The Girl With the Yellow Bow

On May 10, 2021, Ashley Ferrell followed her gut. Her two-month-old daughter, Addy, woke up looking unwell. Their pediatrician advised monitoring her at home, but as the day wore on, Ashley couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. By evening, she and her husband, Denny, drove to their local hospital in western Michigan.

Initial tests were run before doctors ordered an emergency transfer to Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids. By the time they arrived, Addy was unresponsive. She was intubated, and Ashley and Denny were taken to a waiting room. A doctor soon delivered the news no parent expects to hear: their baby girl had a one-percent chance of survival.

Ashley remembers walking into the PICU and seeing her tiny daughter “hooked up to so many tubes and wires—more than any baby should ever be.” The image never left her.

Addy was in total organ failure. Sepsis had taken hold. Her tiny body was also fighting meningitis of an unknown origin. Read the full cover story.

Uniquely You! magazine • Cover story • January 2026

It Can’t Be Summer

“Any plans this summer?” she asks.

Because I don’t know her, I reach for one of my artfully rehearsed, therapist-approved responses—the kind that sidestep the question instead of answering it. The honest reply is shorter and unrepeatable: “NO.”

What she doesn’t know is that summer is simply the longest version of what already crushes special needs families all year long: winter breaks, spring breaks, long weekends, half days, snow days, field days. The calendar never lets up.

In one Michigan school district, more than 850 extracurriculars were offered during the 2023-24 school year, including breaks. This is how many were adaptive or inclusive: zero. These activity deserts helped spark It Can’t Be Zero, a growing awareness and advocacy effort aimed at bringing schools, families, and adaptive recreation organizations together to create equitable, school-based opportunities.

And now, it can’t be summer.

In our case, everything hinges on whether mini-me qualifies for Extended School Year—what most people would call summer school, except the Michigan Department of Education insists we don’t. If approved, it’s a thin offering: three-hour mornings, three days a week, for six weeks. Around that, we try to stack a workable life.

Is there enough time and money? Enough insurance coverage to bridge camps, therapies, and/or travel? And if summer school isn’t offered, how much advocating energy will I have to burn—emails, calls, transportation requests, insurance certifications, grant applications, TSA Cares, Facebook group polls, autism navigators, Medicaid mazes, IEP check-ins—until the summer collapses under the weight of data-driven decisions?

This is why it can’t be summer. Read the full article.

Uniquely You! magazine • Feature article • June 2025