The Power of Faith When Tragedy Strikes

by Chris Norton

  Having her show so much hope and confidence in my recovery at that moment in my life, especially as a physician, meant the world to me. The way she looked me right in the eyes and said what she said without pretense was just what I needed to hear, and something I’ll never forget. She was the first medical professional who talked to me like a person, in a really intimate way, and I drew strength from her conviction.

  I was anxious to move to the rehabilitation floor where I could actively participate in my recovery. Once I transferred to the rehab floor, I’d continue to recover, learn how to participate in everyday life, and transition out of the hospital. That’s the part that stung—one minute I was an honor student playing football at a prestigious college, the next I had to relearn the most basic skills in order to function. The doctor said the sooner I started rehab, the better, as often the most significant recovery took place in the early months after an injury. I was eager to get started.

  I thought I’d be out of the hospital in a couple of weeks, and at that point, weeks in the hospital felt like an eternity. I’d never spent a couple weeks doing anything other than going to school and playing sports. How could I miss that much school? It was tough not to look ahead and get scared and depressed. I wondered if where I was at that moment—unable to move and do anything on my own—was where I would be for the rest of my life. That scared me to death.

  Would I always need help? Would I ever improve? There were so many questions. The future looked discouraging, but if I concentrated only on what was directly in front of me, I could feel happy and proud about my progress. I’d be in a better position to take control of my recovery in a month or two, so until then, I had to focus on one day at a time.

  For the first couple of weeks, my family never left my side. It was comforting to know I wasn’t alone, and I didn’t have to worry about anything slipping between the cracks because my family stayed on top of my care. They wanted to be there for me, and they were happy to be there, so I never felt like a burden to them. Being with me wasn’t an obligation, and it wasn’t work for them; they had no other choice. I counted on their positive, upbeat, and constant presence.

  While in ICU, little bits of sensation started to come back in my body. I began to feel tiny sensations in my feet and in my upper body, prompting my sisters and my grandma to do their own kind of therapy with me. My sisters either covered my legs and hands, or they asked me to close my eyes. Then they wiggled a toe, rubbed my foot, or massaged different parts of my legs.

  “Which toe am I touching right now?” one would ask.

  “Which part of your leg am I touching right now?”

  Their game helped me stay in tune with my body. My grandma rubbed lotion into my hands and feet every day. She rubbed them for twenty minutes trying to rub the life back into them. I always liked when she did that. Even my dad, in his own goofy way, would tell my feet to move as a way of talking to them.

  It was so weird to see how flaccid my arms and legs were. Even though it was sad and emotional, I watched whenever the doctors or nurses moved my body or when the head of the bed was elevated so I could see myself. It got a little easier, or maybe I was getting used to it, but it was still hard seeing my legs manipulated and not be able to feel them or make them move. Despite the threat of a lengthy stay in ICU, I was released to the rehab floor after only five days.

  My naturally upbeat personality and outlook on life helped keep me focused and positive during those first few weeks in the hospital. I was an optimistic person and not the type to dwell on bad things or to complain. There were things in life I had to do in order to succeed, and I felt there was no sense in complaining. After the initial shock of the accident passed, it was tempting to feel sorry for myself. People would understand, but it wouldn’t do any good. I simply needed to do whatever I could to get better and be happy with the outcome.

  * * *

  “I went up to see Chris while he was in hospital pretty early after he had surgery and he was already talking about starting rehab, and I couldn’t believe his attitude. He was already thinking positively. I can’t imagine the strength that took to not feel sorry for himself like so many might.”

  ~ Chris Kamm, ATC, CSCS, Former Head Certified Athletic Trainer, Luther College

  * * *

  Yes, the odds were bad, but I’d beaten bad odds before. Feeling sorry for myself was stupid and unproductive. I adjusted my mind and tried to stay focused on each day and getting a little bit better that day. Although when night came, the distraction of therapy and guests was gone and the hopelessness of the situation crept back in, making sleep difficult.

  Throughout my injury and hospitalization, I was very fortunate that my prognosis kept improving. There was always a little bit of momentum and forward progress, so it was easier to stay upbeat and positive when I didn’t suffer a medical setback where I got really sick or something happened that derailed my progress. The steady but small increments of improvement helped to liven up a pretty horrible situation. My journey, for better or worse, had just begun.

  * * *

  Everyone would be so proud to see the determination on the road to recovery that [Chris] has demonstrated so far; just as he has demonstrated in all of the sports he has done throughout high school.

  ~Terry Norton, CaringBridge, October 17, 2010

  * * *

  THE FIRST time we saw Chris after the accident, the doctor gave us an update on his condition and told us what they were going to do for him medically, but he left out a lot of details about what came next. When we went out to tell the family and everybody came back to the ICU, that’s when the surgeon said Chris was going to be in ICU until he didn’t need acute care and was strong enough to transfer, and we’d have to start thinking about where we wanted him to go to rehab.

