Gracie Sauer's parents say her first visit in September paid dividends
Gracie Claire Sauer, a 2-year-old Boulder City girl who battles a mysterious neuromuscular disease daily, is back at the Napa Center in El Segundo, Calif., this week for three weeks of additional therapy on her body before returning home Dec. 6.

This is Gracie's second visit to the clinic. Her first visit in September proved successful based on what she has accomplished since returning home, according to her mother, Jennifer Sauer

"She's not sitting up yet, but she's getting close," Jennifer Sauer said in early November. "She's rolling and walking a lot better and using her hands better than before we left. She's so close to sitting up that we're hoping this next round of therapy will get her there."

Gracie might be one of the children to have gone through neuromuscular therapy at the Napa Center most recently, but she's certainly not the first to benefit from the Southern California facility's intensive program.

Hardly a posh, high-end Wilshire Boulevard clinic, the nondescript center with its vine-covered wall on the outside and nursery-like atmosphere on the inside has turned out more than 200 graduates from the program who now live better lives because of the therapy they received.

Nearly two years ago, the center opened on Lairport Street, which is about two blocks south of Los Angeles International Airport in an industrial district where towering buildings owned by the Boeing Co.'s Integrated Defense Systems and Raytheon's Space and Airborne Systems lie sprawling within eyesight of the southerly boundary of the nation's third-busiest airport.

The center itself is 3,500 square feet within a larger space formerly used as a warehouse turned yoga studio that's now shared by a chiropractic business.

Originally, it was called the Napa Institute, but when it was learned earlier this year that the institute's owner was about to shut the doors and go out of business, two business associates -- Lynette LaScala and Trisha Gonzalez -- stepped forward, bought the business and renamed it the Napa Center.

"Four months ago, May, it was ready to close," LaScala said in a September interview. "Another parent initially started Napa Institute, and he called me up and said we have everything we need, but we need you, and I was in Iowa. I used to do all my work in Iowa and I'd fly out here and do all the groundwork for Napa and after a year ... he came up to me and said, 'I have to close the doors,' and I immediately called Trish and said, 'We can't let the doors close.' And that's when Trish and I took it over.

"We did it in 48 hours because it was either keep the doors open with all these kids arriving on Monday or the doors are going to be closed (even though) they all had paid for therapy. (That meant) they were going to arrive here and there'd be no therapy and they would have lost all of their money. There were a lot of kids who were going to lose all of their money, so we assumed all that debt and said, 'Here we are.' So that Monday when we both walked through the doors and saw all the kids working out, we went, 'This is why we did it.' "

LaScala, 47, has a story of personal involvement dealing with neuromuscular disorders.

Her son Cody, now 21, suffered brain damage from a near drowning incident on his first birthday, March 30, 1988, when the family lived in Palm Desert, Calif.

Over the years, which eventually saw LaScala, Cody and a younger son by 17 months, Bryan, move to Iowa, the mother did everything she could to help Cody, who suffered from cerebral palsy caused by his near drowning.

That included nine trips to Poland where therapy techniques changed Cody's life for the better and set the stage for LaScala's efforts with the Napa Institute, now Napa Center.

"The doctors took me into a room and told me he would be a vegetable and told me to go about (my) life," she said. "You're pregnant with another child and it was something we could not even fathom; this is not something you do. He's not a puppy, so it kind of became a mission in my life to prove everyone wrong," LaScala said.

"I never saw him as disabled. I saw his abilities. Everyone would say that they didn't think he understood, and I'd just talk to him, and I knew as a mom you can tell your child knows, and we did every therapy we could get our hands on, and I went from one therapy to the next.

"(Then we heard) ... a program that said 'new hope for children with cerebral palsy' that talked about EuroMed, which is in Poland, and I was there in two months with my son. We raised the funds and we were there.

"At this time, he was 11 years old and he drove a wheelchair with a head array. He did not use his arms. And after three trips to Poland he was upright, taking his first steps and he could drive a chair with a joystick, which if you ever tried to drive a wheelchair with a head array, that's huge. That changed his life right there," she said.

Napa Center employs 12 people -- four therapists and eight aides -- who work in a space where there's a large carpeted workout area and nine small cubicles along three walls.

There are six 10-foot-by-10-foot individual workout stalls and three "spider cages," which are enclosed, much like a soccer goal made out of a huge plastic milk crate, that have bungee cords stretched from the cage to a special suit, a NeuroSuit designed and developed by Gonzalez, which is worn by the attendee.

The staff utilizes a type of therapy called Intensive Method of Therapy, or IMOT, that, according to the center's literature, consists of "60 to 90 hours of vigorous therapy in just three weeks using the NeuroSuit, multifunctional therapy units and a variety of other equipment. The three-week intensive program is based on strengthening and conditioning, decreasing unwanted reflexes and developing new, improved motor patterns through repetition and correct alignment ..."

"The NeuroSuit helps hold the patient's body in correct alignment and adds additional weight bearing through the use of bungee-type bands that are attached to the suit," the Napa Center's literature explains.

According to LaScala, the auditory program is one of the most promising components of an attendee's successful treatment.

"The auditory training (is something) we've had with our center for probably three months, and I think that's made a huge difference in the awareness of the kids," LaScala said. "Each time my son went to Poland, his speech was probably 30 percent intelligible when he started and each trip he'd gain 3 to 5 percent, and that was documented. So, if you take a child you can understand 30 percent and you take him nine times and it increased 3 to 5 percent (each visit), now he's at 90 percent. So that little bit multiplied has just changed his entire life."

LaScala said that despite all the work and adversity she and Gonzalez had to work through, keeping the center open was worth it.

"It's the only place you can go and make this kind of progress," she said. "That's why when Napa was going to close that Trish and I, who laid the groundwork and this was our dream, we were like 'no' because we know how many kids we've helped. When they leave, that's our best reward because (that's) when we have a graduation."

Gracie's mom reports the therapy assistance provided at home by the Easter Seals organization runs out in January, but more help is on the way through the Clark County School District.

"She'll be enrolled in a preschool program for kids with special needs," Jennifer Sauer said. "The therapists come into the classroom and treat it more like a school learning environment. It's a special classroom for 3- to 5-year-olds."

Gracie, who will turn 3 on Jan. 9, will be under the watchful eye of a special education teacher and an assistant for 21/2 hours a day in the morning, four days a week.

"She'll be evaluated by an occupational therapist, a physical therapist and a psychologist to determine where she is mentally," her mother said.

Cerebral Palsy Rehabilitation

Suit Therapy >> Cerebral Palsy Rehabilitation