I have been debating for a few days on whether or not I wanted to write this post. Because there is so much emotion that goes into this post. Clearly I have decided to post it anyways. My reasoning is because when I started this blog I set out to allow my good and bad times help guide someone else who may be experiencing the same thing. So here is a very raw and real post....
Therapy, for anyone who knows me knows that therapy has been my life for the past 5 years. I have dedicated 2-3 days a week for the past 5 years (and one month) to drive to Detroit to go to the Center for Spinal Cord Injury Recovery. Each session lasting for 3 hours. This place has been a sanctuary for me, a place that is safe. There are others like me who I can joke, vent, and just relate to on a level that anyone who isn't in this situation can. I remember some of my first days at the CSCIR, it was heaven. Meeting people who just saw me, they didn't see my chair. They didn't see me as the poor little girl who got in that car accident. They saw Stevie Beale a scared 18 year old who is funny, bright, and so much to still live for. It was there that I finally realized that I could have a LIFE after being paralyzed. A career, marriage, children, and happiness where all still possible for me. In the beginning I had no idea just how much the facility was going to help guide my path to independence. Over the years I have worked my ass off setting goals and achieving them. I have shed sweat, tears, and luckily very little blood there. I owe this place so much and the staff will always hold a special place in my heart.
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| This is one of my favorites. |
All that being said, I am hurting right now because I was told last Friday that I was no longer able to come to the program anymore. It was soul crashing news, the staff and patients have become my family. It all started about a year ago when my PT let me know that I wasn't making progress and if I didn't start then I wasn't going to qualify for the program anymore. This news came from left field because at that time I had been at the program for over 4 years and in all that time no one had ever told me you had to qualify for the program. I let her know that I still had a goal of walking down the aisle to achieve. And since I am not engaged I obviously don't when that will be. So she told me I had to begin working harder on my walking if I wanted to continue in the program. I agreed to work with my braces more but still feeling extremely betrayed. It has been tough for me this year knowing that every time I came I was being watched and judged that if I didn't make the progress then I had to go and nothing would have been more devastating to me. It has also been a tough year with family issues and I seem to have caught every illness that has gone around. But I tried and worked on my walking. Now you have to understand that walking with leg braces is the most frustrating thing in the world. At least for me it is. I am tight in all the wrong places and it is such a struggle just to walk a few feet. I can only take so much before I am so overwhelmed with emotion that I just want to crawl in a hole forever. In the end my hard work wasn't enough and I didn't make the progress I was supposed to. So I sit here tonight, confused on why it has happened and where to go from here. I can't not do therapy but at the same time the next closest place I would consider going is a 2 hour drive one way. I could workout at home with a trainer but I don't have the space. I am just so sad I want to stay there, I want to be there but they say they aren't a maintenance program and that is (according to them) what I need. My insurance is willing to continue to pay for me to be there and they have open spaces so I just don't see why I had to go, why I was forced to leave a place I love so much. But I guess that is life and I will just have to pick myself up once a again and carry on.
Now I know some will read this and think negative things about the program but please don't. I still love them and would recommend them to anyone with a spinal cord injury who needs a good place for therapy. I am just being open and honest with the hardships that I still continue to experience.
That was a very thought provoking blog post. The structure of a program like this will be hard to replicate. And complacency isn't an option for a woman on the go like you who wants progress and not simply maintenance or certainly not regression. Certainly at a crossroads. I know you will fill the empty place that this leaves with something special, new and exciting.
ReplyDeleteStevie, consider the role model and example you've been to so many. For example, 197 kids at HOBY last year. And will be to 200 kids at HOBY this year. While you have lost a part of your life, you have given even more of you life to so many. The saying that, "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger," and "no pain no gain" are total BS. They are that, just sayings. You, on the other hand, have been an inspiration to many, including me. So, please look at what you've accomplished in a few short years. It is much. Many in your position would have given up. There just ain't no give up in you!!
ReplyDeleteOh, Stevie; I'm so sorry of this news.., but "when one door closes another one opens." I'm sure at this moment you're unsure of why, why? One thing I'm sure of is you're on earth to achieve greatness, for which I've seen you already accomplish! Wherever, the next road takes you, will be a journey of epic proportion!
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to hear of your future endeavors, as I know they will be great.
These kinds of rehab and therapy places are required to show progress in their patients to prove their usefulness and maintain medicare and medicaid funding, so when someone stops showing any promise of improvement, they get taken out of the program. Like they said, they aren't a maintenance program and if you can't improve, you're a liability for their accreditation.
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