The Start.
Sandler and his sister, Bootsie, are the only two people in the world with their diagnosis—an unbalanced translocation of chromosomes two and eight.
They'll not only go down in history as writing 'that chapter' in medical books, but also for touching everyone's heart whom they meet. Though they both suffer from cognitive fine & gross motor delays, Raynaud's Phenomenon, speech and hearing impairment, Optic Nerve Hypoplasia, heart defects & that's just to name a few... Sandler has been a lot more medically challenging.
Throughout his 11.5 yrs he has had twelve significant surgeries and continues to defy the odds. He was failure to thrive the first few years of his life and was on a 24 hour feeding tube but continued to lose weight leaving specialists scratching their heads. When there appeared to be no choice but to put him in the hospital and monitor him while he whittled away, his mom decided to take action and packed three duffle bags & the two kids and relocate from CO to WA desperate to save her son's life. Perhaps it was all of the rain that helped him grow, or the change of altitude... all that was known for sure was that he started thriving! And with his new found energy and zest for life he got his first skateboard!
After a year of rain and growth in WA The Three Musketeers relocated to the sunny beaches of CA where Sandler quickly found his love for skateboarding could be enjoyed almost every minute of every day. He started teaching himself to ride a board on all fours & quickly became an attraction for his unique skating style. As he started connecting more and more with skateboarding he started accelerating in all areas of life. He began exceeding expectations for growth and graduated into a new special needs program. As he became more and more mobile and harder to keep up with it forced a little break to be taken while his mom tried to figure out a safe way for him to fulfill his desire to skate.
Though still small but mighty he began sixth grade this year. With the highs of being a kid, also come the lows of being a kid and some unfortunate bullying began. His mom was much more aware of it than Sandler, so it sped up her realization that he needed the outlet of skateboarding back in his life... and fast!! So, he got a fresh new board, began mentoring under Ben Sauer (founder of Skate Above) and quickly learned to navigate a skatepark. As schoolmates and peers started seeing him able, instead of disabled, it began to curve their perception of him and see him as a guy with no fear, a lot of heart and a ton of determination to skateboard. Every minute of every day he wants to be on that board, at the park and amongst all of his "best buddies" (anyone who is kind and owns a skateboard is a friend of Sandler's). He is a little guy with a ginormous heart and a pure old soul who will in some way, shape or form make skateboarding history.
- Nikki