INJURED - Shepherd Center

{{ SHEPHERDALUMS
By Bill Sanders
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“I have to do everything in a routine or I’ll
forget. My husband is great at managing so
much of it, but if I write things down, I’m
usually OK. It’s a challenge, but we roll with
the punches. Camden is here for a reason,
and like every family with infants, we have
good and bad days.”
Mike Dube and family
Mike Dube, 43, of Boiling Springs, S.C., plans
to play golf soon. He may not play well, but if
he’s perfectly honest, he never did play particularly
well before his injury.
Since leaving Shepherd Center in September
2007, Mike, who sustained a C-6 to 7 complete
spinal cord injury, has returned to work as the
director of marketing for a national distributor, is
driving again and is working out with a personal
trainer. And he’s being a husband and dad to a
tremendously supportive family, he says.
Mike was injured in a 15-foot fall from a
beach house deck in May 2007. After completing
rehab at Shepherd, he went back to work
part time. But it was getting an adapted van and
driver’s license in spring 2008 that has been most
rewarding.
“For my wife, who was having to drive me
around to work and rehab on the other side of
town, it was huge,” Mike says. “But also, I got a
little more freedom, and any little bit of freedom
I can get is good.”
Mike and his wife have twin 6-year-old daughters
and a 10-year-old son, who has assigned
himself as his dad’s chief caretaker.
“My son has been great with this from the
start,” Mike says. “He worries about me way too
much for a 10-year-old and wants to help me as
much as he can.”
As far as getting on the links again, Mike plans
to play golf soon, thanks to the support of some
great friends, who helped him get a ParaGolfer,
an all-terrain mobility device that stands him
upright to swing a club.
When Brandi Ray Hamann, 31, of Warner
Robins, Ga., was critically injured in a 2000
car crash, doctors told her she’d recover
enough to do a lot of things she’d always
wanted to do.
But having a baby was one thing they said
she wouldn’t be able to do. Camden Michael
Hamann, 1, is evidence to the contrary.
Brandi underwent rehab for a traumatic
brain injury at Shepherd Center following the
crash, which killed her friend’s 6-month-old
child, Michael. Brandi chose Michael as her
son’s middle name in honor of her friend’s son.
“My goal was always to have a kid – but
not once I had this brain injury,” she says. “I
thought I would never get pregnant. It was an
‘oopsie.’ Doctors said I would never be able to
get pregnant, or if I did, I wouldn’t be able to
carry it because of the trauma to my body.”
Brandi’s hip
still hurts badly,
and she gets a
lot of headaches.
Also, the lingering
effects of
the brain injury
require her to do
things most new
moms don’t have
to worry about.
Brandi Ray Hamann
and family
“I have to write
everything down,
make sure that
I don’t forget anything, like if I’m supposed
to feed Camden at 2 o’clock,” she explains.
Caroline Hazel, 19, of Fredericksburg, Va.,
never doubted that doctors and therapists
at Shepherd Center were experts. And she
never got too discouraged while in the inpatient
or day program.
But her time in the Beyond Therapy program
has been remarkable to her. “It’s amazing
how I’ve progressed,” she says. “I started
Beyond Therapy in March (2008), going
three days a week, three hours a day. Now,
I’m up to four days and have gotten so much
stronger in every muscle in my body.”
Caroline Hazel and Shepherd Center therapists
Caroline sustained a C-5 incomplete spinal
cord injury (SCI) in a fall when a balcony
railing gave way in September 2007, just
weeks after starting college at the University
of the South in Sewanee, Tenn.
Now, she has some ambitious goals. “My
therapist, Candy Tefertiller, told me that a
new goal for me would be to walk 50 steps
on my own with a walker, maybe with one
person helping me. That goal is getting more
within my reach.”
Also, Caroline is able to do more for herself
at home. “I’m so much stronger now,” she
says. “I’m able to do standing transfers with
help from my mom. I rock forward and
stand up. My mom assists me just a little,
then I turn and sit. I know that my body has
gained strength in every way. My core and
my arms are stronger, too.”
18 Spinal column
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