THE LITTLE BIT 2024 FALL APPEAL  

Little Bit Therapeutic Riding Center exists to positively transform the lives of people with disabilities, helping nearly 500 children and adults a year to increase their abilities—or maintain the abilities that they’ve worked so hard to gain. These children and adults want to experience life to their fullest, just like you, and when they do, their kids, parents, spouses, and partners benefit, too. Your vital support today will lead to the results that people, like Brooke, depend on from Little Bit. We share Brooke's story below. 

For 48 years, Little Bit has focused on what people like Brooke can do, not what they can’t. Little Bit licensed therapists and certified instructors have the training and experience to work with each person’s unique abilities and goals—and gain results. Today, despite the cost of living and rising prices, Little Bit delivers Therapy and Adaptive Riding services at less than 35 percent of the actual cost. Your support makes this possible. 

Please make as generous a gift as you possibly can today, and know that you are helping truly remarkable people, like Brooke, increase or maintain their abilities. 

Thank you!

BROOKE’S STORY

It was Sunday, and she was driving alone from her daughter’s gymnastics competition to her office to prepare for a big meeting the next day—she almost made it. Her next memory is of waking up from a coma. “What happened?” and “What’s going to happen to my children?” were her first questions. Her car was hit by an ambulance in an intersection in 2016, and her world, and her family’s world, would be changed forever.

Brooke is a devoted mom of three kids who, at the time of the accident, were aged seven months to eight years. She was a nationally renowned commercial litigator and partner in her law firm. Her days were filled with work, travel, eating dinner with her family, arranging and attending kids’ activities, nighttime bath routines, holiday and birthday planning, exercise classes, friendships, and family—a life full of experiences many of us often take for granted. She had no idea that her dad Randy’s motto, “Desire is nine-tenths of everything,” would be the words she would live by, sometimes hour by hour.

Brooke’s healing included intensive brain surgery, a partial titanium skull replacement and recovery in two other states, and intensive daily physical therapy back in her hometown. Brooke was predominantly dependent upon a wheelchair for nearly two years but today walks with a walking stick and a brace on her left leg. Due to her condition, including the potential for seizures, she has required nearly 24/7 care until recently; she can now be alone for several daytime hours and overnight one day a week—a milestone!

The same internal drive that propelled Brooke through her education and helped her balance work and family life would be a vital ingredient to the gains she has made since the accident. “Every step was incremental. You put the work in, and then you can,” Brooke shared. Her drive and competitive nature remain. Above all, she says, “My post-accident recovery is about two things: being there for my kids and regaining as much as I can.”

Her right-side traumatic brain injury (TBI) still impacts her left side, including her vision. With the help of her devoted parents, emotional support from her friends, and four caregivers working in shifts, Brooke constantly pushes herself to regain as many of the abilities she had before the accident as possible. She never imagined that riding horses, a favorite summer camp activity from her youth, would be one of those abilities. Pushing beyond expected limits is common for Little Bit participants.

Brooke began riding at Little Bit Therapeutic Riding Center in 2021, and she was scared the first few times she mounted her horse. That fear is long gone, and now she’s focused on the cognitive and physical challenges that her riding provides. Brooke lists the gains she has made due to riding at Little Bit: controlling the horse, strength, posture, focus on her left side, following instructions, being mindful of other riders, and more than anything, the ability to add something back into her life that she once enjoyed. She also shared, “Little Bit is not as much of a struggle as other self-care activities. It’s pure enjoyment.” Many participants would agree that enjoyment is a big part of their success at Little Bit. She continued, “I would never give up Little Bit unless someone tells me I can’t come back . . . It would really leave a hole for me.”

On the day of her Adaptive Riding class with her horse Sherman and Instructors Zoe and now Joan, Brooke describes how she feels before she rides as “energized” and “excited with anticipation,” during as “calm,” and after as, “peaceful”—and “I feel like I’ve done 1,000 sit-ups. It’s a great core workout.”

Even though she no longer drives, Brooke’s caregiver helps her bring her kids to school. Many parents would agree with Brooke: “You hear the best stuff in the car.” When asked what she is most proud of today, it’s “being a Mom.” It was important to Brooke that her boys, now ages eight and 15, watched her compete in Little Bit’s annual Pat Flynn Memorial Horse Show so that they could see what “Mom can do.” She continued, “When I first started, I was just happy to be on the horse. I never thought I’d now be doing dressage or drill team . . . It has been a really welcome surprise.”

Today, Brooke’s days are filled with therapies, adherence to her medication routine, workouts, being with her kids whenever she can be, dressing with assistance, including magnetic buttons, taking advantage of adaptive equipment, like dictation software instead of typing, receiving help with most meal preparation, and occasional naps since people with TBIs can experience fatigue—and of course adaptive riding. Brooke also enjoys travel with her children and, during the winter, adaptive skiing.  Thankfully, she regained a taste for one of her little joys—a short nonfat cappuccino. Coffee lovers everywhere, rejoice!

Brooke explained that every TBI is different and affects people’s memory function in different ways. The accident caused challenges with her short-term memory, which, thankfully, has continued to improve. But her long-term memory is like it always was. She remembers her kids’ birthdays, her Bar Number (to practice law), and her social security number—in fact, her entire pre-accident life. However, if she could choose only one ability to get back, it would be the full recovery of her short-term memory.

“My hope for my future is always to regain as much of my pre-accident functionality as possible, and Little Bit is part and parcel of that. The Little Bit community is so supportive and enables me to do something I never thought I’d be able to do after I became disabled. A lot of people benefit from Little Bit, and that benefit is enormous,” she shared.

Continuing, “Little Bit is unique. I really believe there is a special connection between humans and animals, and I really do believe that the connection between people with disabilities and the horses is something unique. I think that Little Bit also, in addition to serving the rider, really serves the broader community—to be able to see that people with disabilities can still be active and fulfilled despite their disabilities.”

We can’t wait to see what Brooke accomplishes next. Thank you, Brooke, for being a part of the Little Bit Therapeutic Riding Center community and for sharing your story with all of us.