In 1997, sometime after the birth of our son Malik, Deb decided to take on another challenge: she wanted to resume her once budding modeling career. Before the accident, she had done a couple of runway modeling jobs in Cleveland and New York. So, when she found out that most of the people appearing in wheelchairs in advertisements were not actually disabled, she enlisted the aid my brother Larry (an amateur art photographer) to create a portfolio and marched down to David & Lee modeling agency and insisted on an interview. They liked her and gave her a contract. Now, while it didn't become a full-time endeavor, Deb did enjoy a couple of interesting shoots. She was flown, along with my then 14 year-old daughter, to one of the Florida keys for a 3 day shoot. She also did a local magazine ad for Metro General Hospital, the same hospital where she woke up after her accident and did her grueling rehabilitation. It was another dream come true and another chance to show that she was not defined by her disability; that she relied on her wheelchair but was not confined by it. Stay tuned for more achievements on Deb's journey toward her Next Step.
I think I learned how truly tough my Deb is when we found out that she was pregnant a couple of years after we'd been together. At the time, she was taking Diazepam (generic Valium) for spasms four times a day, Ditropan for bladder control 3 times daily and Macrodantin 3 times for whatever its was supposed to be doing. As soon as the doctor told her she was pregnant, she decided to go cold turkey from everything, even thought the doctor suggested gradual reduction of dosages. She asked, "Are you going to guarantee me that these medications will have no effect on my baby? Are you going to be there to help take care of whatever birth defect they might cause? " Try as they might, obstetrician and spinal chord specialist alike, could not convince Deb to take medication during her pregnancy.
Going Cold Turkey
Now bless her heart, Deb was quite naive in her decision. Although she had seen "Lady Sings the Blues" where Diana Ross portrayed a strung out Billie Holliday going through sweats and shakes when she needed her fix, she never made a connection to what she was facing. "I'm just taking a few prescriptions that the doctor gave me, what harm could there be, other than a little discomfort, which I am quite willing to suffer for the health of my baby" She had no idea of the potency of Valium or her bodies craving for it as she went through withdrawal. She suffered fits of sweating, shaking, chills and aching muscles beyond what her injury could account for. Even after I convinced her that it was withdrawal she was suffering from (just like Lady Day), she thought it would quickly be over in a couple of days. Wrong again. She had to endure these symptoms for the two trimesters of her pregnancy and then still deal with the untreated effects of her injury after they subsided. Her muscles would ache, her legs would spasm uncontrollably and her bladder wouldn't sit still for hardly a minute. She even had to go through a stint in the hospital when her blood pressure dropped dangerously low. But she handled it all with the goal in mind of delivering a healthy, drug-free child.
Educating the Professionals
Originally, I didn't think Deb was blazing that new of a trail, having a baby after a spinal chord injury. Apparently, it was my turn to be wrong. You have obstetricians, even very good ones, who could tell you all about the development of a child and what a healthy mother went through, but knew nothing next to nothing about spinal chord injury. Then, you have spinal injury specialist, who made fairly educated guesses about the effects of a spinal trauma (though they still don't know why Deb has 70% use of both her arms when she should be a quadriplegic based on where here injury is) - but for the life of them couldn't give you the ins and outs of a high-risk pregnancy if their life depended on it. Thank goodness Al Gore had invented the Internet by 1995! Deb would search and dig for any and all information she could scrape up (the Net was a lot less commercial back then, so the information was free). Some doctor would tell her that she would have to deliver by Caesarian section, since her muscles didn't work. Errrgh...wrong!!! She would hand him a stack of articles and anecdotes to that confirm the contrary, her involuntary muscles would do just fine. Some doctor would suggest bed rest for the last 3 months, since she wouldn't be able to discern the onset of labor ..."wrong again, Batman!" If she could feel gas (and she could), she could feel labor (3rd page of this 10-page article, Doc.) It went on like this for months until the doctors started posing their advice for my wife in the form of questions: Do you think you might want to try this vitamin, do you think this diet might be ok? I think they had learned not to mess with my sweetie.
