Prebble Family Tales

Gareth sure does inspire a lot of activity. He was one of the youngest kids in the nation to start using assistive computer technology, helping pioneer a program in which kids as young as 3 years old start using touchscreen speech systems. Then, recently, his enthusiasm rallied Make-A-Wish to get him his awesome bike.

And now…

A group of four engineering students at Penn State have chosen Gareth as the subject of their EPICS (Engineering Projects In Community Service) project to create a joystick/button system that emulates mouse control on a computer system. We had the first meeting with the EPICS team today where we did a bit of brainstorming and introduced the team to Gareth. Next week, we’ll be meeting again so they can see Gareth use his existing home joysticks. The goal of the project is to provide Gare with a hardware interface that allows him finer control of his on-screen selections. This should eventually lead to his ability to spell out words instead of using a pure picture system.

Here’s hoping that goes well.

We have booked a day at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh to meet with their cerebral palsy team. They’ll be doing a number of assessments over the course of a few hours in order to determine some effective treatments for him going forward. Of greatest interest to us is any information regarding Gareth’s swallow. Solving that issue is our Holy Grail - if Gareth can swallow, we can send the nurses home and never have to give a nightly report ever again.

Gareth’s second loose tooth is very close to coming out. It’s giving lots of wiggle, even to the point that Gareth is constantly pushing at it with his tongue. During his post-bath routine tonight, I went in there and tried to give it a tug, but it is still anchored.

This whole process causes a bit of stress. Most kids will pluck or push that thing out, then spit it into their hands and show it off. With Gareth, we have to constantly worry that the tooth will end up in his trachea, so we prefer that he lose it when we’re watching.

Speaking of teeth, his first adult tooth is just now breaking through his gum. I guess it’s time to get this kid to a dentist.

Gareth and all of the other kids from his school stopped by Minitab today for a tour of the building and to learn about the exciting world of statistical software! No surprise, then, to learn that what the kids liked most about the tour was not the programmers but rather the koi in our atrium pond. Oh, and my office full of Star Wars toys.

Gareth must have gotten himself pretty wound up because he didn’t fall asleep until 10PM tonight.

Or it could have been the American Idol auditions. We were watching the second half of the New York auditions tonight, and Gareth kept laughing. He told me he was thinking of something funny, but I’m not altogether convinced that he wasn’t just laughing at lousy singing.

Gareth was presented his bike yesterday with Make-A-Wish and the Centre Daily Times present. He sat on it for, well, a long time while we helped him learn how to pedal in this new position. He also opened his presents while sitting on it. And then he sat on it some more to eat cake. It is safe to say that he enjoyed his Wish gift.

We went for our first ride this morning, hitting a few back streets in Pleasant Gap and circling around at the United Methodist church. Word to the wise - when trying out a new bike in a configuration that you’ve never ridden before, avoid riding straight into a parking lot of a church that has just let out of services. We survived the flow of traffic and will live to ride another day.

The CDT story linked above graced the front page of the Sunday paper. We knew we were going to be in there somewhere today, but never guess that Gareth would be on page 1. He and Brandy read the article twice this morning.

Now the countdown begins until he wants to take it into school for show and tell. That’ll be fun with a bike that big.

Gareth had a tussle with a stomach virus for a few days. With a fever spiking at 102, constant explosions from his backside, and arms/hands that would go stone cold, we got worried, rang up an on-call doc, and got sent to the emergency room where they basically just gave him Tylenol.

He’s coming out of it now but has picked up something else that is causing him some congestion. It seems like he has been sick in one way or another for the past 2 months. Here’s hoping he catches a break by Spring.

For those who have not been following the story over at A Bike For Gareth … Gareth’s bike is in and ready for pickup. Make-A-Wish is planning a surprise presentation for this Saturday. At our house. Which means we better get stuff cleaned up. They’re calling the CDT to see if they can get some press out of it, which is fine, but now everybody in the county will know where they can steal a nice, shiny new bike. Of course, it’s a pretty unique bike - good luck selling it without somebody noticing.

Gareth’s popularity at school has been soaring. He now has a number of kids who want playdates with him. One kid even made his mother dig a skateboard out of storage so this child could wheel around just like Gareth while they play together.