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INJURED - Shepherd Center

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{{ SHEPHERDALUMS<br />

By Bill Sanders<br />

{<br />

“I have to do everything in a routine or I’ll<br />

forget. My husband is great at managing so<br />

much of it, but if I write things down, I’m<br />

usually OK. It’s a challenge, but we roll with<br />

the punches. Camden is here for a reason,<br />

and like every family with infants, we have<br />

good and bad days.”<br />

Mike Dube and family<br />

Mike Dube, 43, of Boiling Springs, S.C., plans<br />

to play golf soon. He may not play well, but if<br />

he’s perfectly honest, he never did play particularly<br />

well before his injury.<br />

Since leaving <strong>Shepherd</strong> <strong>Center</strong> in September<br />

2007, Mike, who sustained a C-6 to 7 complete<br />

spinal cord injury, has returned to work as the<br />

director of marketing for a national distributor, is<br />

driving again and is working out with a personal<br />

trainer. And he’s being a husband and dad to a<br />

tremendously supportive family, he says.<br />

Mike was injured in a 15-foot fall from a<br />

beach house deck in May 2007. After completing<br />

rehab at <strong>Shepherd</strong>, he went back to work<br />

part time. But it was getting an adapted van and<br />

driver’s license in spring 2008 that has been most<br />

rewarding.<br />

“For my wife, who was having to drive me<br />

around to work and rehab on the other side of<br />

town, it was huge,” Mike says. “But also, I got a<br />

little more freedom, and any little bit of freedom<br />

I can get is good.”<br />

Mike and his wife have twin 6-year-old daughters<br />

and a 10-year-old son, who has assigned<br />

himself as his dad’s chief caretaker.<br />

“My son has been great with this from the<br />

start,” Mike says. “He worries about me way too<br />

much for a 10-year-old and wants to help me as<br />

much as he can.”<br />

As far as getting on the links again, Mike plans<br />

to play golf soon, thanks to the support of some<br />

great friends, who helped him get a ParaGolfer,<br />

an all-terrain mobility device that stands him<br />

upright to swing a club.<br />

When Brandi Ray Hamann, 31, of Warner<br />

Robins, Ga., was critically injured in a 2000<br />

car crash, doctors told her she’d recover<br />

enough to do a lot of things she’d always<br />

wanted to do.<br />

But having a baby was one thing they said<br />

she wouldn’t be able to do. Camden Michael<br />

Hamann, 1, is evidence to the contrary.<br />

Brandi underwent rehab for a traumatic<br />

brain injury at <strong>Shepherd</strong> <strong>Center</strong> following the<br />

crash, which killed her friend’s 6-month-old<br />

child, Michael. Brandi chose Michael as her<br />

son’s middle name in honor of her friend’s son.<br />

“My goal was always to have a kid – but<br />

not once I had this brain injury,” she says. “I<br />

thought I would never get pregnant. It was an<br />

‘oopsie.’ Doctors said I would never be able to<br />

get pregnant, or if I did, I wouldn’t be able to<br />

carry it because of the trauma to my body.”<br />

Brandi’s hip<br />

still hurts badly,<br />

and she gets a<br />

lot of headaches.<br />

Also, the lingering<br />

effects of<br />

the brain injury<br />

require her to do<br />

things most new<br />

moms don’t have<br />

to worry about.<br />

Brandi Ray Hamann<br />

and family<br />

“I have to write<br />

everything down,<br />

make sure that<br />

I don’t forget anything, like if I’m supposed<br />

to feed Camden at 2 o’clock,” she explains.<br />

Caroline Hazel, 19, of Fredericksburg, Va.,<br />

never doubted that doctors and therapists<br />

at <strong>Shepherd</strong> <strong>Center</strong> were experts. And she<br />

never got too discouraged while in the inpatient<br />

or day program.<br />

But her time in the Beyond Therapy program<br />

has been remarkable to her. “It’s amazing<br />

how I’ve progressed,” she says. “I started<br />

Beyond Therapy in March (2008), going<br />

three days a week, three hours a day. Now,<br />

I’m up to four days and have gotten so much<br />

stronger in every muscle in my body.”<br />

Caroline Hazel and <strong>Shepherd</strong> <strong>Center</strong> therapists<br />

Caroline sustained a C-5 incomplete spinal<br />

cord injury (SCI) in a fall when a balcony<br />

railing gave way in September 2007, just<br />

weeks after starting college at the University<br />

of the South in Sewanee, Tenn.<br />

Now, she has some ambitious goals. “My<br />

therapist, Candy Tefertiller, told me that a<br />

new goal for me would be to walk 50 steps<br />

on my own with a walker, maybe with one<br />

person helping me. That goal is getting more<br />

within my reach.”<br />

Also, Caroline is able to do more for herself<br />

at home. “I’m so much stronger now,” she<br />

says. “I’m able to do standing transfers with<br />

help from my mom. I rock forward and<br />

stand up. My mom assists me just a little,<br />

then I turn and sit. I know that my body has<br />

gained strength in every way. My core and<br />

my arms are stronger, too.”<br />

18 Spinal column<br />

www.shepherd.org

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