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Travis bums up summer streetsTravis Gaertner is a pretty typical six-year-old boy.He loves to tinker with pieces of wood and a hammer, nails and glue and create the kinds of masterpieces only little boys can.He also loves to be outside in the summertime, riding his bike with the other kids on the block.But here, Travis is not so typical. He cannot bend his legs, so he requires a special bike to keep up with his pals — a bike given to him by the Variety Club of Manitoba.Travis, son of Diana and Jonathon Gaertner, was born with a congenital defect that left him with very little hip development. He Is missing his right thigh, His knee, lower leg and foot extend from his hip instead, On his left side he has nothing, so he wears a prosthesis.Works hard*Travis is only about as tall as a two-year-old, but happily, his prosthesis regularly needs to be refitted so there is growth in his right leg, his mother says, He will probably al*. ways be a thigh-length shorter than the average male, she adds.Travis, who walks with a sort of lopsided gait, has to work hard to keep up with his younger brotherand sister, four-year-old twins Ben and Kyla — but he does it.Outside in the summer, the bike has made a world of difference. It Has given him the mobility and freedom to keep up with his peers, his .mother says, The three-wheel bike has a low-slung seat that allows Travis to pedal and steer with hishands while his legs rest on stirrups on either side of the front wheel.The $800 bike was given to Travis by the Variety Club in time for the “biking season*' last year. Come -winter, Travis moved his bike into the basement where he continues to wheel around.In \preparation for this spring, Travis had his machinist grandfather Alexander Fast loofTat hi$ bike and make some changes to the gear system so that it would go faster. “Travis' arms were just whirling, trying to keep up to the other kids on their bikes. He’s a physical, aggressive kid and he wants to keep up with them, but you can't expect a bunchof little kids to wait on him. Hopefully this will make it easier for him,'’ Diana says,Regardless, the bike is a real bonus to Travis. Before the bike came along, he says with an impish grin, he used to stretch out on his tummy on a big plastic racing car and propel himself down the streetwith his hands, using his good leg as a sort of rudder. It was toughgoing. .His new bike changed all that. He added a knapsack onto the back ‘Tor carrying my bathing suit and stuff and now in the summer, as long as he tells his mom where he's going first, he can bike to his friends' houses in the neighborhood or go with his mom, brother and sister to the local park, Before he got the bike, he had to go to the park in ihe wagon,it was Travis' physiotherapist Inge Shaw, at the Rehabilitation Centre for Children, who first toldthe Gaertners that there were specially-designed bikes for children with a disability like Travis’s. Shaw also suggested that the Variety Club, whose mandate it is to help handicapped and needy children, might be willing to pay for such a bike.“The Variety Club didn't blink an eye. They just paid for it, a grateful Diana says, “This was a wonderful gift,” she says of the $800 bike.“Our priority is our children and we want to be able to provide as much as we can for them in life and we want Travis to have all the things Kyla and Ben have ... but when they need a bigger bike, we go to garage sales.’’HardshipDiana says that if the Variety Club had not paid for the bike, she and her husband, a teacher, likely would have bought it themselves but itwould have been a financial sacri-fjce to do so, We’re just getting back on our feet after Jonathon took three years off to go back to university, says Diana, who teaches music in her home for extra cash,Travis, meanwhile, takes swimming lessons (he began last fall and can swim across the pool already), attends French immersion kindergarten at Neil Campbell School in East Kildonan, and once a week spends an hour with Winnipeg wood carver Norm Peterson, where heindulges his love for working withwood. He's made a wooden boat,benches and tables, a bridge andrailway crossing sign to go with his train set, he says proudly.
Newspaper Details
Winnipeg Free Press
Winnipeg, Manitoba, CA
Sat, Mar 15, 1986
Page 157
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 08 Jan 2020
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