You never know where you’ll find a new opportunity. For the Cortes family, new hope came in a newsletter. A year ago, The Families of Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) newsletter featured a letter from Patty Bottone, mother of John Bottone, sharing their experience with EagleEyes. As a result of Patty Bottone’s effort, awareness of EagleEyes grew within the SMA community. The Cortes family is one of many families who learned of the EagleEyes program as a result of Patty Bottone’s letter. (Please see the Summer 2004 issue of The BEAT for an interview with Patty Bottone.)

Like John Bottone, Rob Cortes was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type I (Werdnig Hoffmann Disease). At 6 1/2 Rob has very limited movement and must use a ventilator and a g-tube feeding system. Rob’s family was encouraged by John Bottone’s success in using the EagleEyes software and looked forward to the national Families of SMA conference in June where EagleEyes would be featured. At the conference, Rob had the chance to try out the system and by August the Cortes family had an EagleEyes system in their home. Mrs. Cortes was so excited by the prospect of Rob’s using the system that she had downloaded the manuals for the system in March, long before Rob even tried it. “We were very excited about the potential opportunity it would provide Rob.”

Rob is working with his system three times a week. He uses “EagleEyes Paint,” “Shoot the Aliens,” and “Tic Tac Toe,” and has even begun using “Reader Rabbit” and “Finding Nemo” on the computer. With practice, Rob’s family hopes he will demonstrate sufficient proficiency to convince his school district to use the program in school to aid in his communication and education.

Mrs. Cortes believes that Rob will only be limited by his own imagination as he becomes more adept with the system. “We hope he will learn to type sentences and to e-mail his friends. Our son, like most young boys, has developed a passion for cars. He enjoys navigating the Hot Wheels website. Hopefully as he grows more proficient with the system he will be motivated to use the system to investigate web sites and gain proficiency at the same time… With Rob’s diagnosis, it is such a great opportunity for Rob to experience a world he would not otherwise have access.”

A small act may have implications greater than we may appreciate at the time. Word of mouth is a powerful force, especially for the EagleEyes program. We never know where our actions may lead, or whose life we may change with a few minutes time. Mrs. Bottone’s afternoon spent drafting a letter has brought new possibilities to the Cortes family many miles away.