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The playroom, like other parts of the Kramm home, is a riot of toys and books -- they are heaped in boxes, piled on shelves, cascading from baskets that hang from the ceiling. "We want to keep Hadley stimulated, and you have to buy a lot of toys to find one she'll respond to," says Kramm. "And we're always buying things for Sarah to make up for ... the lack.... " He pauses. "I know we probably shouldn't do that," he says finally. (For the record, Sarah shows no sign of having suffered from a lack of anything. Upstairs she is on the phone, rattling on euphorically about the modeling agency with which she has just signed.)

Toys are the least of the family's expenses. The Kramms just moved into a larger home so Hadley could have a room on the first floor. ("She's getting too big to carry up the stairs," says Kramm.) They have many modifications planned: a ramp to the front door, a bathroom equipped with a transfer station so Hadley can get out of her wheelchair and into the shower, lower counters, rails along some walls, wider doorways. The 11-year-old is outgrowing her two $4,000 wheelchairs and will soon need another. And her parents have ordered a special adaptive bicycle to help develop her legs, which, until recently, she had never used.

Then there are the specialists. The Kramms employ a full-time au pair and a roster of therapists -- occupational, physical, speech. Hadley has also had multiple operations, including several to treat her hypertonia, which causes her muscles to grow rigid. "It looks like she's smiling about something," explains Kramm, referring to a grin that seems unwilling to stop at Hadley's ears. "But really, the muscles are all tightened in her face. She can't stop."

But just because the smile isn't real doesn't mean Hadley's not happy. Kramm thinks she is, and he means to keep her that way. How much money will that ultimately take? "I have no idea," he says. "Millions. It would probably take millions for me to feel comfortable that she will be taken care of."

Even as Kramm waits for the security he craves, FlavorX performs an important psychic function for all the members of its founding family. "This company has been my salvation," says Kramm. "It's let us all respond to the situation in ways that draw on our strengths and that aren't about wallowing in depression or giving up. It's put something positive into our lives."

Leigh Buchanan is a senior editor at Inc.

Hadley's Other Legacy

Like her husband, Shelley Kramm went through a dark time after Hadley's diagnosis, suffering from panic attacks and depression. But unlike her husband with his budding enterprise, she had no source of distraction, no mental sanctuary where she could still be in control. "I saw what Kenny was doing and I supported him all the way, but I also wanted something for myself," she says. "Only I didn't know what."

The answer came on a spring day in 1995 during a visit to a local playground. "Sarah ran to this pumpkin coach and started climbing on it," Shelley Kramm recalls. "I looked around and realized there wasn't a single thing in the whole park that Hadley could play on, or where Sarah and Hadley could interact. So Hadley and I went and sat down on the side and watched Sarah. And I looked at Hadley and she was crying. She understood."

That was the beginning of Hadley's Park Inc., a nonprofit that designs and builds playgrounds equally accessible to children with and without disabilities. Shelley Kramm, a former interior designer with no experience running an organization or raising money outside the parameters of a bake sale, persuaded Montgomery County, Md., to donate an acre of land and raised $1 million from individuals, corporations, grants, and the government. To get ideas for the park she talked to physicians, therapists, and parents of disabled children, and enlisted Sarah's Brownie troop in a yearlong study of disabilities.

The first Hadley's Park went up in 1996, in the family's hometown of Potomac. It has ramps leading up to a pirate ship, and a transfer station to help children move from their wheelchairs into a castle or a frontier village. The swings have backs to support riders with no upper body strength; many signs are in Braille, and the soft, springy ground is surfaced with recycled tires. "I don't want people to have to deal with wood chips and barriers and beams," says Shelley Kramm. "This is supposed to be common ground."

Today there are five Hadley's Parks in the Washington area and 15 more in development around the country. And while the venture does nothing to bolster the Kramms' finances, it has done as much as FlavorX to heal the family's spirit, to keep it whole. "So many people in situations like this, their marriage has taken a blow," says Shelley Kramm. "I think all those hours Kenny and I stayed up late talking about our projects, talking about what we were going to do, that was the make or break point for us."

"And we didn't break," says her husband. "So now we're making something."

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