  Our heads were spinning. We’d barely taken a breath between the time he was ushered off the playing field, flown to Minnesota, underwent major surgery, and woke up in ICU. Now we had an ill-defined timetable for ICU and plans to make for the future? Whenever I tried to think big picture, it made my stomach churn. We were three steps behind from every direction. But then I looked at Chris and tossed my unease to the side. I had to be strong for my son and my family. The worry could wait, as we had nothing but time.

  The first day in ICU, there were six or seven IVs in him and the room felt crowded with all the equipment and our family inside. The surgeon took the breathing tube out and hooked him up to oxygen. The first thing Chris said once the tube came out regarded his left arm.

  “I can move my left arm,” he whispered. His throat was sore from the tube, and his lung capacity was compromised. “I can feel my arm. I think I can feel my right arm too.”

  Everything he said was positive. He was already doing self-checks, assessing his body and figuring out what he could feel. He was chomping at the bit to start working toward recovery, and his attitude helped to lighten our load.

  The surgeon was basically our point person, checking on Chris, bringing his X-rays, talking with us about his condition, examining the surgical site, and overseeing his medical care. The folks in ICU took care of his day-to-day needs, like monitoring his blood pressure and making sure he wasn’t getting skin sores. The ICU staff were unbelievably on top of this, turning Chris every two hours, and keeping an eye on the common sore areas like the heels of his feet, his elbows, and any place on his body that would rub. If any area ever got even a little red, they tried different techniques such as elbow pads to address the spot.

  Right away he had visits from PTs and OTs who were specifically assigned to the ICU floor to get him started on therapy, even before he was released to rehab. I tried not to become overwhelmed by the medical implications of his injury in addition to his lack of movement. Except for Alex, we felt woefully unprepared for the crash course in medical schooling.

  From day one Chris started asking us to touch his toe and let him try to guess which one we were touching. His sisters did that constantly. Somebody tol
d us that the more stimulation we gave him, the more it would help. Alex and Katie would each take a foot and they’d move his toes, rub his arches, and massage his calves. We were constantly stretching his fingers and hands, trying to get things moving and regain sensation.

  As the planner of the family, I shouldn’t have been surprised when Chris asked in his quiet, monotone voice, “Dad, what’s the plan for today?” on his first day in ICU.

  Deb called me the family “salesman” because I always tried to take something ordinary or routine and make it sound fun. I would sell the plan. I couldn’t believe Chris wanted me to tell him what we were going to do while he was in ICU. As if I had a clue. From that point forward, we spent time getting to know the hospital and available restaurants so I could put together “fun” activities.

  The girls did a great job of keeping things upbeat on our first day in the hospital. They went to the library and checked out DVD equipment and a bunch of movies and brought them back to his room. We were all desperately trying to keep the depression that stalked us at bay, so we gratefully watched movies and did anything we could to keep Chris happy.

  * * *

  “I could tell from the start that he came from a very supportive family structure, and in physical therapy outcomes, that can mean the difference between success and failure for the patient!!”

  ~ Lisa Krieg, PT Euro-Team in Decorah

  * * *

  But I was feeling pressure to be all things to every member of my family. During a low moment, I sent a text to my friend Steve Pinkley to ask some of the men in our community to pray for me to have strength as a father so I could be everything I needed to be for my son and family through this challenge. I needed strength from other dads who might understand my concerns.

  Steve, never to take a request lightly, called me from the high school that night where he’d assembled over twenty-five of my friends in a classroom. They passed the phone around and each person gave me words of strength and encouragement after I shared my story. It was an amazing show of friendship and gave me the strength I desperately needed to see us through.

  Deb and I were trapped inside our heads; too afraid to stare reality in the face, we clung instead to the comfort of denial. Initially, we thought Chris could try to finish the college semester. We had no idea what we were facing. We actually spent time brainstorming ideas on how he’d get an extension on his assignments and how we’d run his homework back and forth to school. We thought about silly things like how his car was still on campus, and we questioned how we’d get it home.

  We did our best to portray strength and encouragement, but I wondered if he’d ever walk again and lead a normal life, as though one led to the other, even though in reality the two were not at all related. Many people led extraordinary lives and never walked.

  The Mayo psychiatrist explained that able-bodied people equate happiness and joy with being able to participate in physical things like running, jumping, skipping, and climbing. They wonder why people in wheelchairs aren’t depressed or discouraged, because it’s assumed if they can’t walk, their life must not have meaning. People in chairs put more stock in character, personality, making a difference, and finding a deeper meaning in life rather than focusing on the physical.

  That was a hard lesson to grasp, but we needed to change our mindsets. After all, I had life all planned out. I’d spend every fall Saturday going to college football games, taking my son out to eat, and mixing in some trout fishing in Northeast Iowa. He’d graduate from college, get a business degree, hopefully meet a nice girl during college, and have a successful life. I’d hoped they’d live fairly close to us so we could play with our grandkids.

