She won’t be carrying the Olympic flame when she heads to Tokyo, but Bailey Moody was a torchbearer for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta earlier this month. Moody is a wheelchair basketball player on Team USA and will compete in the delayed 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo in August.
“Patients and care providers at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta show the strength, determination and perseverance of a professional athlete inside our hospital walls every day,” Children’s said in an email. “During a season where we come together to celebrate these qualities, we wanted to remind our patients and physicians how we celebrate them as well.”
Children’s torchbearers represent various facilities in the system, from the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center to the Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine Center. They are current and former patients, doctors and even a couple of lovable mascots. And they’re all featured in a video Children’s produced to highlight their important roles in the system.
“I thought the video was awesome,” Moody said. “It was cool to be at the end and get to go to the finish line. And actually going to the Paralympics and then getting to do a video like that ... it gives you a pride for your country.
“That kind of sums it all up for me and gives me a little bit of the feeling that I’ll feel when I’m in Tokyo, too,” she added.
A graduate of Providence Christian school in Lilburn, Bailey Moody was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in her right knee when she was 10. After receiving chemotherapy treatments at the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center at Children’s Healthcare, she was given three choices — insertion of a metal rod, plain amputation or rotationplasty amputation — she chose the latter.
“I ended up choosing the rotationplasty amputation because it would have given me the best opportunity to go back to playing basketball again,” Moody said.
With rotationplasty, a surgeon removes the middle part of the leg, including the tumor. The lower leg is reattached at the thigh, but rotated 180 degrees, so the ankle joint functions as a new knee joint. Patients still have to wear a prosthesis, but rotationplasty is a more functional alternative to an above-the-knee full leg amputation.
Considering Moody will be playing in Tokyo next month — the Paralympics begin Aug. 24 — it appears she made the right choice.
She isn’t the only athlete among the 10 torchbearers in the Children’s video.
Being a torchbearer is “a big honor,” 14-year-old Ian Bicknell said. Ian plays baseball, with plans to try out for the team at North Gwinnett, where he’ll be a freshman when school starts. The outfielder played in middle school and recently was selected for a Gwinnett Stripers-affiliated community team.
Although he hasn’t made history on the field yet, Ian made medical history last year when he took the first dose of an FDA-approved peanut allergy treatment.
It wasn’t just that Ian couldn’t eat peanuts, he couldn’t be around them. When his baseball team would go out to eat after a game, Ian had to know if peanuts were in any of the dishes.
“We were at a hockey game one time, and I was sitting behind someone who was eating peanuts,” Ian said, “and they dusted their hands off. And that made me have a reaction, that dust flying back into my face.”
But Ian now takes palforzia. “Before I did palforzia, at Braves games we would have to move when people next to us were eating peanuts, which is a common snack,” the rising freshman at North Gwinnett High School said. “But now we can just sit right next to them and not worry about anything.”
In the Children’s torch relay, Ian took the handoff from Blooper. “I grabbed it from the Braves mascot, and I’m a very big Braves fan. So that was cool.”
Ian passed the torch to Dr. Brian Vickery, who administered that first dose of palforzia to him. Vickery is a pediatric allergist-immunologist whose clinical and research efforts focus on understanding food allergies and anaphylaxis, and developing new therapies to treat them.
Vickery also considered being a torchbearer “a huge honor. I mean ... reminding the public about the heroism and efforts of these kids, as if they were Olympians, it was, frankly, fun. And it was a big honor.”
Vickery was recruited by Children’s in 2018 to up its allergy game, and is director of the center’s food allergy program. He led the phase three trial of palforzia, which is the first treatment of food allergies ever to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or any other regulatory body worldwide.
“So that’s a huge milestone in the field,” he said. “Up until that approval, all we had to offer patients was an epinephrine autoinjector that they would use to save their own lives.
“With palforzia, we have the ability now to treat a food allergy for the first time to protect patients from those accidents and keep them out of the ER and out of the hospital, and keep them doing the things they want to do.”
In addition to Moody, Ian, Vickery and Blooper, Children’s torchbearers are:
Freddie Falcon: Freddie loves cheering for the Falcons, shaking his tailfeathers and bringing smiles to the patients at Children’s. He’s always been a big fan of the nurses and physicians, too, and cheers them on as they provide the best care possible.
Credit: Photo courtesy of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta
Credit: Photo courtesy of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta
Andrew Jimenez: Andrew was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in November 2018 at Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center. The Atlanta United superfan dreams of becoming a professional soccer player when he grows up.
Credit: Photo courtesy of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta
Credit: Photo courtesy of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta
Dr. Krishna Eechampati: Eechampati is full-time clinician who treats patients in addition to ensuring Children’s urgent care is properly staffed and can provide the best care. He is also an avid hiker who has summited Mount Kilimanjaro twice, Everest base camp and several peaks across the U.S.
Wisdom Leaks: Wisdom was born with VACTERL association resulting in a variety of medical conditions including cardiac defects and limb differences. She’s undergone five surgeries in her two years of life including two open heart surgeries at Children’s Heart Center, spine surgery and recent surgery on her right limb at Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine Center of Children’s.
Nigel Odom: Nigel was only 1 when he was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. He was one of the first enrollees in the preschool program at Marcus Autism Center, where children with and without autism learn together in an inclusive environment. This past May, the “Mayor of Preschool” celebrated his graduation and is prepared to put his well-honed social skills to work as he starts kindergarten this fall.
Tai Ann Wright: Tai Ann has a rare bone condition that effects every muscle in her body, causing stiffness and contractions, resulting in pain in her joints on a daily basis. She has undergone at least 28 procedures at Children’s since she was 4 months old to help improve her quality of life, including a recent bilateral hip replacement at Children’s Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine Center. She works hard during her Robotic Rehabilitation sessions to improve her walking gait and strengthen her muscles.
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