Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to That's Rad hosted by me Anna Tyler, a
podcast where we look at the people, places and things
that are truly making this world rad. In today's episode,
I'm talking with Bryson Cox. Well, i'm talking to his
parents since Bryson's only ten months old.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Bryson was born.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
With a limb difference, meaning he has no hands or feet,
and his parents, Bonnie and Tyler, are taken on his
world in a big way with a bit of grace,
in a lot of comedy, and did I mention they
live right here in the Triad in Reidsville. Please welcome
Bonnie Tyler and Bryson Cox.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
All Right, you ready?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Ready?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Okay, you ready.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
I'm always ready.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Well you're mister personality, so it's going to be great. Yeah, yeah,
you're chatty yatthy over here. Hey, it's Hannah in with
three very lovely people who I think we're just going
to make them be permanent co hosts on the show
because so far, so good. Please welcome on Bonnie Tyler
and Bryson Cox or you might know them as the
Starfish Chronicles on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Welcome, Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
It's so great to be here. It's great to be.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
We are glad you with us.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
You're from Reidsville and we first were introduced to the
Cox family during Santa Baby earlier this year when you
submitted a picture of your baby boy Bryson to win,
and unfortunately he didn't win, but we're gonna get a
strong campaign for him going.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
For next year.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, I know, how dare you not get the win?
How rude? Right, Bud? And then one thing leads to
another and we're seeing you all over the internet. So Bonnie, like,
let's start with your story and your little boy Bryson
in the amazing journey he's on right now.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Yes, absolutely, So.
Speaker 5 (01:30):
We found out about Bryson's limb difference at our twenty
week oulder sound, and at first we were just so
scared and confused, and that lasted for a while because
we had never seen a kid like Bryson before.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
And his limb difference comes because he doesn't have any hands.
Speaker 5 (01:47):
Or feet correct, Yes, so he doesn't have he doesn't
have any bones below like the elbow area or the
knee area on both sides. So we had never seen
a kid like that before. You know, we've seen people
with no life at all, like, no nothing at the
shoulders or the hips, but right, or like amputees, yeah,
like veterans, and.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
You're a nurse, so you I mean, just when you
think you've seen it all right exactly level to.
Speaker 5 (02:13):
It, you know, something just comes out of left field
and you just like, what is this even going to look?
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Like?
Speaker 3 (02:19):
How's he going to live? Life? All that? So that's
what inspired us to truly start on social.
Speaker 5 (02:24):
Media, was to show people that if they get a
diagnosis like this, or if their kid is gonna have
a limb difference, like that's fine. It's actually beautiful, it's fun,
it's creative. You do find creative ways to do different things, right,
but they're just normal kids and they can do anything.
They're just gonna do it differently. They're gonna do it
(02:45):
in their own way.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
When you find out Bryson is gonna be born with
the limb difference, you said you were very scared and
nervous at first and you didn't know what to do.
Was there a moment when you're like, okay, we got
this because one your first time parents, which seems to
be completely like scary thing on itself, right, You're like,
I'm gonna be responsible for a baby what and then
to find out we're gonna have some challenges along the way.
Was there a moment when you're like, we got this,
(03:05):
this is easy?
Speaker 4 (03:06):
So I think like for me personally, I think the
whole time leading up to the birth, I was I
still had some type of question. I think the last
couple of months, like before she went in to have
have Bryson, that we were there was still questions, yeah,
like how is this gonna go? Is it gonna be okay?
Like I still had some doubt, But the moment I
(03:27):
held him, and I think the moment she held him
was like, Oh, we're fine. Everything's gonna be great.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
He's perfect the way he is.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
And now when you're going through all the ultrasounds you
find out like he's not gonna have hands or feet,
did you know to the extent or was it like
because they do like three D ultrasounds and everything these days,
So did.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
You have like an idea going in a little bit?
Speaker 5 (03:45):
So not going into the twenty week ultrasound, we had
no idea, okay, because we'd only had one ultrasound before
that m hm, and it was only at like nine
weeks or something like that, So you can't really see anything.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
And that's about the standard, right, Yeah, okay.
Speaker 5 (03:59):
That'sretty much standard. And then you don't have another one
until twenty weeks, and then typically you don't have another
one until the baby's born. But we were at our
twenty week old show and everything, I mean, we could
see it on the screen and I wasn't looking for hands, right,
you know, I was looking.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
At, you know, his little face and you know like.
Speaker 5 (04:19):
Oh, Tyler, I think he's got your nose, Like, I
no idea, what which isn't true?
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Isn't You're like, are you sure because it looks like
an alien.
Speaker 5 (04:25):
Yeah. Tyler's like, ah sure, he just looks like a
blob to me's so huge.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah, that's my boy.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
And the ultrasound tech.
