Tessa Makes SandRidge News!

SandRidge started this wonderful program called "Change Together" several months ago, where contributions help make an immediate impact on people in need in the community. A few months ago, two co-workers and members of the Change Together Committee, surprised me in my office with an iPad...one for Tessa to call her very own! All Change Together recipients are recommended by employees and the Change Together committee meets at least once a month to review the submitted needs and determine how the funds will be used. It was very unexpected and incredible to realize how much this gift was going to help changes Tessa's life!

Have loved seeing this sweet face on the SandRidge Homepage all day long today!

Sarah Piowaty, Communications Specialist at SandRidge, wrote such a beautiful story about it all and I wanted to share:

Change Together Update – Tessa Bynum

Recently, Change Together funds helped provide an employee’s special needs daughter with an iPad - a tool, it turns out, essential to her cognitive development.

Tessa Bynum, the daughter of SandRidge employee Whitney Bynum and her husband Darin, was born in April of 2010 with Congenital Cytomegalovirus. Whitney had contracted the common virus during pregnancy, and while usually harmless to adults, it can have serious complications for an unborn baby. In this case, the virus attacked Tessa’s brain, vision and hearing, damaging her visual cortex and causing severe hearing loss and epilepsy. Brain damage to her cerebral cortex resulted in cerebral palsy.

Tessa was placed on epilepsy medication which she continues to take to avoid seizures. After having virtually no hearing for one year, her life greatly improved in June of this year when she received a cochlear implant in her right ear. “It’s been amazing - she can definitely hear us now!” Whitney said. “We used to talk with our hands to get her attention, and now I can say her name and sit with a straight face, and she’ll respond.”

While Tessa’s vision has improved, likely due to the resilient nature of a baby’s brain, Whitney and Darin won’t know exactly how she sees things until she can talk, which may not be for another year or so since she went without hearing for the first year of her life. Her body’s muscle control remains severely impaired due to the cerebral palsy. She can generate thoughts, but her body struggles to perform certain actions.

Earlier this spring Tessa’s therapists encouraged the family to begin using an iPad, as many of the apps have been known to help improve learning and development in special needs children. Whitney and Darin could not afford to buy an iPad but were eventually able to borrow one. In just a couple of months the improvement was incredible.

“She’s come so far and has really progressed in her recognition of things,” Whitney said. “She’s also starting to remember what she’s seen before. One app is a storybook where the screen changes with a touch. In one of the stories baby animals appear at certain times from the corner of the screen, and she now knows this – she’ll look in the corner just before they appear.”

The size of the iPad is a tremendous advantage as well, since Tessa is limited by how she can learn due to her physical condition. Her stander, which allows her body to be upright, has an attachable tray. The iPad sits on the tray, close enough for her to see and touch it. Being able to touch the screen and point to images has improved her ability to focus on objects. “Her therapist is now positive that she is purposely pointing to things,” Whitney said. “She’s amazed at her progress and has no doubt it is because of the iPad.”

Allowing Tessa to choose the apps she uses is another reason the iPad is so essential to both her cognitive and emotional development. “Choices are huge with her condition, because there are so many things she can’t choose,” Whitney said. “She has to wear her leg braces, she has to wear her cochlear implant, she has to take her medication. The simplest of choices are so important, and with the iPad she can pick what app she wants to use.”

The physical independence that the iPad gives Tessa also makes a big difference. She needs help with almost everything she does during the day, but using the iPad gives her time to be alone in her stander, and be on her own.

Now that the iPad is theirs to keep, Whitney feels comfortable allowing Tessa’s nannies and therapists to use it with her. “We were so careful how and where we used the borrowed iPad, we didn’t want anything to happen to it,” she said. “Now, she can take hers to therapy and use it, and I feel comfortable with her becoming more dependent on it. It’s a big relief.”

In the next year Whitney and Darin will focus on using the iPad for more direct communication with Tessa. While the iPad is fun and educational, Whitney says right now it is Tessa’s only means of communication with them until she can talk.

“It’s hard to imagine her life without an iPad,” Whitney said. “It truly opens her world. I am so incredibly touched by this gift, and hope those who contributed can truly grasp the difference they have made. The company has been incredible with all of this - from my boss and my co-workers to senior management, the generosity and understanding has been amazing.”

Whitney keeps a blog about Tessa - click here to view the blog post along with videos of Tessa with her iPad.