Michael's Story
Lying in his hospital bed moments after a doctor gave him some of the worst news of his life, Michael Scott found solace.
Hours earlier, he’d been riding a motocross bike with friends near Phoenix. He took a ramp and hit it badly, breaking his hand. His motorcycle careened off, and Michael flew into the air. He landed on his backside on the incline he’d been jumping, snapping bones in his back and tearing his spinal cord.
Gravity pulled him back down the ramp. His legs skidded along with him, but he couldn’t feel them.
“I’m paralyzed,” he told himself.
As emergency medical technicians airlifted him to HonorHealth Deer Valley Medical Center’s intensive care unit, Michael vacillated between acceptance and denial. After hours of surgery a doctor told him he’d injured his spinal cord badly, and then he knew for sure. He doesn’t entirely remember how he took the news, but doctors tell him it went badly at first.
Later, lying there, Michael considered it. He’d phoned his day job as a computer programmer and told them what was happening. They told him not to think about work. He’d also been worried about family and friends and how they’d take it. But suddenly, he felt calmness settle in. “Man,” he thought, “I really don’t have any problems right now. They’re bringing me food on the hour. I’m all right.”
Michael races dirt bikes competitively and has had his share of injuries. His rule had always been trust in physical therapists. They’d gotten him back on his feet before. Why should this be any different?
“As humans, we’re adaptable,” he said. “You get over it.”
Michael selected HonorHealth Rehabilitation Hospital. There, a physician-led team of physical, occupational and recreational therapists joined the staff of nurses and case managers to help him get used to life on wheels. His therapists found Michael’s attitude and hard work infectious. No challenge seemed unconquerable. To Michael, even a diagnosis as sobering and life-altering as paraplegia seemed like just enough ramp to jump.
But there were challenges. Like many of the 5.4 million people nationwide who suffer from paralysis of their lower extremities, life became a battle over little rituals other people take for granted. When he first arrived at HonorHealth, Michael wore a protective back brace one therapist called his “turtle shell,” designed to protect his still-fragile spine as it healed. At first, it got in the way, making it hard to relearn how to do perform daily routines, like getting dressed. He still had a broken hand, which winnowed down his usual number of usable limbs from four to one.
When he first arrived at the rehabilitation hospital, Michael could sit up using his one good hand for support. His physical therapist first had him practice sitting without the hand. Then, as his core strength improved, they added movements to build his stability. Soon, they were tossing him medicine balls. He lifted weights, pulled on bungee cords to build up his core and eventually started doing sit ups.
Working with an occupational therapist, Michael set to work figuring out how to get back intangibles like how to get dressed by himself. Sitting on the edge of his bed, his therapist had him do repetitions with exercise bands. Michael looped the bands over his feet and pulled them up to his hips ― sort of like putting on pants. She timed him. As he improved, Michael thought through his own tweaks to tested methods from his therapists for wriggling into his clothing.
One challenge involved getting into and out of his wheelchair. When he initially climbed in, it seemed to tip forward. At first therapists tried to help by having him try it on a padded floor, but when he couldn’t get the hang of it. Michael asked to try it on hardwood, and it worked. Soon he was popping wheelies like the device that took the place of his legs was another thrill ride. He’d been popping wheelies on motorcycles for years, after all, and therapists marveled at how he picked it up in the chair instantaneously. It turned out to be helpful to his therapy ― he did wheelies to cross over a 3-inch-high curb to practice the real-life scenario of going over uneven ground.
The wheelies started after Michael lost his turtle shell. Doctors had determined he was strong enough, and the increased range of movement from losing the device – along with time in the gym building strength -- amped up his therapy.
He wanted to learn to transfer from his wheelchair to a friend’s truck. So, one day during his time in rehabilitation his friend brought his truck to the hospital. In a parking lot, they tried several methods of making the steep climb. Finally, Michael reached in and pulled himself up by a handle. “Does this work?” he asked. Everyone was surprised by his arm strength.
“It was a lot of looking at it and thinking about how I would do this if nobody told me anything,” he said.
He stayed in the hospital for a month and a half, trying out different kinds of adaptive equipment – from bikes to elliptical machines. In the back of his mind, ever since he first spoke with his doctor, was always the idea of learning to walk again. Michael has an American Spinal Cord Injury Association Impairment Scale Grade C injury – an incomplete tear where he has some motor function in his lower body. Walking again isn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility.
So, any chance Michael found to try out his legs, he took it. He became a frequent user of a robotic exoskeleton. The device, which looks like a pair of legs propping up a backpack, helps patients walk, but compensates for missing muscle control. Michael logged hours in the exoskeleton. On one occasion, he used the device for more than an hour and took 1,835 steps -- a hospital record at the time.
After six weeks, Michael returned home, where friends helped him equip his house for his wheelchair. He’s returned to motorsports and has even taken an adaptive dirt bike out on occasion. He’s added his name to a list of volunteers to return to HonorHealth to teach to patients about how to adapt to life on wheels.
But he hasn’t given up on walking. He’s continuing with outpatient therapy to try to strengthen his legs and is seeing some results.
No one can say for sure whether he’ll be successful, and he’s accepted that he might not be. But quitting isn’t in the cards.
“If I’m in denial, and I’m getting up every day and I’m like, ‘Tomorrow I’m going to walk …’ and I’m happy doing that until I’m 90,” he said, “what’s wrong with that?”