Speaker 5 (04:33):
You know, they don't really say anything anyways, because they're
not allowed to be happy or sad in case there's
something wrong. And then it took forever for the doctor
to come back in, and I was like, that's when
I started getting like a weird feeling.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
She would like look over at me and she's like,
this is really weird.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Yeah, it's fine.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Everything's fun fine, you know, like we'd be break right.
Speaker 5 (04:54):
We had plans for the day, we were gonna go
to the Science Center and we were gonna go do
some stuff afterwards. And like I'd texted my sister and
been like, yeah, like I'll just meet you here afterwards,
blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
And then the.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
Doctor comes back in and she was amazing. She was
an angel on earth. I swear that that doctor was
amazing that kid that gave us that news, because obviously
there's no easy way to say that to somebody. Yeah,
that your child is gonna be different though, your child
is gonna have struggles in life, like because you know,
you say, okay, we're not seeing any bone development below
(05:27):
the arms or below the elbows or knees. But what
we hear is my child is going to struggle for
the rest.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Of his life.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
Yeah, and you know he's gonna have challenges that other
kids don't have. She was just very gracious about it.
And so yeah, we really had no idea. We thought
it was gonna be a normal day and then all
of a sudden, but a little got rocked.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
It's funny how the universe works, right, because now you've
seemed to I mean, you look like you've handled this
well just from what I've seen on Instagram. So let's
talk about that moment you decide, hey, let's post a
video of this. Was it just on your personal account?
And then one thing spiraled, like how how does one
start an Instagram following of thousands of people?
Speaker 5 (06:08):
Yes, so yeah, kind of accidentally. I obviously had shared
our story on like Facebook and stuff like that, you know,
asking people for prayer and just telling people what we
were going through. And so after he was born, everyone
was already obsessed with him.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
You know, people had been following our pregnancy and so.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
He's having fun, Bryson is he's channeling his inner radio
DJ right now. We got the headphones on him, Like,
he's having a good time.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
So yeah, we had a lot.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
Of people following us already, just kind of on Facebook
and like waiting to hear, waiting for an update, waiting
to see when he was worn and blah blah blah.
And so after he was born and we would post
pictures and stuff I got, we got several messages like, hey, like,
I have a lot of people that are like really
interested in your story. Have you guys considered starting a
(07:01):
social media page like for Bryson and for like what
you guys are going through and.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
They were asking more than anything for just like updates, Yeah,
online prosthetics and like as we go through the system.
The creativity side came later, but they were they were
just kind of asking for updates as we went.
Speaker 5 (07:16):
The name Starfish Chronicles, I actually can't we can't even
take credit for that name.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
My cousin Kim, she came up with that name. Yes.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
She was like one of the first people to come
and see Bryson after he was born and he She
was like, you know, I really I'm seeing it. Starf
You could because we called him starfish from the beginning
because that's what he kind of looked like when he
was born. He looked like a little starfish stretch out
and looked at the starfish and I was like, that's
a starfish.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Yeah, you're Patrick star from SpongeBob. For Halloween this year,
we got to take it.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
That's what I was trying to last year. I wanted
to do that, but we were a family of bears.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
We were this year.
Speaker 5 (07:51):
Yes, there's still time, but yeah, she was like, I'm
seeing it right now, Starfish Chronicles. You'll just you'll just
tell his story. And I was like, oh, that's that's
actually kind of clever. And then when it came to
actually posting about him, I was like, I feel like
if I do, like, you know, serious or sappy posts,
like that's just not us, Like we're not serious sappy people.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Just from seeing like.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Your footage, it's funny and it's real, it's real, but
like you're embracing it with a laugh, because right, like,
if you can't laugh.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
At any situation in life, what can you?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
What can write exactly?
Speaker 5 (08:23):
And one of the I know, buddy, right, those are
those are happy yells? Just for everyone listening. Bryson has
one tone happy and mad, but these are happy yells.
There's no tears.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
He does seem very happy.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
But he was also getting a lot of attention from
the office ladies or other so he's probably wanting to
go tax decay.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Like what the heck? Right, where'd all my fans go?
Speaker 1 (08:44):
And one of the cool moments that we've all seen
is Bryson has he got a set of legs, esthetic legs.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
What's that moment?
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Like when you go to the hospital and you see
your son in something that you maybe never thought was
going to happen.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Right for me, I was like, man, he's taller than
I expected him to be because like we're so used
to him being He said, yeah, compact, very easy to hold.
And then we throw those legs on him, like man,
he's heavier and I thought he was going to be
this is but it was awesome. And then he's just
super impressive. Like the doctor. He he actually came out
(09:19):
of retirement. He's worked in prosthetics for forty three years.
He came out of retirement when he saw Bryson's case
and he was like, I want to build prosthetics for
this kid. So he comes out of retirement, right, He's
the best. He's such a cool dude, like super encouraging, loves.
