CP Awareness Day
March 25, 2024 is our annual tradition of a meetup between friends: Dana and Levi, Marsh and Kellan, and Drake Box. Here is the link to listen on Epsiode 111
Edited Transcript:
Marsh Naidoo (00:28):
Hello and welcome to the Raising Kellan Podcast. My name is Marsh Naidoo. Today is March the 25th and Cerebral Palsy Awareness Day. Kellan and I are joined by our longtime friends, Dana Kramer and Levi , as well as Drake Box. Join us for this annual meetup. Grab that cup of coffee, put your feet up and get ready for some awesome conversation.
Dana Kramer (01:11):
Dana, hi.
Kellan Julal (01:14):
This is my first podcast.
Dana Kramer (01:16):
We're so excited that you're here. Tell him it's going to be good, Kellan. It's going to be fun.
Kellan Julal (01:25):
I'm eating ice cream.
Levi (01:28):
Nice.
Kellan Julal (01:32):
Where are we all going?
Dana Kramer (01:36):
Yeah, we're on our way home. We're stuck in traffic.
Kellan Julal (01:40):
Where did y'all come from?
Levi (01:43):
Physical therapy.
Marsh Naidoo (01:46):
How's everything going with that, Levi?
Levi (01:49):
Good. I'm improving by the day.
Marsh Naidoo (01:53):
What did you think of the new thing they tried? Did you like it?
Levi (01:59):
Oh, the thing they did with the East Stim, the thing that Mississippi did on your spot? Yeah. I thought that was pretty cool.
(02:07):
We didn't get to do a full session because we ended up having to change therapists with scheduling and stuff. So during intensive therapy, she's going to do it coming up in July, so she's going to do it for the whole three weeks.
Marsh Naidoo (02:23):
Okay.
Kellan Julal (02:24):
Theres my brother Drake!
Marsh Naidoo (02:25):
Yeah.
Dana Kramer (02:29):
Drake. Hey.
Drake Box (02:35):
What's up? Call. What's up Levi? Dana, how y'all doing?
Dana Kramer (02:39):
Hey,
(02:41):
Levi: we are here for our annual meetup podcast.
Marsh Naidoo (02:45):
I love it. So Drake, let us know what's going on with you.
Kellan Julal (02:49):
So Drake gets my first podcast!
Drake Box (02:52):
I got you. Well, I've recently started my first job in the public relations field at our local college here in Dyersburg at Dyersburg State. So I'm kind of acclimating to that and getting used to the work-life balance and just figuring everything out as I go. Enjoying every step of the way.
Dana Kramer (03:13):
Nice.
Drake Box (03:14):
It's a big adjustment, but I'm enjoying it. And I think one of my favorite things so far is just having my coworkers around. They've been a big help and they welcomed me with open arms. We went out to a welcome to the department, lunch the other day. Had some good Mexican food, so I'm enjoying it.
Levi (03:33):
Well, good for you, Drake. Good for you. That is exciting. Drake, we're so proud of you.
Drake Box (03:42):
I appreciate it. Thank y'all very much. Y'all helped me get to this point and couldn't have done it without, that's for sure.
Kellan Julal (03:50):
Hi guys. I'm just my first podcast, so on Raising Kellan
Marsh Naidoo (03:54):
Tell me what's going on with you, Kellan
Kellan Julal (03:57):
I am 11 years old and I have Cerebral Palsy and crutches to help me walk and I'm about to be in sixth grade.
Marsh Naidoo (04:09):
We are about to be in sixth grade guys.
Dana Kramer (04:12):
Oh, the middle school. Middle level of the middle school step.
Kellan Julal (04:19):
What grade is Levi in?
Dana Kramer (04:21):
Levi: I'm in seventh grade. Levi's going to be going to high school. Our eighth graders go to high school, but they're still in middle school, but it's integrated with the high school. It's kind of crazy. Are you excited, Levi? Yeah, I'm really excited. But it feels like I wasn't even at the middle school for that long. I was only there for two years. It's like I'm already moving.
Drake Box (04:46):
So does your middle school go sixth, seventh, eighth, and then high school?
Dana Kramer (04:52):
Yeah, but our middle school is too small for third grade, so we go over to the high school for eighth grade.
Drake Box (04:59):
Oh, sweet.