Suffering Fools
Beyond the withdrawals and the doctors, Deb's patience was also stretched paper thin by many in the general public who couldn't imagine an expectant mother in a wheelchair. Men walking on the moon, microwave ovens, Ronald Reagan knowing nothing about Iran-Contra...all this they could believe. Woman in a wheelchair getting pregnant? "How could that happen?", a couple people were bold enough to ask. Deb, with a completely straight face would start, in her best "Maria from Sesame Street" imitation: "Well, when the Mommy bird and Daddy bird decide to make a baby... " I would be rolling as the offended target marched away. Deb was accustomed to handling such personal snooping by strangers with her own sense of deadpan humor. The classic, "How long have you been in the wheelchair?", was always answered with, "Oh, since about 9 o'clock this morning. " Shock and dismay would contort their face until they realized their leg was being pulled. Maybe the most memorable incident of these rolling pregnancy faux pas was when Deb went for a checkup with the obstetrician at Metro General Hospital. The department secretary promptly inform Deb as she wheeled through the door, "Oh, honey, the Spinal Chord Clinic is on the 7th floor" . To which Deb promptly replied, "Been there, done that, but I hear they know a little more about pregnant women down here. I hope they're right"
Labor, Finally
When I arrived in the delivery room, I was greeted by at least a couple doctors and a several nurses who were surrounding my wife and she pleaded with them to get out of the room and leave her alone. They immediately turned to me to convince me of the expediency of giving my wife an epidural and being prepared to do a Caesarian. They spoke to me as if she weren't even in the room. "She really need this...she should get that...it will make her blah, blah, blah". All the while she yelling now to get them out of her sight before she starts to throw things because her ears and her arms work quite well. I of course deferred to my wife's decision and wisely interjected a few, "isn't that right, Sweeties" into my replies. There were more intense moments, highlighted by Deb's labor pains being translated through her injured spine as intense, pounding headaches. Her blood pressure was dangerously elevated, one of the risks the doctors hoped to avoid with an epidural. However, after about six hours of drama and screams and sweat, my son Malik unceremoniously plopped into the world, opened his eyes and looked around as if wondering why his sleep had been disturbed. He was a very healthy 6 lb., 11 oz. bundle of wonder who had just begun to be the inspiration of two very happy parents.
The Inquisition!
Before being released from the hospital, Human Services had to be summoned, and Deb and I (mostly Deb) had to be subjected to a battery of inquiries and drills to make sure that Malik would be "safe" in a home with a paraplegic mother. Most of it was inane because the LSWs had no real clue what life was like for Deb and therefore didn't know the real challenges. "What will you do if he gets diarrhea?" "How will you feed him solid foods?" They even made her demonstrate that she could change his diaper and bath him. I was outraged. All this while a 16 year-old teenage mother in the next bed, whose baby was in ICU because she smoked throughout her pregnancy, was heard to vow not to let a baby slow her down and she was still going to go out clubbing every weekend! Arggh!
The Rewards
Though we were a blended family, each of us having been married before, with 3 pre-teen boys and a teenage daughter between us; the challenge of Malik's birth and upbringing (he's 10 as of this writing) has helped bring a new appreciation of parenthood to both Deb and myself. He is home schooled now (more on that later) and is taking advantage of parents who have been through it all before.
I wanted to create this blog to chronicle the incredible and heartfelt journey that my wife, Deb, and I are about to take. Deb has not walked since January 1990 when she was involved in a car accident that left her with a spinal chord injury. Her life to this point has been a trek through all kinds of trials with personal development and spiritual and emotional growth and wondrous discoveries that I will be sharing with you in this blog. The impetus for starting this blog now is the renewed hope that she is once again going to regain control of the muscles below her solar plexus and begin to walk again. I wanted to have a place to record and share the highs and joys and the obstacles to be overcome as we embark on this endeavor together. Let me give a little background. I met Deb in January 1993 while we were both in college. At the time, she told me about her accident in 1990, that she had been in the army in Virginia when she, her boyfriend and 2 sisters were accosted at a club and subsequently chased by a car as her boyfriend sped away. The driver lost control going around 80 m.p.h. and ran into a huge tree. I've seen pictures and its amazing anyone walked away. Surprisingly, other than Deb, the only serious injury was a broken leg that one of her sisters suffered. Deb, however, was another story.Deb:
"I remember waking up in the Metro General Hospital not
knowing where I was or why I was there. I tried getting out of the bed and
realized that I couldn't move. I tried talking and nothing came out.
It felt like I was screaming at the nurse to explain what was going on, but they paid no attention."
I am not going to go into the details, but the gist of it was that her spinal chord was crushed, C7-C8. Sixth months of rehabilitation was needed for her to learn to eat, drink, talk and use her left hand. But she needed a wheelchair to get around. She was told by her doctors that the injury was "complete" and that she would never walk again.Deb would never let that be the end of her story. At the time that I met her, she was going to school full time, raising her 7 year-old son, Edward, living in her wheelchair-accessible apartment. She believed that there was no reason in the world not to pursue all the goals she had in life before her accident and especially wanted to her son every opportunity in the world. She celebrates every January 5 (the date of the accident) as her "2nd Birthday" because she had been given the chance to start life anew. Next time, I'll tell about our meeting and more amazing things she has done with her life.
