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Table offers hope for teen's recovery

The gift of a "tilt table" gives a family the chance to get their son back on his feet.

By CHANDRA BROADWATER
Published April 16, 2007

BROOKSVILLE - Recovery is still a hope for Joey Burns and his family.

The same goes for members of Aripeka Elks Lodge 2520.

The local fraternal order helped purchase a device for the family to help the 16-year-old, who has been in a comalike state since last fall, keep limber.

With the $2,500 tilt table, Joey's mother, Tania, will be able to elevate her son while helping to move his atrophying muscles and increase circulation.

A therapist from the Florida Elks Children's Therapy Services in Tampa recently came to the Burns home for a table tutorial.

For the first time in a couple of months, Joey was upright - not flat on the bed parked in the family living room.

The more mobile table, which resembles a gurney, will also let the family move Joey around the house, closer to windows and even outside on the patio.

Wearing their green vests, members of the Elks watched as physical therapist Yvette Lambert showed Tania how to strap her son to the table and tilt him upright.

"Our goal is to help this family however we can," said Mary Ann Steffes, a Spring Hill resident who got the ball rolling to aid the Burns family. "That's what the Elks do."

Since he suffered from a brain injury after a game of touch-turned-tackle football in October, Burns has been on an excruciatingly slow path to recovery.

After months at St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa, Joey came home in January.

He is doing better than before - his eyes move from side to side and open and close. Before they were glazed over.

But doctors aren't sure of his future. Recent tests show that his brain activity hasn't increased as much as everyone hoped.

As time goes on, the chances for some type of recovery diminish.

The family has exhausted most of their finances, not to mention themselves, trying to get Joey the treatment he needs. Whatever Medicaid doesn't pay for, family friends have either volunteered to do or the Burns have charged to their credit card.

Family friend Cathi Keefe, a sports medicine expert, has been a regular at the Burns home helping to keep Joey's range of motion going. She called the tilt table an answer to prayer.

Like the family, she constantly wonders what else can be done to help Joey. Treatment at specialized brain injury rehabilitation centers is beyond the Burns' reach.

"The physical stuff we can do," she said. "But if there's something scientific that can be done, like some sort of study or new science that's out, and it's just a matter of money, that's tough to take."

Despite the odds, Tania isn't quick to give up. She can't.

"You can't lose faith," she said. "Even the doctors don't know what's going to happen."

[Last modified April 15, 2007, 22:38:12]