Patients Learn Fitness and Nutrition Strategies to Improve Lifelong ...

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Michael
Harris
PANAMA CITY,
FLORIDA
Josh
Inglett
AUGUSTA,
GEORGIA
Debbie
Hochbaum
ATLANTA,
GEORGIA
Michael Harris, 34, of Panama City, Fla.,
feels like he grew up outdoors. “I was
fortunate to have a dad who got me
outdoors, and it’s always been my love,”
he says.
About eight years ago, Michael
and his dad, Johnny, began volunteering
with a group that provided outdoor
adventures to people with terminal
illness or disability. Eventually, father
and son decided to start their own
nonprofit organization and expand on
the concept.
In 2008, the Harrises founded Seasons
of Hope (www.seasonsofhopeinc.org).
It offers personalized hunting, fishing,
camping and other outdoor opportunities
to people with terminal illness or
disability, as well as disadvantaged
children and wounded veterans.
Less than a year later, on March 30,
2009, Michael was lying under a stack of
23 sheets of plywood that had crashed
down on him. He’d been helping a
friend organize a warehouse when he
sustained a C-5 and C-7 spinal cord
injury in the accident. Michael spent
a month on a ventilator, in a medically
induced coma.
“It was a whole different world when
I finally arrived at Shepherd Center,” he
recalls. “It’s such a personal place. I can
go back there today, and doctors I had
will still say hello to me by name.”
At Shepherd, he steadily worked
to re-establish his independence. He
had a goal in mind: to get back outdoors
and continue helping others. Today,
he is busier than ever — finding new
sponsors and organizing outings for
Seasons of Hope.
“At first, the vision we had was just to
take kids out to hunt and fish, give them
a break,” Michael says. “But now we’re
moving more toward a full ministry. We
want to start a mentoring program. It’s
gone above and beyond what we ever
thought it would be.”
Josh Inglett, 19 of Augusta, Ga., had
sustained a T-9 spinal cord injury in a
car accident when he arrived at
Shepherd Center in November 2012.
Josh couldn’t sit up in bed, and a
fractured shoulder blade further slowed
his physical rehabilitation.
He credits Herndon Murray, M.D.,
medical director of Shepherd Center’s
Spinal Cord Injury Program, as his chief
inspiration. “Every time he came in your
room, he had you laughing the whole
time,” Josh says. “He kept everybody
laughing. And he listened. He paid
attention to what you needed.”
Josh gradually progressed from
sitting up to getting dressed to washing
his clothes, cooking and cleaning.
He participated in Shepherd Center
outings that strengthened his
independence. He went to a movie
and transferred from his wheelchair to
a seat. He went horseback riding.
Josh even became an artist. Sort of.
“I’m no artist,” he says with a laugh.
But if you enter Shepherd Center’s main
foyer, where its “Hall of Fame” busts are
located, you will see a sculpture by Josh.
“They have all those bronzed heads
in there, and one day I said, ‘Dang,
Dr. Murray’s been here since this place
started. Why doesn’t he have one?’”
His therapists challenged him to
correct the oversight. “They asked me,
‘Why don’t you make him one then?’”
Josh recalls.
So he did, crafting a bust of Dr.
Murray out of tinsel, clay and bronzecolored
spray paint. “It’s crazy,” he says.
“That thing started with just a little ball of
tinsel. But they got me to do it. It ended
up helping my flexibility a lot, too.”
Josh returned to Shepherd Center
recently to pass his adapted driving
evaluation. On his way in, he passed his
bust of Dr. Murray, which still adorns the
entryway’s venerable “Hall of Fame.”
Debbie Hochbaum, 54, of Atlanta,
knows she has to be in good shape if
she wants to continue seeing ghosts.
Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in
1994, Debbie has not let her condition
inhibit her passion: She and her husband,
Tony, are professional ghost-hunters,
offering free paranormal investigations
of potentially haunted abodes across
Georgia and South Carolina.
“Tony had actually organized the
group before I ever met him,” Debbie
says. “I joined and started going to all the
events. Eventually, I started helping him
organize the outings. We were friends for
a year before he asked me out!”
Today, Debbie and Tony run the
Association of Paranormal Explorers
(APEX) as relative newlyweds. They
married just more than two years ago.
“This is just something we both love
to do,” she says with a laugh. “And I’m
really enjoying my life.”
Debbie credits her vibrant life to
good nutrition and physical exercise,
which she gets in weekly doses through
Shepherd Center’s MS Wellness Center.
She participates in cardio, meditation,
yoga and core exercise classes.
“I try to grab as many classes as I
can!” she says. “The cardio is my favorite
because it forces me to move my body
the way I need to. It keeps me moving.”
And that’s good. Because Debbie
is busy. In addition to her paranormal
research, she is a grandmother of eight,
teammates with her husband in a bowling
league and a new member of Shepherd
Center’s Consumer Advisory Board.
Beyond the physical benefits, Debbie
says her wellness classes provide her
with something else. “Everybody’s so
friendly and upbeat there,” she says. “I
don’t think I’ve ever seen an angry face.
And that’s important. I’m a social person,
and I need to be around positive people.
That reinforcement helps me as much as
anything else.”
Spinal Column ® / Summer 2013 • 25