A family with a daughter receiving treatment at Shriners Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia says this Thanksgiving, they have a lot to be grateful for.

Eleven-year-old Desa Kaiser, a young dancer who was paralyzed in an accident, is back on the dance floor thanks to some special ingenuity.

The sixth grader is paralyzed from the waist down after a car crash.

“I was sad, but I knew that I’ll have a lot of people around me to help me,” Desa said.

That help is at Shriners Children’s, where she gets physical therapy. The Shriners team even helped get Desa back on the dance floor in a specialized dancing wheelchair.

“It’s an amazing chair that’s different from others,” Desa said, “because you can be more free in it and you can express a lot more in it.”

Desa showed us how she could bend all the way back and touch the ground while staying in the chair.  

With this help, she’s already returned to the stage.

“I do jazz, ballet, lyrical, and some funk, hip-hop sometimes,” Desa said.

Physical therapist Maggie Reilly says strength training helps Desa move more freely in the customized wheelchair.

“We wanted to bring her a chair that would allow her to dance and do what she loves,” Reilly said. “One thing that we strive most to do here at Shriners is letting children achieve their goals in whatever way that may be possible.”

Possibilities have blossomed since the accident three years ago, when the family spent that Thanksgiving at Shriners.

“Nobody wants to spend Thanksgiving in a hospital, but they make you feel as at home as they can make you,” Allyson Keiser, Desa’s mother, said.

 Allyson Keiser says the family has a lot to be thankful for with Desa back on the dance floor.

“It is a huge sense of hope for her and it’s just a huge relief to be able to give her something that we thought she lost,” Allyson Keiser said.

Desa may have lost some mobility, but she’s found a new identity.

“It’s cool to be different from other people and more unique in different ways,” Desa said.

While she plans to keep up with dancing, Desa says because of her experience at Shriners, she’s also thinking about becoming a pediatric nurse.

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