Dana Kramer (05:01):
Okay, listen, can we go back to Drake for a second? I know you've got some other bigger news that happened this year. Can we please get a shout out on that one?
Drake Box (05:13):
Are you talking about I'm lost on
Dana Kramer (05:16):
What your girl, you're engaged.
Drake Box (05:18):
Oh see that was in December though. That was technically last
Dana Kramer (05:21):
Year. We haven't talked in a year, bro. We haven't talked. This is our annual meetup.
Drake Box (05:27):
Yeah, I'm engaged now
Dana Kramer (05:31):
Like that.
Drake Box (05:32):
It's crazy. It was cold. I was nervous, but it went over well. She didn't say no. So that's all that
Dana Kramer (05:40):
Matters. Shout out to you girl. Nice.
Drake Box (05:42):
Yeah, shout out to Rebecca. Love her.
Dana Kramer (05:44):
That's awesome.
Drake Box (05:47):
Y'all have to come to the wedding. We're planning it for June 15th of next year.
Dana Kramer (05:52):
Oh, that would be so cool. Yeah, we'll try and come if we can. Yeah, that would be awesome. No doubt. Tell them about Gatlinburg.
Drake Box (06:04):
I love Gatlinburg
Dana Kramer (06:04):
For spring break.
Drake Box (06:06):
That's going to be fun, dude.
Dana Kramer (06:09):
I'll be in the same state as y'all for once.
Drake Box (06:13):
Yeah, you'll be like eight hours away from us. I think that's, that's how long it takes to get dick burg. Dang. Six or eight, somewhere in that range.
Dana Kramer (06:23):
I was like maybe it'll be closed so we can go see them. Nope. Eight hours
Kellan Julal (06:29):
When my spring. When's your spring break?
Marsh Naidoo (06:32):
We on spring break this week in DyersBurg. This is our spring break week.
Dana Kramer (06:38):
We have spring break at the start of April. Right. Alright. Yeah,
Drake Box (06:43):
That's awesome man. I love Gatlinburg. Our most recent vacation was to Gatlinburg and we stayed at a little lodge with a brook and we went on the sky, the sky, skyrise bridge and all that good stuff. I don't do heights, so I wasn't really too keen on that. But Rebecca enjoys. Did
Dana Kramer (07:00):
You walk across the bridge that had the glass?
Drake Box (07:03):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dana Kramer (07:05):
That's crazy.
Drake Box (07:06):
Oh yeah. I made the mistake of looking down too. Don't do that if you're scared
Dana Kramer (07:10):
Of heights. I felt like I was in squid games. Scary.
Drake Box (07:15):
So how's your therapy going Levi?
Levi (07:19):
It's going good. I'm making progress day by day trying to use cane. I'm trying to transfer to using my cane at school.
Drake Box (07:28):
What are you using right now? A walker.
Levi (07:31):
Yeah, but I'm using my cane at home, so now we're trying to use the cane at school more.
Drake Box (07:37):
I got you. Well, you just got to make, like you said, progress day by day and it's a slow process, but it's rewarding once you get to your end goal.
Dana Kramer (07:47):
Very rewarding.
Kellan Julal (07:49):
Okay, so my school is D'S Mom and reading in school and I go to intervention to help me with reading
Levi (08:03):
D. That's cool.
Drake Box (08:06):
Did you already have your meeting with that you said was coming up a few days ago. How'd that go? Kellan
Kellan Julal (08:13):
Mom did. I already have our meeting
Marsh Naidoo (08:15):
When we go back to school. It's just going to be like an introduction to what middle school would be like. So figuring out the logistics of drop off, pick up class work and stuff like that. Curriculum. So yeah, it's kind of a big move, isn't it? Are you excited about it or what's the story?
Kellan Julal (08:38):
Yeah, my sub is going to be Mr. LaMarcus maybe, but we don't know about that yet. It might be him or somebody else, but we don't know. We have to find out. When you go to middle school,
Marsh Naidoo (08:51):
Ms. Deana Howell is Kellan's paraprofessional.
Kellan Julal (08:56):
My sub used to be Mr LA
Marsh Naidoo (08:58):
Mr Ellie is your sub and so she's likely going to be moving with Kellan to the middle school. So yeah, to help navigate that.
Levi (09:09):
Kalen, are you excited to middle school?
Kellan Julal (09:11):
Yeah. Do you mind if we talk about my classes a little bit?
Levi (09:15):
No.
