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t m c » p u l s e | d e c 2 0 1 9/JA N 2 02 0 23 "People with sacral agenesis, their muscles don't really work so their bodies often are contracted," said Allison C. Scott, M.D., an ortho- pedic surgeon at Shriners Hospitals for Children - Houston. "Kaitlyn's knees were straight; they didn't bend. It was fine when she was a little kid, but when she got to an adult size, it was pretty hard to do things. We had to do a big surgery to bend her knees and then another surgery to reposition her foot." In addition to the numerous surgeries Eaton endured, she had other health challenges growing up, mostly involving her bladder and kidneys. This is not uncommon for individuals with sacral agenesis. "It was pretty hard, especially when I started getting involved in different groups in school," Eaton said. "You don't want to be that kid that is always missing classes, for whatever reason. My sister is never sick, rarely goes to the doctor, and then I was in the doctor's office all the time. That made it a little bit harder, too, seeing what life could be like not having to go to the doctor so much." But she has made up for lost time. After high school, Eaton accepted a scholarship to play basketball for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where she earned her undergraduate degree in community health in 2017. Currently, she is working on a graduate degree in social work at UIUC and training for Paralympic tryouts. "I love the competitive part of basketball and I have always been competitive," Eaton said. "But the reason I play is for the friendships and connections that I have built, whether it is in the Houston community, my collegiate community, or now on the international level." Wheelchair basketball is played on the same size court as traditional basketball and players use regula- tion basketballs. "I think the striking thing is that there are not that many differences between wheelchair basketball and regular basketball, other than factoring in the wheel- chair," Eaton said. "In wheelchair basketball, there is no double-dribble rule, but at the competitive level I'm playing at now, most people aren't going to do that. It's just practicing to get used to that movement and understanding how your body works." Wheelchair basketball also uses a classification system to rank players and their functional mobility ranges. Each team has five players, Eaton explained, and the total classification score for the team cannot surpass 14. Eaton is a 1.5 on the scale. "The scale ranges from 1.0 to 4.5 and those are assigned to individual players based on ability. … A 5 is an able-bodied athlete," she said. "The scale is based on what you do and do not have … an amputee, a wheelchair, lacks ab function." The special wheelchairs used for competitive play differ significantly from ordinary wheelchairs, Eaton said. "On my basketball chair, the wheels are angled outward," she explained. "It provides more stability and helps with speed and makes your chair more aerodynamic and it helps with turning. Another difference is, on my everyday chair, I only have four wheels; I have the two big ones and then the two front casters. On my basketball chair I have two big wheels and, technically, four casters—two front and two back casters. This helps with stability and prevents you from falling over backwards." ➟ Contact debakeycvedu@houstonmethodist.org for further information. Events hosted by DeBakey CV Education ACCREDITATION STATEMENT Houston Methodist is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians. Please note that email is not a secure means to communicate personal information, i.e. Social Security number, date of birth, financial information, etc. 102019 JAN. 18 events.houstonmethodist.org/criticalcare Course Director: F. Masud, MD FEB. 7 events.houstonmethodist.org/houstonheartfailure Course Directors: A. Guha, MD, MPH; and B. Trachtenberg, MD FEB. 15 events.houstonmethodist.org/how Course Director: J. Cooke, MD Course Co-Director: K. Kurrelmeyer, MD MARCH 14-16 • Fort Lauderdale, Florida events.houstonmethodist.org/cvimaging Course Director: W. Zoghbi, MD Course Co-Directors: S. Liƒle, MD; J. Mahmarian, MD; D. Shah, MD; and M. Quinones, MD APRIL 2-4 events.houstonmethodist.org/revolution Course Director: M. Ramchandani, MD Course Co-Directors: N. Ad, MD; and M. Ballmoos, MD, PhD, MPH FEB. 26-28 events.houstonmethodist.org/debakey-cv-congress Course Director: A. Lumsden, MD Course Co-Director: C. H. Lin, MD, PhD SECOND ANNUAL Critical Care Symposium FIFTH ANNUAL Houston Heart Failure Summit THIRD ANNUAL Heart of a Woman 10th ANNUAL Multimodality CV Imaging for the Clinician 11th ANNUAL Re-Evolution Summit INAUGURAL DeBakey Cardiovascular Congress events.houstonmethodist.org/cmri Course Director: D. Shah, MD SPRING 2020 • A WEEKLONG HANDS-ON WORKSHOP Houston Methodist CMR 2020 EVENTS REGISTER TODAY

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