Wings of a Bird

Injured boy's parents set up clinic - Seattle P-I
One day last year, shortly after he was struck by a car while trying to cross a street north of Ballard, 13-year-old Nick Messenger sat in a hospital bed in his family's living room, his head slumped to one side. The stroke and the brain injury he suffered rendered him unable to hold himself upright.
Most days, he stared emptily. He was unable to speak or swallow, so a feeding tube ran down his throat.
But on Monday, he said, "Mexican food," though the words came only a few syllables at a time and were barely intelligible. Though still in a wheelchair, Nick is eating now, and he'd been asked to name his favorite food.
Most recently, Eric Messenger, a contractor, and Nick's mother, Jennifer Messenger, a real estate agent, dipped into their savings to open a pediatric rehabilitation clinic blocks from the accident site. The clinic, Esperanza, which officially opens today, will offer traditional treatments and focus on a new device called a TheraSuit, which hasn't been available locally until now. Nick's parents took him to a California clinic to find it, and say it helped their son make progress.
"We've lost a lot... ," Eric said. But "I guess I've seen a lot of improvement, and so I'm optimistic there's going to be more. After seeing him in a coma, I'm just glad to have him be here."
Nick is back in school now at Meadowdale Middle School in the Edmonds School District. He struggles a bit with reading, but he can write, and he's good at math, his mother said.
"People think he just got out of the hospital, and he was all better. But it's been hard," Nick's brother Alex, 11, said Monday afternoon.
He and Nick's other brothers, Tony, 10, and Chris, 5, help move their oldest brother in and out of his wheelchair. They help him dress. They get him in and out of the van when they go to the clinic or on family outings. ...