October 13, 2014 – Bella McBride

Our Riley Kid of the Week for this week is Bella McBride! The McBride’s are relatively new to our PUDM family and we are looking forward to seeing them at the marathon in just a few short weeks. Bella’s Riley story is told below by her mom.

We found out about Bella’s diagnosis of Spina Bifida when I was 18 weeks pregnant. She was born at 38 weeks at IU Med and was taken straight to Riley for surgery. She had surgery on her back to close her spine at 5 hours old. We stayed at Riley for 8 days. For the first year, we made weekly trips to Riley to get casts put on her legs to correct her club feet and to bring her legs down. She has had 5 additional surgeries in her 4 ½ years of life.

Bella is a spunky sweet little girl. She has the biggest heart. She is paralyzed below the knees and has dislocated hips. She can walk some with a walker or forearm crutches, but usually crawls or uses a wheelchair to get around. She is in preschool and plans on attending kindergarten in the fall.

Bella loves stuffed animals, ninja turtle, her kindle, and American girl dolls. She loves the color blue and her favorite foods include chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, cheese pizza, brownies, and apples. She loves to play games like go fish, memory, Uno, hide and seek, and sorry. She absolutely loves all Disney movies.

We want to welcome the McBride family once again and hope they are looking forward to their first PUDM experience!

bella-mcbride