— creating places to call home —

As Sunny Rosenbalm drove home to Nashville the Sunday after the Friday birth of her grandson, Tucker, in February 2006, she received a phone call from her son. “He asked me to pray for Tucker,” Rosenbalm said. “He said Tucker was having seizures.” Thus began a difficult and frustrating journey into newborn seizures (also called infantile spasms), that never seemed to quit. Reluctant to return to the hospital where Tucker was born (who had merely sent them home with phenobarbitol for Tucker), the family soon headed to Vanderbilt, moving in with Rosenbalm. Tucker would sometimes have 60 - 100 seizures a day which are severely damaging to the brain. Discussions were had about removing a part of Tucker’s brain, and there was talk about using life-risking steroid injections plus repeated adjustments to the balance of Tucker’s medication in attempts to control his seizures. And then it all stopped. When Tucker turned 4 months old, his seizures suddenly and miraculously ended.

But the damage had been done. Tucker was left developmentally impaired. While at 2 years old he sat up, his parents had to carry him everywhere and at 3-and-a-half years, Sunny realized that something had to be done. Like many families with a physically impaired child, carrying the child everywhere would eventually result in someone getting hurt.
That’s when Rosenbalm started making calls. “I spent hours on Vanderbilt’s Pathfinder and making phone calls to see what we could do,” she says. The only organization she could find that would build a wheelchair ramp or do other home modifications was United Cerebral Palsy, but the waiting list was extensive and besides, families have to show financial need. “There’s a loophole,” Rosenbalm says. If you make too much money you can’t get the help you need with adapting your home — if you do qualify, you are going to wait.
Rosenbalm took matters into her own hands.  “I never thought that age 54 I would be starting a nonprofit,” she says, “But I know this is the path God has put me on and I am grateful,” she adds.
She says what she does is for all the kids like her grandson, but also for special needs families. “They are the most sacrificial people I’ve ever met,” Rosenbalm says. “And there is a large segment of families that fall through the cracks — families who become isolated.”
Tucker’s House partners with special needs families to connect them to resources that will adapt their homes to help the special child reach his full potential. The not-for-profit performs home assessments, provides construction management and aid for qualifying families while facilitating home installations.    
With a background in architectural design and having a husband as a builder, creating Tucker’s House came naturally to Rosenbalm who says she is thrilled with the progress she’s seen with it.    
“We have an amazing board working for this now,” says Rosenbalm.
Tucker’s House now provides home rehabilitation and repair services to special needs families in Davidson, Maury, Rutherford and Williamson counties and is made possible by donations and fundraising.  

photo: Tucker, photographed with his mom and dad, brother and sisters in Nashville.

tucker’s house

Learn more about and donate to Tucker’s House at the newly launched web site:

tuckershouse.org.

Find more resources for developmentally impaired children at: kc.vanderbilt.edu/pathfinder