  From the stands where I’d planned to spend the next four years, I watched my dreams dissolve in an instant. Coming to terms with how drastically life had changed was no easy feat, but it started by taking stock of what was important. Chris playing college sports, for example, was no big deal because in four years, regardless of what happened, it was over and done. A lot of things I thought were important were in fact meaningless. The accident brought everything into focus.

  For some reason, the rules of how many visitors were allowed in ICU never applied to us. We stayed in his room way past visiting hours, and Deb, Alex, or I spent the night sleeping on the foldout chair. A stiff neck and a sore back were a small price to pay for the peace of mind that Chris wasn’t alone.

  Sleeping in the room with Chris did more for me than him because it gave me a purpose. He’d call out to me so I could scratch his head, face, and arms when they itched. Not being able to move his arms was frustrating, but he kept a good attitude.

  Chris was eighteen, so we ran into the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) restrictions. The doctors and nurses always looked at Chris for permission, and he’d assure them they could tell Deb and me anything and keep us updated. Despite having to ask if it was okay to share information, most of the medical staff directed their information to the three of us—Chris, Deb, and me. They didn’t just talk to him and let us overhear; they knew we wanted to be included in any decisions that needed to be made about his care.

  During the first few days in ICU, the doctor told us Chris would most likely be in the hospital for four weeks, including rehab. Four weeks quickly changed to eight, and that sounded like forever to all of us, but especially to Chris. He gave an are you kidding? look when the doctors shared the news.

  “Chris,” I said without hesitation, “we’re not going to leave you alone. We’re going to be here through it all. It’s going to be fine. Let’s do this, get your rehab done, and get you taken care of.”

  He nodded and took me at my word. I fleetingly wondered how I’d manage to be away from work and our home for that long, but the thought disappeared as soon as I looked at Chris, lying in a hospital bed, unable to move. No job or responsibility meant more than being with my son.

  On his second or third night in ICU, Chris was having a rough night. Katie and Alex were staying with him, and Deb and I were at the hotel. The girls called at four-thirty in the morning and said Chris needed me, so I threw on some clothes and went over to talk to him.

  Chris shared that he was struggling emotionally, and it highlighted his need for me at that point in time. Deb and I had different rolls in Chris’s life. Deb was the nurturer and the caregiver, while I was the coach and motivator. He needed my strength, my motivation, and my encouragement to face the incredible challenges that lay before him. I prayed every day that I was strong enough to help him through.

  Deb and I talked a lot about not projecting our fears onto Chris. The physical side was hard enough, but we had to take our emotional cues from him. We always put everything in our own point of reference, but that wasn’t fair to Chris. Fortunately, he had a great attitude and his lows were few and far between.

  There was no rest for the weary. Within a day, the therapist’s stated goal was to get him upright. They brought a table into his room that looked like a bed/table, slid him onto another mattress, and put him onto the table to slowly tilt him upright. They kept close tabs on his blood pressure, and if it got too low, they backed the table down. They worked every day toward getting him upright, and they monitored how long he could sit up before his blood pressure dropped to an unhealthy level.

  The PT, Lori Eaton, started therapy right away. Chris’s first therapy was to nod his head yes and shake his head no. Even though most of his neck wasn’t damaged and he could move his head, he’d still had major surgery on his neck and was very sore. She told Chris to repeat the action a few times, and she’d come back and check on him. Chris being Chris, he worked for an hour straight until she came back and told him to stop. Lori couldn’t believe he’d been doing that exercise the whole time she was gone, but that summed up Chris’s attitude and work ethic. In many ways, he was still like a little kid in that he’d do whatever anyone wanted, no questions asked. That was how he was hardwired. If he thought it would make him bett
er, he’d do it, and he brought that same determination to rehab.

  Chris blew into a breathing tube called a spirometer to try and increase his lung capacity because he couldn’t talk very loud. He’d try to lift the ball inside the plastic column up to a certain level. He kept blowing and blowing, again and again and again, and he instructed us to write down how he did each time. From day one, he said, “I’ve got work to do.”

  His second day in ICU, the team of rehab doctors gave Chris some good news. He no longer required oxygen, and sensitivity continued to spread throughout his body, indicating that the spinal cord was functioning and what feeling would come back would do so as the healing process continued.

  My pride swelled as Chris donned his game face, fighting to stay on the tilt table as long as possible and working on his exercises over and over. When he said he was getting tired, I told him he could lay down and sleep, but he wanted to keep working on his exercises. He was so determined, and within that first hour of doing his neck exercises, he showed great improvement.

  Even though we were used to Chris’s never-give-up attitude, we were concerned about him overdoing it. He’d suffered a severe spinal cord injury and just had major surgery, so we asked the therapists if he could hurt himself by working too hard, or if he’d simply wear down. They loved his work ethic and enthusiasm, but would cautiously tell Chris that at some point, rest helps with recovery. We then tried to find a balance, and what worked best with Chris was to admit that we needed a break. I’d tell him that he was wearing us all down, and he’d finally agree to take a break.

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