Easter Seals gives help, hope to local family

Twelve-year-old Blake Scribner of Washington has a very unusual technique when it comes to catching and throwing a baseball.

“I catch it with my left hand, move the ball to my right hand, throw my glove on the ground, move the ball back to my left hand and throw it,” the sixth grader at Beverly Manor said.

“He does it very quickly,” said his father, Scott Scribner.

“My mitt’s very dirty,” Scribner added.

He is not just showing off, though. Scribner has an injury he sustained at birth called shoulder dystocia with brachial plexus stretching, a birthing emergency that occurs when the baby’s shoulder becomes trapped under the mother’s pelvic bone.

“It commonly happens in larger babies,” said his mother, Crystal Scribner. “Blake weighed 11 pounds, 8 ounces at birth. After birth, his (right) arm was flaccid, it just hung there.”

Doctors told Crystal that in some cases, the arm “comes back, but Blake’s injury is severe, so it didn’t.”

Scribner is one of more than 6,000 area Central Illinois children with disabilities who receives services from Easter Seals. That number is growing. Last year, Easter Seals increased the number of children and their families served by 20 percent. 

Each year, Easter Seals has a telethon to raise money and awareness for the organization. The 2010 telethon is from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday at the Par-A-Dice Hotel in East Peoria. It will be broadcast on WMBD-TV 31.

Scribner was just 3 weeks old when the Scribners first went to Easter Seals, an organization that provides services to help children and adults with special needs and offers support to their families. They were referred by their pediatrician because Blake’s arm was paralyzed at birth.

“They were our saviors,” Crystal said.

At Easter Seals, Scribner’s physical therapist told the family that his would be a lifelong injury and referred them to a specialist in Houston.

When Blake Scribner was younger, he had trouble crawling, feeding himself, zipping, tying and cutting with scissors.

“Our (occupational therapist) at Easter Seals has helped him learn all of his self-help skills,” Crystal said.

She added that Easter Seals has also helped prepare him for school, learn adaptive living skills, learn a range of motion in his arm, advised on different therapy ideas and referred the family to appropriate doctors.

Scribner said without Easter Seals, he would not have the plethora of knowledge regarding his injury.

“We wouldn’t have had the surgeries to fix it,” he said.

Over the years, Scribner has had eight surgeries to try and correct his right arm.

He learned to write with his left hand, but his father said he would have been right-dominant.

“Surprisingly, he writes pretty good for having to be left-handed,” Scott said.

Scribner said he can now do just about anything with his right arm, except turn it to make his hand flip over.

“We just want him to be able to accept change,” his mother joke, holding out her hand to mimic the action of accepting change.

While he has had to work very hard over the years, suffering through surgeries and vigorous rehabilitation, Scribner has no problem looking on the bright side.

“I miss a ton of school,” he said with a smile. “That’s kind of a benefit.”

Homework is sent with him when he leaves school for surgeries. He does it in the hotel rooms with no help from tutors or his parents.

“I really don’t need help,” he said

“He’s really smart,” Crystal said.

During his last absence from school, Blake Scribner’s science teacher made a Power Point presentation on his injury.

“He showed it to all of the kids in my grade,” Scribner said. 

When he returns to school, he often has a cast on his arm. He has walked the halls with his arm sticking straight up in the air and straight out to the side in a cast.

“The kids try to give me high fives,” he said.

Unfortunately, the Scribners will have to miss the telethon this year because Blake’s doctor from Texas will be in Chicago the same day.

“I was going to answer phones,” Scribner said.

His mother is sad to miss the telethon but happy to be able to see the doctor because her son has been having some pain in his shoulder.

“It’s easier to go to Chicago than Texas,” she said.

The Scribners have not participated in an Easter Seals Telethon. Blake Scribner looks forward to helping at the telethon next year.

“I wouldn’t probably be able to move my arm today without Easter Seals,” he said.