Drake Box (09:15):
About your classes?
Kellan Julal (09:17):
Yes, go ahead dude. I've already talked about
Levi (09:20):
Take it.
Kellan Julal (09:21):
So when I go to intervention, I go after I go to intervention, I go to Discovery and then I go on to Miss Tina Hogue and then lunch and then a recess and then I go to Miss Lauren Mathis
Drake Box (09:39):
What's your favorite part
Dana Kramer (09:39):
Of the day? That's my favorite. Yeah, you have recess in middle school. That's lucky.
Marsh Naidoo (09:46):
Oh yeah. Y'all don't have recess anymore? Do you Levi?
Drake Box (09:51):
My recess is my one hour lunch break.
Dana Kramer (09:55):
You get one hour
Kellan Julal (09:56):
For lunch. Hour lunch.
Dana Kramer (09:59):
My recess is when all the kids are asleep at night.
Marsh Naidoo (10:03):
Levi, what's your favorite subjects? What are you kind of getting into as far as your favorites?
Levi (10:12):
I like math and computer science.
Drake Box (10:14):
I absolutely hated math. I don't know how you do it, man. You might have to tutor me.
Dana Kramer (10:19):
He has 104 in math. I used to. I don't anymore. I have a 99. Oh
Drake Box (10:25):
Man, 99. That's like saying I don't have an A plus plus anymore. I have an A plus.
Dana Kramer (10:37):
I lost my plus.
Drake Box (10:40):
That's a good job, man. Hey, as long as you find something that you're passionate about, that's what matters.
Levi (10:47):
Yeah, I just find math easy. Numbers are easy.
Drake Box (10:51):
I never liked math. My favorite math was geometry and that's because it didn't deal with a lot of numbers. It mostly dealt with shapes.
Dana Kramer (11:00):
My worst math is geometry. Sorry for the loud semi-truck We are driving home from therapy. Crazy. Oh, Levi's holding the phone. No worries there. I'm driving. Yeah, I'll hold the phone. Both of us in the frame are really trying. Hey, so what's been going on Marsh with you?
Marsh Naidoo (11:30):
Honestly, it's just being working. What else are we doing, Kellan? Some exercises when Ke gets off from school, going to the gym for a little bit. Oh,
Kellan Julal (11:45):
I was going to say one more. So Mr. Tim is myself for this year,
Marsh Naidoo (11:53):
So we have to give a shout out. The real exciting news that has happened is that the Berg Lady Trojans have won the state championships.
Drake Box (12:04):
Yeah.
Dana Kramer (12:05):
Yay. Awesome.
Marsh Naidoo (12:08):
And killing is
Drake Box (12:09):
First time in program history.
Marsh Naidoo (12:11):
Actually, that's the truth.
Kellan Julal (12:13):
I'm very excited because that coach, Mr. Strayhorn is son when MS is not there.
Marsh Naidoo (12:20):
So coach spent some time with Kellan, so that's why Kellan just is really proud of his coach.
Kellan Julal (12:26):
He's my
Drake Box (12:27):
That's awesome. They came by the college the other day and we had a little welcoming party for him, clapped it up for him, took some pictures and got to see the golden ball. So that was cool. I didn't want to hold it though. I thought I'd drop it,
Levi (12:41):
Bro. I feel that
Drake Box (12:44):
It's pretty heavy though.
Levi (12:45):
Has anyone had anything really exciting happening?
Drake Box (12:48):
I'm just deadly been working. That's all I can say. I'm trying to readjust the office. That's about the most exciting thing I've been doing recently.
Dana Kramer (13:01):
So everyone's just smoothly going, huh?
Marsh Naidoo (13:04):
Hey, sometimes no one news is good news.
Drake Box (13:07):
Yeah,
Dana Kramer (13:09):
True. That is true. So true.
Marsh Naidoo (13:13):
Well, we are just Dana and Drake and Levi, thank you so much for just taking the time to just chat with us today and we get together once a year to do our little celebratory
Kellan Julal (13:29):
Celebration.
Marsh Naidoo (13:30):
Get together.
Dana Kramer (13:31):
And does anybody have any big plans for CEP day? Are y'all doing? Actually
Marsh Naidoo (13:37):
No ma'am. That's why I thought I was going to kind of cut this down and put the podcast out on Monday for March the 25th for CP Awareness. But we don't have any big plans Do we Kellan?
