Colby's card: Family raising money for her treatment in Poland

PROVO — Four-year-old Colby Christensen loves to show her Christmas cards to anyone who stops by her family's Provo home.

"Look at this," she says, pointing to her name on the back of the cards, which are being sold locally to help her family afford her medical treatment.

Asked what the Christmas cards are for, Colby doesn't miss a beat.

"To get me to Poland!" she shouts with slightly slurred speech and a wide grin. "It's way far away."

Colby can't remember what's in Poland, so her parents remind her there's a special rehabilitation center in a small town called Mielno that will help "rightie" work better.

That's the nickname for Colby's right hand, which forms a limp fist most of the time. The rest of her right side, as well, doesn't have the mobility or strength of her left side.

Colby was born with infantile cerebral palsy, but her parents don't talk about it much. They don't want to limit their daughter's development by labeling her as disabled.

So far, Colby hasn't been held back much by the brain damage incurred in utero — likely caused by a blood-clotting condition suffered by her mother, Tracey.

Colby walks with a minor limp, but she talks like a teenager. And she loves playing with her little brothers, Logan and Cooper.

Still, her parents dream of a day when Colby will be just like any other girl her age. And they believe the Euromed Clinic in Poland could make their wish come true.

Clinic doctors "get a lot of kids walking who have never walked before," father Joel Christensen said. "It's intensive, but we can definitely see the advantages of some intense, consolidated therapy."

The Euromed Clinic offers monthlong rehabilitation sessions, which put patients through 6-hour-a-day physical therapy using its Adeli suit — an adapted Russian cosmonaut space suit designed to put the body in proper alignment and encourage feedback between the muscles and the brain.

The Christensens heard about the clinic years ago but never thought they could afford to take Colby there since each session costs $10,000 and their budget is already tight from paying for Colby's various therapy treatments here.

But doctors from the clinic recently traveled to Utah to meet with parents of children with cerebral palsy and determined that the clinic's rigorous program, combined with the girl's headstrong attitude, could be a winning combination for Colby.

"She always says, 'I don't know if I can do it, but I'll try,' " Tracey Christensen said of her daughter. "She wants to get it done. She won't let us help her."

After hearing of their plight, family friend and artist Julie Young created a Christmas card. Local printer Excel Graphics printed 8,000 for free.