October is Spina Bifida Awareness Month as well as National Bullying Prevention Month. Most people have experienced some form of bullying during their lives, but unfortunately, many children who have disabilities experience this much more acutely. Earlier this year Gillette patients, Chloe and Gracie sat down to talk about the care they received at Gillette. They also touched on some of the bullying they dealt with at school along the way.

Owen Nei is 11 years old, an avid hockey and baseball player, and a young man who lights up every room he’s in with his positive, irrepressible attitude. Given how his life started out, the fact that he’s even here, much less doing all of these things, is nothing short of a miracle.

​​​​​​​Halloween is quickly approaching and in a more normal year than this one, October would be a time for celebration, great costumes, trick-or-treating and hopefully, no early snowstorms or infamous blizzards. Everything is weird right now, but that doesn’t mean that time stops. Halloween can still happen. It can still be fun, but to be safe it should happen differently this year.  

Gillette Children’s is ready to help as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns that 2020 could be another peak year for cases of acute flaccid myelitis (AFM)—an uncommon but serious neurological condition that mostly affects children. The polio-like condition tends to peak in the fall months every other year. The last surge of AFM was in 2018 where more than 200 cases were diagnosed across the U.S., according to the CDC.

Walter Truong, MD has worked as a Pediatric Orthopedic Surgeon at Gillette Children's for nearly ten years. Dr. Truong specializes in treating a variety of pediatric orthopedic conditions. Learn more about him, here.

On World Cerebral Palsy Day, Gillette Children’s Healthcare Press is pleased to highlight a book that combines medically rigorous medical information and the personal story of a mother searching for the best care for her son who is diagnosed with CP. Spastic Diplegia—Bilateral Cerebral Palsy is written by Lily Collison, an Ireland-based author and the mother of a Gillette Children’s patient.

October is National Bullying Prevention Month. While much has been done to help curb bullying behavior, the statistics show more needs to be done. One study shows 60 percent of children who have disabilities report being bullied regularly.

The dental clinic at Gillette Children's is now open and seeing patients after being closed for three months as a precaution to help curb the spread of COVID-19. Gillette's dental clinic is one of only three facilities in the metro area that is specially equipped to serve patients with disabilities.

Each year, Gillette Children's celebrates our staff during Employee Recognition Week. The festivities were a little different this year, but the sentiment of gratitude was the same. Hear from Gillette's leadership team on why they’re thankful for the work of our staff, here.