Bryson has the most the thickest Northern accent you've ever
(09:40):
heard in your life. Bryson looks at him, like, what
are you saying, dude, sir, but he said he was like,
I've done this for forty three years and never have
I seen a kid stand at his age Because he's
standing on his own, there's no he he can balance
by himself. He was like, I've never seen this before.
(10:03):
His core strength is great, He's he's capable. I've never
seen this before in a kid his age with prosthetics,
and so it's just I'm super proud of him more
than any Like he's he's absolutely killing the game, rushing it,
I said to the doctor I was. They were like, man,
this is so impressive. I well, he is my son.
(10:24):
But then they didn't laugh, and I was like, I
promise I'm not that full of myself.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
That was supposed to be a that was supposed to.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Be a joke. Okay, real talk here. Did you cry,
like when you see your son with this prosthetic le Zon?
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Did you cry? You can admit to.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
It, It's all right. I teared up a little bit.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
But then he started moving around and I was like,
all right, I got to lock in because he's gonna
fall on his face here in a second time. He
doesn't give us a lot of time to because all
of these things that we're seeing him doing and go
through and stuff, it's it all can be very emotional,
right and and but he, as you can hear, does
not give us a lot of time to work through
(10:59):
them to like we're in our quiet moments. So yeah, yeah,
there's been tears after the math after Manuth.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
And know you've got your cute blue Nike tennis shoes
and you're good to go.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Oh yeah, that will be taken off soon.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Right, you'll be running. So what's next on your journey?
Speaker 1 (11:15):
And if the answer is we're going to Chick fil
A after this and that's all we know, perfectly acceptable answer.
Speaker 5 (11:20):
Right now, we're working on building up to adding knees
to his legs. Okay, so like bendable knees. That'll probably
be it'll be a several month process. But right now
they're slowly adding height.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I would have never thought.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Of that, So he's like growing along with it.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
Yes, so the knees will automatically add like four inches
to his legs, and so they want to slowly just
add height without the knees so that once, once he's ready,
you're not just like, all right, here's these.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
New bendable parts of your life.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Also your four inches taller, like jel, I'm just thinking
of like four stump when he gets his braces and
he's trying to figure it out.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Right, at least, this is a gradual.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Progression exactly exactly.
Speaker 5 (11:57):
So that's what we're doing right now, is they just
added about an inch and then probably next time they'll
add another inch.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Until he's there nice and no is the eventual journey
to get him hands as.
Speaker 5 (12:08):
Well, So that part we're actually probably gonna leave up
to Bryson. Okay for right now, he is so good
with what he's got. He can hold things, he can
grab things.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
With one of his little nubs.
Speaker 5 (12:19):
Obviously, Like if he wants to play sports, we'll get
him adaptive equipment.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
But he started like Beckham right eat, you got it
like a set of legs, like make them bionic and
you can run, Like.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Let's get this exactly. That's what's up.
Speaker 5 (12:33):
Yeah, So we'll let him do whatever he wants to
do as far as that goes.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
But right now Tyler just as him like upside down.
It's like butt in the air. Oh yeah, he likes
it though. Thank you so much both for coming on
today and YouTube. Bryson. I think you, I mean, you've
said more than any of us combined.
Speaker 5 (12:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Yeah, you ready to take on the world. Oh yeah,
yeah you got this yo.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Oh you know.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Actually one quick question. Through your Instagram journey, have you
found parents.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
And I mean obviously not the same situation, but similar,
were you've been able to create this community?
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Yes? Absolutely, it's been amazing.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
Actually to see, Like I'm part of a group on
Facebook of moms with kids with more than one limb difference,
which is so cool and encouraging because I've seen kids
that do look.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Almost just like Bryson and so.
Speaker 5 (13:22):
And there's also been parents that have reached out to
us and said, hey, we just got this diagnosis.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Or what do we do next?
Speaker 5 (13:28):
Right, Like, we were so scared until we found your page.
And that is the whole point was to create less
of a stigma about limb difference and people thinking that
it's scary and people being afraid of it, and to
really just let people know that kids with limb difference
are just kids and they're just going to do everything
(13:50):
that we do. They're going to do it differently, and
that's okay. It's not scary.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
It's something that anybody can adapt to.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
Like obviously, Tyler and I have done our best to
adapt to it, and we'll continue to adapt to it
as Bryson grows.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
It's not a bad thing. It's not a scary thing,
it's not a sad thing. It's just a thing.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
It's just a thing, right one day at a time.
So there is good that comes from the Internet. Is
what we've learned from today.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Amen, thank you for being here, Tyler, Bonnie, Bryson, you
rock bro.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yeah, that means thank you perfect. Yes, you're welcome.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
If you want to follow the Cox family on all
their journeys and see little Bryson and his new blue
tennis shoes, make sure to follow him on Instagram at
starfish dot Chronicles