Eden started walking at 9 months. Her first birthday pictures are filled with fat-lip smiles from a tumble the day before. She potty trained herself at 18 months. She had a hematoma in her ear from a fall when she was around 2. An adrenaline junkie at the park, around 3 years old, she begged for me to push her super high on the swings. She lost her grip and did a complete flip off the swing, landing in my arms as I stood (thankfully) underneath her. She learned how to ride a bike with no training wheels on the first ride. She did a flip on the bars a couple weeks into kindergarten and fell flat on her back, got up and went into class when the bell rang. That’s why, on December 23, 2015, when she did a bridge (a backbend where you push yourself up from the floor) on our living room floor and then collapsed crying, I shook it off. When she cried that her legs, back and hips hurt, I gathered her in my arms and rocked her, shushing her, telling her to calm down. But this time, Eden didn’t pick herself up off the ground, dust herself off and go on her next crazy adventure. Thirty minutes after she started crying, she stopped. Her face changed—it kind of filled with wonder—and she told me, “Mom, I feel like my feet are sleeping.” I looked at her body, which seemed to be posed awkwardly on the bed, and told her to move her leg. She stared at it, saying, “I can’t, Mom.”
I put her and her sister in the car and rushed to the hospital, a day that started her 52-day stay in the hospital where we learned that that backbend turned our independent daredevil into a paraplegic. That backbend, something she had done hundreds of times before, had hyperextended her spine and caused the artery that feeds her spinal cord to stop pumping blood, causing a stroke in her spinal cord. The extent of damage is unheard of. Her stroke was in T8/9, she stretched the ligaments in T3/4, and the damage extends up and down her spinal cord from T2-T12. In one instant, that backbend altered our lives forever. Eden is now in a wheelchair. She initially lost the ability to sit up on her own. Her bowels and bladder do not function normally. We have to wake up twice a night to move her so she won’t get pressure sores from sleeping in one position too long. She also must remember to do pressure relief exercises every fifteen minutes she is in her wheelchair to protect her skin. She cannot regulate her temperature so we have to watch her for signs of her getting too hot or too cold. The list of what she now cannot do could span pages. But what that backbend hasn’t done is take away Eden’s spirit. Her physical therapist, two days after meeting her at acute rehab, nicknamed her, “Daredevil Eden.” Her therapy team said she accomplished more in two weeks of rehab than most kids accomplish in six. Because of Eden’s spirit and resiliency, we have never lost hope in her full recovery. Anyone who encounters Eden, including doctors, nurses and therapists always have the same response: “If anyone can recover from this, it’s Eden.”
In April of 2015, Eden came to Louisville for 3 months to participate in locomotor training, but made such improvement, that our family relocated to Louisville so she could continue treatment. Although walking is our ultimate goal for Eden, we have more than the end goal in mind with this therapy. 90% of children with spinal cord injuries before age ten develop scoliosis later on in life. If she does not start standing, her bones will become weak and brittle and she will develop osteoporosis and could break a bone with the lightest tap. Her kidneys are at risk, and she could develop arthritis. These therapies may also help regenerate her bowel and bladder functions and bring back sensation to her lower body. These therapies will also provide what we all need most of all: Hope. Thank you for visiting her page. Please share Eden's story to help us spread awareness for pediatric spinal cord injuries in order to quickly find a cure!!
