Alisha and Liam are the proud parents of Aiden, who has right hemiplegia cerebral palsy (CP). Their journey to finding Aiden included five years of fertility treatments, three painful miscarriages and a miracle embryo adoption.
Aiden was born nine weeks premature amidst a traumatic delivery and sustained life-threatening head trauma. He suffered two different strokes shortly after birth.
Aiden’s prognosis was filled with uncertainty, and expectations were that Aiden would neither walk nor talk.
Aiden spent his first two months in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of an area hospital. Alisha and Liam brought Aiden home, carrying shattered dreams for this baby they so desperately wanted. They faced the unknowns with Aiden amidst the ongoing COVID pandemic in 2020, stifled by social distancing, which compounded the isolation.
The family found help at the Alberta Children’s Hospital through multi-faceted medical disciplines. Liam describes the Children’s Hospital’s role as that of “quarterback” for Aiden’s care.
The focus of Aiden’s care has been rehabilitation to help Aiden improve mobility, physical functioning and quality of life. As dad emphatically says, Aiden’s name means “the fire within,” and with the support of specialists at the hospital, Aiden has found his voice, passion and confidence innate within himself. “He is adamant about sharing that passion with the rest of the world. Today, he walks, talks and runs, and engages in ways we never dreamt possible.”
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In March he will go for a surgery to improve his eyesight, and the hospital will continue to quarterback his care needs. Liam states that the care Aiden receives in Calgary is a big reason the family chooses to lay their roots in Calgary. “We are privileged for the care that Aiden receives in Calgary and Canada. I don’t know where else in the world Aiden would have access to the services he’s been exposed to at such an early age.”
