Team Tatum

On Saturday, December 5, 2015, tragedy struck the Allen family.  Ed Allen (32), Millbrook School’s Athletic Director, was killed in a car accident.  His two daughters were with him in the car.  While Codie, then 3, suffered relatively minor injuries, Tatum, then almost 2, suffered a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI).  Tatum spent one month at Maria Fareri Children's Hospital in the PICU. She fought for her life with all her strength.  After one month, once she had stabilized, Tatum moved to Blythedale Children's Hospital, where her long road of rehabilitation began.  Tatum remained at Blythedale for nearly four months.  
 
In August, Tatum, her mom, Emily, and her sisters, Codie and Avery (born on March 17, 2016 -- Emily was pregnant at the time of the accident) moved back to their home at Millbrook School.  Tatum’s days are spent receiving intense occupational therapy, physical therapy, vision therapy, and speech therapy from an incredible team of therapists and nurses who all come to their home. She must relearn how to walk, talk, eat, and see. She continues to make small progress every day – and every bit of progress is a tiny miracle.  
 
In November, Emily took Tatum to The Family Hope Center, an international organization based in Pennsylvania that specializes in helping children with all types of brain injuries. The Family Hope Center team works to rewire and repattern the brains of these children, creating a unique and individualized physiological program for each child. Tatum’s program from the Family Hope Center covers feeding, diet and nutrition, developing sensory pathways (vision, hearing, understanding, sensation, tactility), movement, and more.   The Family Hope team, which includes doctors, nurses, therapists, and even Tatum’s family, closely monitors growth and development daily, and does a complete reevaluation of her every six months.   
 
While the Family Hope Center is costly (each visit costs the Allen family over $5,000), the investment is beyond worthwhile.  They are already seeing the benefits in all areas -- her health, her strength, her movement, her comfort.  Perhaps the most incredible miracle thus far happened just the other day.  After the accident, Tatum was diagnosed with cortical blindness -- meaning the connection between her brain and her eyes was damaged, and she had completely lost the ability to see.  This week, Tatum visited a neuro-opthamologist, who determined that Tatum is no longer cortically blind.  She is beginning to see.  He outfitted her for her very first pair of glasses.  The Family Hope Center program is working, and they’ve only just begun.   
 
Emily and Tatum will head to the Family Hope Center for their second visit the first week of May.  The road ahead is long, and each day brings its own set of challenges, but they are seeing tiny miracles each day and will continue to give this everything they have.  Emily, Codie, Tatum, and Avery find strength and comfort in each other and in the many, many people who have touched their lives in the past 18 months.  They are forever grateful.