Tristan’s progress steamrolls at home in Rainbow Beach

Last July, local boy Tristan Sik was involved in an horrific road accident whilst riding his bike in Rainbow Beach. He suffered debilitating injuries, placing him in a wheelchair and limiting his ability to eat and communicate.

After the accident, Tristan’s mum, Carolyn Elder, created the ‘Pray for Trist’ Facebook page and she has continued to post regular updates and photographs of her son’s recovery.

In recent weeks, it seems the ‘Pray for Trist’ prayers have been answered as Tristan makes remarkable progress in muscle strength, movement and speech development.

“We left Lady Cilento Hospital on December 20th and Trist was still in a limited conscious state, he had no words and limited movement.

“We were told the goal for the next eight weeks was to maintain muscle movement and his current state, there were no plans or hope for a change in his condition,” Carolyn said.

Since leaving the hospital, Tristan has been working with local physiotherapist Sue Bennett, personal trainers Emillia and Mark at the Rainbow Beach Gym and BJ Parton in the pool, to maintain muscle strength. Remarkably, rather than just maintaining his strength, Tristan’s progress has steamrolled.

“It’s amazing, Tristan is now able to pull himself up and is learning to walk again.

“He has almost full function of the right side of his body and Mark, Sue and BJ are working on improving the left side,” said Carolyn.

Carolyn is glowing with pride as she says, “When we returned to the hospital at the end of February, the Director of Rehabilitation told us Tristan had achieved in eight weeks what they would have been hopeful to achieve in eight months.”

In addition to the progress he has made in movement, Tristan is now also able to communicate verbally and respond in sentences.

“He started off saying ‘yes and no’, and by my birthday, February 14th, we had a major breakthrough, he said ‘Mum’,” Carolyn said.

“The next day he said, ‘I love you’.”

Tristan’s future is looking bright, he has returned to school one afternoon a week at Victory College in Gympie and he is officially an outpatient at Lady Cilento Hospital.

Tristan will return to hospital in May for Botox Therapy to relax his muscles and assist in the learning-to-walk process.

“Our goal is to have Trist walking more and spending less time in the wheelchair by Christmas,” Carolyn said.

If you would like to follow Tristan’s progress, donate or assist in fundraising activities, please visit the ‘Pray for Trist’ Facebook page.