Spinal Cord Injury Recovery Client Hank R
My name is Hank R and on November 23, 2009 I became paralyzed due to an abscess that pressed on my spinal cord in the epidural space at T2-T3. It was determined that this was caused by a staph aurious infection. I had no medical history up to this point. I spent 53 days in St Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach, FL after the operation, ICU, and acute rehab. I went to St Mary's outpatient for a short time with limited results as they are not really geared for SCI patients. Fortunately, in April 2010; I was accepted at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta.
After 5 weeks of extensive PT & OT training as well as Lokomat and FES bike, I returned home stronger and exhilarated by the progress I had made. This feeling was short lived once I realized that I now had no place to continue this level of training and rehab that I had been receiving at the Shepherd Center. I am a veteran and made application to theVA for rehab, but their only SCI rehab center is in Miami, 75 miles away.
Fortunately I remembered that my PT at the Shepherd Center had mentioned that she had heard of a place called NEUROXCEL in NPB. I made the call, toured the facility and immediately signed up. They had every piece of equipment and more than Shepherd had, and I liked the idea that the strength training was based on getting me stronger. My injury had weakened me considerably and I quickly realized that if I was ever to get strong enough again to walk, my only hope was NEUROXCEL.
I am now starting my 3rd month and I have made great strides towards my recovery. I see progress almost every day and can feel and notice my body getting stronger. I am confident in the months to come I will achieve great success in the NEUROXCEL C.A.S.T program.
The staff and owners of NEUROXCEL are the most dedicated individuals I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. Each and every one of them is committed everyday to doing everything possible to help me regain my mobility.
I am also going to do whatever I can to bring awareness to the Spinal Cord Injury community where ever I can. I want to show them there is a better way to rehab thru exercise training with state of the art equipment. Hopefully through awareness and knowledge, we can show that SCI patients need a special kind of comprehensive, activity-based strength training program like NEUROXCEL. We need to convince insurance companies to stop wasting money on inferior rehab and help defray the cost towards comprehensive activity-based strength training programs, with state of the art equipment that is of real benefit to the SCI patients.