Give Atlas the Gift of Mobility

The squealing sounds and laughter of children as you’re cruising past a park in the brink of spring, there’s not a more joyous sound. Or the excitement in your children when they hear that they get to go to an amusement park or maybe a family hiking trip or, as boys like to do, go explore in the woods. A family BBQ and everyone’s kids are there; you watch them run around and play as you sit and sip on your beer, waiting for dinner to be ready, just enjoying the moment.

All of these things my son, Atlas, cannot do without heavy assistance. Atlas is 3, and he LOVES doing all of these things, but his level of independence is highly minimal due to a mutation on his ITPR1 gene, which ultimately gives him the very rare diagnosis of Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 29. This diagnosis is terminal for his cerebellum, the part of your brain that is responsible for all motor function, cognitive function, learning, and adaptation abilities. It affects the movement of your eyes and your social behaviors. Since the day he was born, his cerebellum began to “shrink,” which ultimately means “die off.” People with this diagnosis will live a full but limited life.

Atlas is 3, nonverbal, and his only form of independent mobility is crawling. He’s learning to walk in a walker, but as you can imagine, he can’t use a walker on the equipment at a park or in the grass, let alone rough terrain or over deep cracks in the pavement. This could all be prevented with the help of a service animal. My sweet Atlas could keep up and live the life of a neurotypical child by using a service animal as a mobility aid. By allowing him to use the dog as support to stand and walk beside him, he could make the steps needed to walk on his own. The dog could help Atlas climb on play equipment and give him independence and companionship. $2k of the donations are for the dog itself and $10k goes towards the training needed.

No parent wants to see their child sitting on the sidelines through life, always watching kids play and pass by them as they sit and watch because their body refuses to work correctly. All children want to jump in and join independently and to experience life and get into crazy things and just be wild! With your help, Atlas could do that. If you could donate any penny that you can, it is greatly appreciated, and if you can’t, just a quick share to all platforms would be a blessing. Thank you, everyone, for your generosity and time!

*EDIT TO ADD*

While seeing Atlas be able to live a life as closely to his peers as possible the BIGGEST efforts of the dog will go to keeping him stable. Ataxia keeps you from finding yourself in gravity which causes him to fall over consistently regardless of how stable he was. Sitting, crawling, it doesn’t matter what he’s doing, he falls and smacks his face or hits his head A LOT! A service dog will help him stay stable and to stop hurting himself because his body fails him. I’m so tired of seeing my baby scream and cry in pain for accidents that he simply just cannot help. Imagine sitting in a chair at work doing your daily tasks and just falling over and smacking your face and head on the concrete floor with no warning or ability to catch yourself. Now do that 5-10 times a day. That’s why he needs a dog. As much as we help and prevent his fallings, we don’t catch all of them which is why he gets hurt.