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It's a long road, but that won't stop her efforts

A quadriplegic is happy for the chance to finally rebuild her body after a devastating car crash two years ago.

By CHANDRA BROADWATER
Published June 19, 2006

One afternoon last week, the 27-year-old watched them rotate in a circular motion. They were attached to a special exercise bicycle that physical therapist Michael Pease decided to use for the start of her session.

Other machines lined the walls in the large, open therapy room at HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital in Spring Hill. A woman on the treadmill next to Flynn winced as she walked. Patients on mats with other therapists struggled to move.

It was late in the afternoon. Flynn was tired from morning therapy, when she had used the same bike. The machine senses the miniscule amount of muscle movement in her legs, then adjusts accordingly, automatically moving the bike pedals to help tone them.

Unlike traditional bikes, there is no seat. This one includes only the pedals, a computerized screen and handlebars. The absence of the seat provides space for Flynn's wheelchair.

Her eyes felt heavy. Her dark curly hair was pulled back from her face. The machine beeped.

She pressed a button on the screen. She wanted to pedal more on her own. After a few seconds, the bike beeped again. She frowned. She pressed the button again.

"I guess they're too tired," she said, undeterred.

But the tingling that ran from her toes to her hips gave her hope. So did finally being here at HealthSouth.

* * *

Even before rescuers cut her out of her smashed sport utility vehicle, Flynn knew she probably would never walk again. Twenty-five years old at the time, she said, she had already learned to accept fate.

Eight months before the accident, her husband, Michael, died. At 35, he'd had lifelong kidney problems. But no one expected him not to return home when he left for dialysis treatment a few days before Thanksgiving 2003.

They had been married only six months but were together long before that. She said the shock of that prepared her for the accident. Always iron-willed, she became stronger.

Flynn remembers telling paramedics standing outside her green GMC Jimmy on the New York State Thruway that she couldn't feel her legs.

Her hands were still on the steering wheel. There was broken glass everywhere. The impact of tumbling across the interstate crushed every window. Blood ran down her face, causing her hair to stick to her skin.

It was the early morning of July 5, 2004. She and the kids were driving back home to Fulton, N.Y., after visiting Flynn's older sister, Kathy Switzer, in Maine. The night before, they had watched fireworks together.

On the way back, she fell asleep at the wheel. She tried to stop, but each time she pulled over, the boys woke up. So she tried to make it the rest of the way home.

After the crash, her oldest son, 6-year-old Mikey, moved around in the front seat. She was glad to know that he seemed to be all right. The little boy listened carefully as the medics told him not to touch or move his mother.

She remembers seeing the pillow where his head had rested a few moments before the crash, still there by what was left of the passenger window.

Flynn wondered about her two other sons, Christian, 3, and Jacob, 1. For their 12-hour car ride home, she had strapped them into car seats in the back. Fortunately, all three were okay.

But before she could listen for any noise from the younger two, Flynn passed out. A few weeks later, she woke up in the intensive care unit of a New York hospital. Her legs and hands couldn't move.

Two years later, Flynn lives with her sister in Spring Hill. Her legs and hands still don't move, but she can maneuver her arms and upper body.

She came here in December with Switzer for the warm weather. It's easier on her body than the frigid air up North.

She also wanted to be closer to her immediate family. Her mother and stepfather, Sue and Fred Bowman, live in Spring Hill with her younger sister, Sarah.

Flynn anticipated better care for her spinal cord injury as well. But that hasn't happened.

Until recently, Flynn did not get physical therapy to ensure strength in the muscles that she can still move. Medicaid Health Maintenance Organization would not approve any of the therapies she needed.

Medicaid HMO alerted her a few weeks ago that she is almost out of hospital days - for life. Flynn is nowhere near being out of the hospital forever.

In fact, she is less capable of caring for herself today than when she moved to Florida. She can no longer transfer from bed to wheelchair or vice versa.

She can't bathe or dress herself. She can't prepare meals and cook like she used to love to do. She can't sit up in her chair for more than a few hours because she gets too tired.

In her small two-bedroom home, where Flynn's wheelchair doesn't fit in the bathroom, she is confined to her bedroom, the living room or the screened-in porch.

To get outside, her sister props a piece of wood at an angle so her chair rolls out with ease. This is where she washes Flynn's hair, outside with cups of water because she can't get Flynn to the shower.

A sore on Flynn's back that started as a small break in her skin has been aggravated by the improper bed in which she has spent most of the last six months.

Medicaid HMO canceled the home care nurse sent to treat it, telling Flynn that the service couldn't be authorized. The nurse was on his way a few weeks ago when he was called and told to turn around.

"It ticks me off to all heck," Flynn said as she sat on the porch one afternoon, looking out at the grass in the yard.

But little did she know that a few hours later, HealthSouth marketing director Chris Ballish would come and evaluate her for a charity bed at the hospital. That night, she would be in her new room. The next day, plans for therapy would begin.

The efforts of many would finally get Flynn help.

It started when county Commissioner Diane Rowden contacted Ballish after learning about Flynn from a Brooksville Regional Hospital representative. A few weeks before, Flynn had gone to Brooksville Regional seeking treatment for the sore.

With the added help of Maureen Soliman, a nurse and a member of the Hernando Medical Alliance, and Jean Rags, the county's director of health and human services, they were able to keep Flynn from falling through the cracks.

"I know I can do it, and it makes me so mad that I'm screwing around with my health," Flynn said that afternoon on the porch. "All that therapy in New York was for nothing."

Not anymore.

She knows that she has regressed and that the road back to independence will be tough. She has lost time - a half year of valuable time. It makes her three sons back in New York seem increasingly farther away.

But not for much longer, if she can help it.

She pressed the button on the computer screen again. She willed her legs to move.

* * *

As she watched her legs on the bike, Flynn thought about her sons. There isn't a day that goes by that she doesn't. They fill the minutes of the hours.

Mikey, now 8, lives with her in-laws. They want to adopt him. The other two are with a foster mother who volunteered to take care of them after reading about the crash in the Fulton newspaper.

Chris is 6, and Jacob just turned 3. She talks to all three regularly on the phone.

As Mikey gets older, Flynn can hear the concern he has for her in his voice. Sometimes he pauses, and she asks him what he's thinking.

"He'll tell me that he's worried about me," Flynn said. "Other times he's said, 'If you can't come get me, Uncle Jimmy will send me to you.' "

Jimmy, she said, is her husband's brother.

She is grateful that all three of her sons are doing well. It's even better to know that they live close enough to see one another regularly.

As any mother would, Flynn wants to reunite her family one day. But other worries of life get in the way. She receives only a small amount of money each month from Social Security. The rent for the apartment that she and her sister share is going up. Bigger places would be much more expensive.

Whether it's possible for her and her kids to live under one roof again, Flynn finds temporary relief in the care that she's finally getting. Her first goal is to get back the strength that she had in New York.

For so long, there was nothing, only days wasted surfing the Internet or time passed by reading thick books from the library. Every once in a while, she stopped to stare at the few pictures she has of the kids and Michael.

Back in the therapy room on the exercise bike, as her legs moved, she now felt there was a purpose. Every move she makes is for her children.

Chandra Broadwater can be reached at cbroadwater@sptimes.com or (352) 848-1432.

[Last modified June 23, 2006, 12:31:44]