I saw a blogging suggestion to talk about your earliest memory. I had to think for a few minutes about this one because it's hard to remember back that far! But I think the earliest and most vivid memory I have is when I went to Poland when I was four. 

 Some of you might now that Now I Can started because of the experiences that we had in Poland. This is a very tender and special story for me and my family because we learned things that have since helped us influence many others' lives. 

For those of you who don't know, I have cerebral palsy which affects the right side of my body. For years we had been trying to find a therapy that would help me get stronger. We had done lots of occupational and speech therapy, but we were still looking for something else.  

My mom heard about someone's experience with physical therapy in Poland. She checked it out and my parents' decided it was a good decision. In order to fund raise we did lots of different things. We sold Christmas cards that had information about my story and what we were trying to do. (We were also in the newspaper a lot!)

But the fundraiser that I remember the most was when DJ Countess (a goalie for Real Salt Lake) really made a difference. I remember KSL coming over to interview my family and I about was DJ was doing. He donated some money to help us go to Poland. And I even got to go to a Real game and kick the ball!

We left for Poland in February of 2004. My mom and I flew out first and then my dad met us there a week or so later. I remember when we first stepped off the plane it was freezing and there was snow all over! February was definitely not the best time to come!

I don't really remember a lot about the therapy part of the trip, just the good and fun memories. My therapists were really nice and supportive, even though none of them could speak English! And I remember that the food was interesting and not very good, so we ate a lot of cereal!

I think the most challenging part of Poland for me was the long therapy hours. Before that I was not used to doing therapy for 4 hours a day and having it be that rigorous. 

We discovered something in Poland that we now use at Now I Can called the Neuro Suit. This is a suit that you wear with bungees that move your body parts to where they're supposed to be so they can work correctly. This can be really painful, so I screamed every time I wore it! (Sometimes I still do!)

One thing that I think really made an impression on me, even though I don't remember it very much, but I remember how I felt. Right around the time we went, something happened in Russia, so they had to send all the kids to Poland. I remember them being so grateful for the food they received, even though most of us didn't like it. And we also did a lot of activities with them which was good.

I was going through a scrapbook that has some pictures from the trip. It was really fun for me to look at that and remember as much as I could. There were also some parts of emails that my parent's sent home to my family. I really enjoyed reading some of the funny things that I did and what my parent's thought about the therapy. 

Even though it was tough to do so much work in those two weeks, it was definitely worth it. We learned a lot about physical therapy and what we could do to help me improve. I'm grateful I had the experience of going to Poland. 

Always have hope,

Colby