Loan programs rescue patients
stltoday.com | September 1, 2011 | BY CYNTHIA BILLHARTZ GREGORIAN
Some days, Ben Shaffer, 9, is so weak and tired he can barely walk into his fourth-grade classroom at Tillman Elementary School in Kirkwood.
“He was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy three years ago, but the doctors are not sure they have it right,” says his mother, Jennifer Shaffer.
Nevertheless, Ben’s doctor registered him with the Muscular Dystrophy Association, which lent him a wheelchair for days when walking is too hard.
Taylor Branson, 11, of Eureka, has spinal muscular atrophy type II, and is scheduled to have spinal fusion surgery in coming weeks, her mother, Julie Branson, said. When Taylor returns home, the Bransons will need a hospital bed and a hydraulic sling lift to move her between wheelchair and bed.
Not a problem, said the MDA. The group will have its people at United Seating & Mobility in Earth City collect the items from the MDA’s loan closet in Portage Des Sioux and deliver them to the Bransons for use as long as they need.
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