Letter from a Parent

The following is a letter we received from the mother of one our long time patients. Her son has been a Cascade patient for nearly the life of our company, and is now a Cascade employee.

(Written August 10, 2003)

To all the wonderful people at Cascade:

We... will always measure Cascade by the size of your heart and the extent of your caring. Those wonders were as big in the little house [where Cascade started] as they are in your glorious quarters in Ferndale.

We still have Leon’s first “brace” that Don made for him seventeen years ago when our son—now a senior in high school—was a tiny baby. We lived in California then, and we knew nothing about the people who would keep our little boy steady and stable through the pleasant adventures and minor mishaps that all children experience. We’ll never forget what a thrill it was to meet everyone for the first time after we moved to Bellingham when Leon was five years old.

We visited that little converted house every few months as time after time, Don and the Cascade crew came up with creatively designed devices that made it possible for Leon to do everything he wanted to do, from running in baseball to getting on and off school buses without falling, to maintaining his balance when he was jostled in the busy hallways of his schools, to playing on the tennis team at Bellingham High School.

You all were “there” when our son was in preschool and marched up the aisle at church as half a donkey in the Christmas pageant. You were “there” when he took field trips with his class to walk on the beach, when he participated—just like everyone else—in his elementary school’s walkathon, when he was able to stay upright and confident as he carried a big platter of cookies during the fifth-grade tea, when he walked to the front of the auditorium to receive a citizenship award in middle school and when he slow-danced with a girl for the very first time. You were there when he walked confidently and with purpose across a university campus to take his SAT, when he put pressure on the gas pedal to pass his special driving exam and you’ll be there when he goes off to college—already equipped with an extra “working” brace, just in case.

Through the years, you’ve offered Leon so much more than thoughtfully designed and carefully fitted pieces of molded plastic, as wonderful as the DAFOs have been. You made him an active member of his own care team and helped to teach him to be his own advocate. You showed him he was as entitled to an active, carefree life as any other child. Nghia was always ready to come up with Velcro fasteners to show our son that independence was possible even if tying his own shoes wasn’t. You even provided Leon with the mold of his own leg for show-and-tell, and you made sure he understood every aspect of how DAFOs are made when he wanted to do a school project to help his classmates understand what it’s like to live with, accept and eventually triumph over a “disability.”

We congratulate you on your success, and thank you for all you’ve done for us over the years. You make the difficult seem easy, even as you remind us we are not alone, that we can succeed in spite of obstacles and what others see as limitations. Cascade has done more than any group we know to replace barriers with possibilities. Our entire family salutes each and every one of you. The many ‘footprints’ you’ve created are those of people doing things they never thought they could do.