After months of watching her husband survive on a feeding tube, Cheri Wilkinson decided to search for another solution. She decided Ben should try Vital Stim Therapy.

Stacey Brill is a Speech Pathologist with Gulf Coast Rehabilitation. She’s treated dozens of patients with Vital Stim. “It’s the only FDA approved electrical stimulation unit for swallowing muscles,” Stacey says. For weeks she worked with Ben towards the goal of retraining his muscles how to swallow. “With him it was always, ok are we really going to make progress?”

Even Cheri says the process was very slow in the beginning. But she was there supporting her husband every step of the way. One day Ben had a breakthrough. Stacey says, “All of a sudden things just started to click.” So much so that Cheri was able to make one of her husband’s favorite foods. “I made tortellini for him. We pureed it. He ate all of the pureed pasta and then he ate the rest of it intact. It was a very important day.”

Now with tears of joy comes the laughter of family and friends. Ben is now able to sit down with the people he loves to share a meal. Cheri says, “Everybody is just so happy because they know how important this is to Ben.” These days you can often find Ben at a favorite restaurant where he’s not shy about enjoying a hearty breakfast. He says “It was good, real good.”