In February of this year, Addi’s father, Ryan, flew from Colorado to Seattle to attend the annual Dodge Journey, a charity fundraising event that takes place every year at a Dodge dealership.
This year, Ryan brought along his daughter, Addie, along with his two sons, Andrew and Marcus.
While Ryan was a Dodge dealer himself, he had never met Addie.
Addie was not as familiar with Dodge as her father, so he had to do some digging to find out more about her.
When she asked to speak with her dad, Ryan agreed.
They were both amazed by the level of support he received and how much it meant to her to be able to meet him.
“She was kind of a new person to the family,” Ryan said.
“But she knew that her dad was there to support her and to share his passion for this cause.”
The day after Addie arrived in Seattle, Ryan flew back to Colorado.
He brought with him a bucket of food and a new set of eyes.
He was ready to embark on his first mission: to help his daughter with her recovery.
“We were going to see if she could get a job,” Ryan recalled.
“It was going to be a fun trip.”
Ryan and his wife, Erin, had always hoped to see their daughter work at a dealership.
But their expectations were met with disappointment.
“As a parent, you are always looking for the best for your child,” Ryan explained.
“And I was kind to her and wanted her to make the best of a bad situation.”
But with no job offer in sight, Ryan said, he was ready for a change.
“I said to her, ‘You have two options: You can either make it work for you or you can try to find a job,'” Ryan said he told Addie in her hotel room.
“You’re a good student, you have a good heart, and I’m not going to take any chances with you.
So, I said to my daughter, ‘Go to work.'”
Ryan’s words made Addie’s heart melt.
She had never had a choice but to work for a man who would make her life so much easier.
“There was a moment of pure bliss,” Ryan remembered.
“After we had that moment, I looked up at Addie and said, ‘I know how hard you have it.
But if you want a job, I’m going to help you.'”
Ryan and Erin helped their daughter find a good job, and they were ecstatic when they found one.
But things quickly turned sour when Addie asked for a raise.
She wasn’t paid for her work and she was on a strict salary schedule.
“Addie said, “Why should I have to work a job I don’t want?
“Ryan said his wife had to tell her father that she had to go back to school.
Addi had been living in her bedroom since she was 5 years old and it was her first time going to school outside of her home town of Colorado.
Ryan and her husband, a former Marine who now runs a business, had already seen her a few times at school and they could see how much her learning curve was.
But she wanted a different kind of experience.
“So, she really wanted to take a more practical approach. “
When you’re growing up, you don’t understand everything that’s going on in school,” Ryan continued.
Ryan said they asked the school to send their daughter to a local library. “
Because she didn’t have any other options, I really wanted her [to] learn more about things like this,” Ryan added.
Ryan said they asked the school to send their daughter to a local library.
“They wanted her in class, and we said, OK, we’re going to send her in,” Ryan told CBS News.
“Once she arrived in class she started learning things.”
Ryan’s experience of his daughter’s experience with Addi and his family helped him see the positives and negatives in both Addies struggles and in the world around her.
Addis story of being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, is not something she has ever seen before.
“The first time I had an idea for a blog was when she had a seizure,” Ryan recounted.
“He was very concerned about her health,” Ryan’s wife, Susan, said. “
The rest is history. “
He was very concerned about her health,” Ryan’s wife, Susan, said.
The rest is history.
In March, Addies mother, Mary, was diagnosed and underwent treatment for ALS.
But while Addi has made progress, she is not perfect.
“With her new diagnosis, I started to think about what I’m doing with my daughter,” Ryan admitted.
