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March 19, 2008

Local family taking a walk for a good cause

By Lauren Ricks

“Jordan’s Bumblebees” are about to be on the march — all for the love of an area youth.

Family and friends are gearing up to join approximately 3,000 other volunteers at Rangers Ballpark at Arlington for an Autism Speaks walkathon. The event will be held June 14.

Local folks will be walking for Jordan McFatridge, a 6-year-old who has autism. Jordan’s family members, several who live in the area, will be among those participating in the walk.

The local team, “Jordan’s Bumblebees” is named after the boy’s favorite Transformer figure. Four people have registered to walk on the team so far.

“We chose to participate in this because of Jordan,” said his mother, Rebekah McFatridge. “We want to get him to meet some other kids and to see if there is an Autism support group around this area. If there is not, I would like to set one up so other families can know that there are other kids like them out there, so they won’t feel alone, like I have for so long.”

One in 150 individuals is diagnosed with Autism, making it more common than pediatric cancer, diabetes and AIDS combined, according to Autism Speaks. Four times as many boys than girls are diagnosed with the condition.

The walkathon is held to raise money for “global biomedical research to find the causes, prevention, treatments and cure for autism,” according to Autism Speaks.

“The walkathon funds individual researchers with specific grant instruments and, by extension, major universities and research institutions are involved,” said Dr. Jeri Dawson, chief science officer of Autism Speaks.

Research is necessary because Autism is not well understood and its causes are relatively unknown.

Jordan’s family is working on coordinating fundraisers and getting donations before the event. Nancy Yates, Jordan’s grandmother who lives in Athens, said the family has contacted several organizations, including the North 19 Volunteer Fire Department and the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Trinidad, in hopes of finding ways to raise money. The Dollar Tree in Athens also has a “collection jug” set up.

Dr. Lisa Genecov, Jordan’s doctor, diagnosed him with Rett’s Syndrome, one of the many types of autism that has been identified. The syndrome is characterized by impairment in communication skills and social interactions and restricted, repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior.

“We noticed before he was a year old,” Yates said. She said they noticed he didn’t look them in the eye, quit smiling and didn’t babble.

Mrs. McFatridge said she was given steroids because she went into premature labor with him. “She was given twice as much as she needed,” Yates said. McFatridge believes an overdose of steroids may have been a contributing factor.

Jordan is in occupational speech therapy, and he uses a laptop called Dynabox that helps him express himself. He types what he wants to say or touches a picture, and the machine speaks for him. Yates said he also speaks through sign language.

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