For people who don’t have a child with a debilitating disease, it can be difficult to understand just how all-consuming of a problem it can sometimes be.
Constant doctor appointments, days-long tests, recurring prescriptions, needles, tubes and surgeries. Then there’s the transportation required to even get to the specialists who perform this needed medical care. They aren’t all located in the mid-Willamette Valley.
For the Hostetler family, which has a child with a degenerative neurological disease, the stress of it all is constant. They’ve driven to the Portland area countless times over the past several years, for specialists at Shriners Hospital for Children, at Oregon Health and Sciences University and at the Beaverton Neurology Clinic.
That’s why the North Albany family considered it a gift from God when an anonymous donor gave them a van with a wheelchair accessible lift. For their son, Dalton, 10, who uses a wheelchair, this kind of vehicle is the only way for this family unit to be mobile.
Read more: Local family helped by donation of wheelchair-accessible van
