Reshaping Caleb's World

Caleb

Age: 8
Lives with:  Polymicrogyria, a condition where the brain does not develop correctly before birth. Caleb cannot walk or talk as a result.

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Our First Renovation – Meet Caleb!

Our first ARK Home Accessibility Renovation was to completely gut and renovate awheelchair accessible bathroom for Caleb. Caleb is a happy and spirited 8-year-old boy born with polymicrogyria, a neurological disorder.

We’re happy to say that our bathroom renovation for Caleb was completed in September 2018

We gutted and enlarged the main bathroom in order to make it wheelchair-accessible. Instead of the previously-cramped 1970s-era room, we gave Caleb’s family a modern, spacious bathroom with accessibility features like grab bars. This will make showering a lot easier for Caleb and his parents.
Caleb’s new shower.
A closer look at the shower head and grab bar in Caleb’s main bathroom.
In order to transform the bathroom, we also renovated the master en-suite, making it smaller. In the en-suite, we removed the walk-in closet, and in its place installed a notched-in area for closet hooks.
Master bedroom en-suite pocket door and closet hooks.

A Proud Partner of Giving Tuesday

We’re very excited to announce this renovation as a partner of GivingTuesday. There are so many ways you can give back and support Caleb and his family. To present our new renovation project, below is a video featuring our event director, Heather Patrao, and our fund development director, Neil Rasiah:

What is polymicrogyria?

Polymicrogyria is a neurological condition that happens when the brain does not develop correctly before birth. The brain has many little folds in it called gyri. However, people with polymicrogyria develop too many folds that are much smaller than normal. Sadly, this condition causes Caleb to have many seizures, and contributes to significant physical and mental developmental delays.

Caleb’s Life

Andy and Jay adopted Caleb at birth. Both parents have worked hard to provide a loving home for both Caleb and his recently-adopted sister, Lily. Lily also has had her challenges, coming from China at 3 ½ years old and adjusting to a new life in Calgary. Once here, she also had to go through surgery to correct a severe cleft palate. While this is a lot for a toddler to deal with, she is thriving with the love and support of her parents and Caleb.

The Renovation Details

ARK is thrilled that we helped Caleb and his family by providing a much-needed bathroom renovation. Now that Caleb is getting bigger and heavier, their typical ‘70’s bathroom made taking care of every day needs very difficult.  The ARK Home Accessibility Renovation created a bathroom with wheelchair access as well as a roll-in shower. Andy will no longer have to carry Caleb into the tub from his wheelchair in the hallway.

The cost of this ARK Home Accessibility Renovation is roughly $30,000. We hope to raised much of that through donations of labour and materials from our great supportive team of sponsors. The balance was raised through cash donations from generous donors such as yourself.

Caleb's Project Sponsors

The list of companies who helped to make Caleb’s project a success: