ROBBIE IVEY: You come into my room,
you know my two favorite passions.
It's a place where I can just be me.
Nobody else can judge what I do, or anything.
BILL WEIS: The first day I was at Robbie's house,
it was very evident that Robbie's bedroom
ROBBIE: I was diagnosed at the age of five
with duchenne muscular dystrophy, which
eats away at my muscles cells.
CARRIE IVEY: The dystrophin protein
So the muscle tends to waste away.
At age 8, he started to slow down.
12, he was in a wheelchair.
At 19, he's got very limited use of hands.
SPEAKER 1: Ah, that's crooked.
CARRIE IVEY: But, you know, he's got the same thought
process every other 19-year-old boy has.
ROBBIE IVEY: My mom is like my main advocate.
Helps me do basically every function I need to do.
ROBBIE IVEY: And almost everything
was hard to do without calling for assistance.
CARRIE IVEY: I met Bill through the muscular dystrophy
He asked if we needed anything.
And I said, well, if you happen to know
anybody that knows anything about voice activation,
CARRIE IVEY: A couple days later, I had a phone call.
BILL WEIS: Carrie mentioned right off
that Robbie's bed is something he can no longer control.
He would have to holler to Carrie
to make a small, incremental change in the bed
CARRIE IVEY: I was up every hour, hour and a half.
BILL WEIS: And so I saw how coming up
with a solution for Robbie bed would
have an impact on both of them.
ROBBIE IVEY: He had to do a lot of research
to figure out how to make this work.
CARRIE IVEY: And from there, little by little,
he kept adding, and adding, and adding.
[DING]
ROBBIE IVEY: It was kind of, what
does my imagination allow me to want to have voice activated?
CARRIE IVEY: (ON PHONE) Yes, Roberto?
ROBBIE IVEY: I am able to do stuff on my own.
And at let's me give my mom a break a little bit.
CARRIE IVEY: I expected not to get any sleep
And here, you know, I can get out and take a walk.
Sometimes I need that hour, hour and a half of sanity
ROBBIE IVEY: So is that all the shirts I'm taking?
BILL WEIS: Voice activation opened up a whole new world
that I don't think many people really can understand yet.
Robbie's got a lot more freedom than he had before.
ROBBIE IVEY: Most people think that just because you're
in the chair, everything's disabled.
But my main attribute's my mind.
CARRIE IVEY: I've always had the hopes
BILL WEIS: He applied for four or five colleges,
and has acceptance letters from every one he applied to.
ROBBIE IVEY: After 19 years, it's kind of about time
BILL WEIS: Robbie's bedroom back home helped
We've tried to replicate that same environment
BILL WEIS: He's in an environment that's all new.
And I think to know that he hasn't
lost all of that capability that he gained
[DING]
But beyond that, he'll be challenged in ways
And as long as he pushes, that's what he's going to get.