn State Harrisburg, including Nicole Linke and Michael Ruch, who are behind Bernie and Owen.

The students, all seniors — Nicole Linke, 21; Cody Mackanick, 23; Michael Ruch, 23; and Andrew Saienni, 23 — came to visit Schreiber after Nicole and Michael had interned over the summer with Arconic, a Lancaster County manufacturer. Arconic has supported Schreiber for several years by donating and sending volunteers. Nicole and Michael joined a group of Arconic employees for a service day at Schreiber that included a tour by Susan Fisher, Schreiber’s volunteer coordinator.

“We have one hand bike, and it’s too small for some of the kids that need it,” Bernie said. “Susan brought them to me, and they said they were looking for a capstone project for their senior year.”

The tour sparked their engineer brains immediately.

“When I saw this old therapy bike they had, I was intrigued,” Nicole said. “I thought that looked like something we could work on.”

The idea they developed with Bernie was to build a bike for kids ages 6-12 that would require the kids to pedal using only their hands. (Watch Zoey Zweizig do a demonstration ride in the video below.)

“We’re always looking for ways to have upper body resistance,” Bernie said. “One of the best ways to build upper body strength is to have them propel themselves through space.”

From left, Nicole Linke, Cody Mackanick and Michael Ruch, students from Penn State Harrisburg, demonstrate for Bernie Hershey the new therapy bike they built for Schreiber.

That movement triggers the release of endorphins in the brain that are pleasing and calming at the same time. Bernie saw that immediately when Owen Hull climbed on the bike. Owen is 5, and he receives occupational, physical and speech-language therapy at Schreiber. He’s on the autism spectrum, said his mom Monica Hull.
“If you noticed, the more he rode the more he talked to the college students,” Bernie said. “He engaged with those kids, which he normally doesn’t do. He was mechanically inspecting the bike and asking questions about it. Oh, I got such a charge out of it.”

The students have enjoyed the work, too. They started in September and the bike they brought this week was a first prototype. They will take it back and make adjustments based on the feedback from Bernie, and from the kids. They asked the kids what colors the bike should be, for example. The project should be finished in April and will be exhibited during Penn State Harrisburg’s annual show of capstone engineering projects in May.

None of the students knew anything about Schreiber a year ago. All are from outside of Lancaster County. But they connected right away with Schreiber’s mission and wanted to do something to help.

Owen Hull, who is on the autism spectrum, opened up after riding for a few minutes on the prototype of the new therapy bike.

“I just liked spending a year working on something that will help someone instead of making something for a company that might not even use it,” Nicole said.

“Knowing that it would be used every day is really important,” Cody Mackanick added.

The students raised the money for the bike themselves, about $1,500 in all, through a GoFundMe page. They spent a portion of that for the materials to build the bike.

And the rest? That money they will donate that to Schreiber.