Kellan Julal (13:51):
So I was going to say one more thing about coach. So Coach Stray is my para professional. When Ms. Dina is not at school, then he subs.
Dana Kramer (14:01):
So like to have plan B, Tell Marsh what we're planning on CP days. Oh yeah. Oh, we're planning to go eat at a ramen shop with some of my friends.
Drake Box (14:11):
There's a new ramen shop in Jackson, Tennessee. Actually. I've heard it's all right. I'm might have to go try that.
Dana Kramer (14:18):
We have never been to a ramen shop. I'm very excited. Levi has been dying to go. So I told him that was the perfect day for us to go.
Drake Box (14:26):
That sounds fun. I'm going to wear green to work.
Dana Kramer (14:29):
Yes. That's my plan. I'll wear green. Sounds good.
Kellan Julal (14:34):
It's great chatting with you guys. And tomorrow I'm going to Nashville,
Marsh Naidoo (14:40):
So we going to go
Dana Kramer (14:41):
Fun. Fine.
Kellan Julal (14:44):
So let me explain why, if you don't mind. Let me explain why we want to get my pants fixed up so I can andbut easily because those buttons I have on right now are too hard for me to button back.
Marsh Naidoo (15:05):
So this lady, Alex Capps in Nashville, she works at the fab lab and she's going to kind of help us with these magnetic buttons that will make Kellan buttoning and unbuttoning a little bit easier instead of fooling with the button and the whole deal.
Dana Kramer (15:23):
That's so cool. That's so awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cool. I won't even wear pants with buttons. You can't stand them. They're uncomfortable. See, we can how the buttons work. That's cool. Let us know what you think.
Marsh Naidoo (15:38):
Absolutely guys,
Kellan Julal (15:40):
I'll come back with my daddy and my mama will stay overnight.
Marsh Naidoo (15:45):
I'm doing
Dana Kramer (15:46):
Okay.
Marsh Naidoo (15:48):
He's just telling you all the business, Dana. Oh, so
Dana Kramer (15:53):
I love it.
Marsh Naidoo (15:56):
We are having a physical therapy conference in Nashville, so I'm just going to stay to go to that and then I'll be back home the next day
Kellan Julal (16:04):
And because we'll stay
Marsh Naidoo (16:05):
With me. Yep. Yeah,
Dana Kramer (16:07):
That's perfect. That works out good then.
Marsh Naidoo (16:10):
And Dana, what about before we go? Dana, what about you? What's happening with you?
Dana Kramer (16:15):
Not too much. I'm just stay at home mom. Oh, we did turn one of our rooms into our house into a half room and a half gymnastics room. So Levi and his sister are sharing space, so that's pretty exciting. We've got a whole designated area now for working out. But other than that, just being a mama, taking everybody where they got to go. Cooking food, cleaning house!
Marsh Naidoo (16:44):
Hey, that's a big job, Dana. I know Ms. Lily is asleep, but let's just give a shout out to Lillian as well.
Dana Kramer (16:55):
Yeah, she adorable. She was pretty excited. She wanted to be on the podcast so bad, but she couldn't hang. She fell asleep in her car seat. Camera. Yeah, she's out. Oh, she's passed out. Oh hey, somebody woke up. She just moved. Oh, I thought she woke up.
Marsh Naidoo (17:16):
Alright guys, well we are going to say bye-Bye. And then we'll get to get this together for you all just as a little something to celebrate Monday. Okay?
Dana Kramer (17:29):
Yes, wear green. Yeah,
Marsh Naidoo (17:32):
Green.
Dana Kramer (17:34):
Have a good one. Bye
Kellan Julal (17:36):
Bye.
Levi (17:37):
I enjoy talking !
Marsh Naidoo (17:40):
Always, Levi. Always. Bye. We are going to try our best as possible to do this for as long as we can. Okay?
Dana Kramer (17:49):
Yeah, this is awesome. The annual meetup continues. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye guys. Bye bye.
Marsh Naidoo (18:02):
Thank you for listening along in the podcast and please leave a rate and review of this episode on your podcast player. Remember, we have our resource Abilities Fair coming up on March the 28th, which is this coming Thursday from five to 7:00 PM at vocational rehab on 1365. Morgan RD Tennessee. As always, remember, get to the top of your mountain. This is Marsh Naidoo signing off.
