Photo: Jason Franson via The Canadian Press
Via The Canadian Press
Evelyn Moore isn’t the fastest kid on the racetrack, but she’s by far the tiniest.
At 13-months old, the paralyzed toddler skilfully wheels her homemade wheelchair around the simulated track at Treehouse, an indoor playground in northeast Edmonton that she often visits with her mom.
Several school-age children whiz by on souped-up tricycles and she stops to stare and clap.
“She really gets around now,” says Kim Moore, who first put her daughter in the makeshift chair?basically a purple, foam Bumbo seat on wheels?at seven months.
Just like other children learn how to crawl, Evelyn slowly figured out how to wheel.
“She went backwards first and then she went forwards, and then she figured out how to turn,” Moore says. “And now we have a speed bump in the middle of our living room because she just goes that fast.” Evelyn?also called Eva by her family?was diagnosed with cancer following her four-month check up. A nurse noticed too much movement with the child’s hips, then a doctor recognized a lump protruding from her spine.
The stage 4 neuroblastoma tumour couldn’t be removed, so she underwent eight rounds of chemotherapy.
Although the cancer is in remission, Evelyn’s family received more bad news: their first child is permanently paralyzed below her arms.
It was heart-breaking, says Moore.
“But then you go home and you cry and you come ...