Walking tall

By WAYNE QUESENBERRY/Staff

While Bryson Stoots isn’t walking yet, the 17-month-old Austinville resident will be on hand for Saturday’s 2009 March for Babies in Withers Park. He is the Wythe-Bland March of Dimes Chapter’s ambassador for this year’s fundraiser and is part of the Jackson Memorial Elementary School Girl Scout Troop 25 team.
“I’m very pleased with him,” noted his mother, Holly B. Stoots. “We’re very blessed to be where we are.”
Bryson weighed just over two pounds when he was born, three months early, on April 24, 2008. He spent 85 days in the neo-natal intensive care at Roanoke Memorial Hospital.
Now at 23 ½ pounds, Bryson is progressing. He has physical therapy twice a week and occupational therapy once a week.
Bryson has been wearing a device on his head since May and will continue wearing it until December. He makes frequent trips to Cranial Technologies in Charlotte, N.C., for adjustments.
“It helps round out his head because his head was so soft when he was born,” Stoots pointed out. “It applies pressure to certain areas of the head.”
While the Stoots family receives no assistance from the March of Dimes, Stoots credits the organization’s research and technology with saving her son’s life and helping him progress.
“This has been very educational for me,” commented Stoots, a former secretary and certified nursing assistant at Wythe County Community Hospital. “If not for the research and technology being so advanced, Bryson might not be here.”
According to her, relatives, friends and area churches generously donated toward the family’s expenses. Bryson’s dad, Daniel Stoots, has insurance through his job at Center Manufacturing in Wytheville (formerly Fuel Systems LLC) where he is a welder.
Holly Stoots also pointed out there can be problems during a pregnancy despite all the prenatal precautions recommended by the March of Dimes.
“I did everything right by the book,” she stated. “I went to the doctor as soon as I thought I was pregnant. I had the check-ups. I took the vitamins. And still this happened.”
During the sixth month of her pregnancy, Holly Stoots developed a blood clot in the placenta. She was rushed to the Roanoke hospital where she gave birth later that day.
Soon after Bryson was born, he had to have a blood transfusion. Four days later, he underwent a four-hour operation for perforated bowels.
“He’s come a long way,” Holly Stoots commented. “He has a long way to go but the doctors tell us he’ll be able to do anything anybody else does. It will just take him a little more time to do it.”
Wayne Quesenberry can be reached at 228-6611 or .