When
he’s not in pain, Kyle Berube is a jovial 5-year-old boy with a smile like a
sunbeam who enjoys going to school, playing with his older brother and clutching
small stuffed animals between his rigid arms and slight torso.
Though he can’t speak, his acute facial reactions to speech and movement
indicate he understands what’s going on around him.
"He thrives when he’s outside," said his mother, Patricia Berube. "All the
neighbors come up to him and say ’Hello’ - he really responds to that.
When they’re born, it’s hard enough for most infants to contend with feeding,
the occasional bouts of gas and keeping warm.
But Kyle’s first test was a little different - he had to survive a harmful
strain of E. coli bacteria.
With the help of doctors and antibiotics, Kyle beat the infection, but not
without a cost to his delicate body. The infection sent Kyle into cardiac arrest
when he was a week old - and then he had to face a whole new set of challenges.
Kyle has cerebral palsy, is a spastic quadriplegic, legally blind, has a seizure
disorder and eats food from a tube that lines the walls of his stomach.
