Biking down the White Pine Path north of Cedar Springs, Michigan, on a cold afternoon in April 2022, Dave Medema didn’t discover the massive department sagging over the asphalt path.
“Possibly the tree had simply blended into the wooded background alongside the path,” he stated.
“I didn’t see it till the final second.”
With no time to swerve, Medema hit the brakes—exhausting.
He flew over his handlebars and landed on the pavement, head first.
The subsequent factor he remembers is a person kneeling beside him, assessing his situation.
“I stated, ‘Simply give me a pair minutes. I’ll be high quality. I’ll be capable of get on my bike and trip residence,’” stated Medema, 69, a lifelong bike owner who lives outdoors Rockford, Michigan.
“He kindly requested me, ‘Nicely, who’s the president?’ And I couldn’t title him. … So I assumed, ‘Oh, this isn’t good.’”
Stage 1 trauma
The great Samaritan, a motorist named Will who occurred to witness the accident, had pulled his automobile over and dashed by way of the ravine between the highway and the path to present help.
He known as 911 and Medema’s spouse, Fenna Diephuis.
First responders quickly arrived.
After immobilizing his neck with a tough collar, the EMTs transported Medema to Corewell Health’s Spectrum Health Butterworth Hospital, the area’s Level 1 Trauma Center.
“He was a degree one trauma, which signifies that we mobilize all of our workforce,” stated Cathryn Chadwick, MD, a vital care surgeon on responsibility the day of Medema’s crash.
“We get the trauma surgeon, our residents, radiology, the ER docs—everyone is within the trauma bay ready for this affected person to reach in order that we are able to shortly stabilize him … and get him shortly imaged after which as much as the ICU.”
CT scans and a subsequent MRI confirmed extreme compression of Medema’s cervical backbone. The damage had triggered paralysis from the neck down. His mind perform, nonetheless, remained sound—he escaped with solely a concussion.
Medema has his helmet to thank for that.
“I had a helmet on, and that saved my life,” he stated.
“So when you do one factor on this article, put in daring font, giant font, purple font, underlined, italicized: At all times put on a helmet.”
Spinal surgical procedure
Diephuis, already in Grand Rapids operating an errand on the time of her husband’s accident, beat the ambulance to the hospital and sat in an ER lounge, awaiting information.
She was allowed to peek in on him briefly, however the full report got here later, at his bedside within the ICU.
Dr. Chadwick had already consulted with the on-call spinal surgeon when she delivered the medical workforce’s evaluation—that to take away the broken disks in Medema’s neck and stabilize his cervical backbone, he would want a spinal fusion surgical procedure the subsequent morning.
This might relieve the stress on his spinal twine, giving the nerves the possibility to regenerate over time.
To optimize Medema’s care, the ICU workforce positioned a central line for administering medicines and an arterial line in his wrist for steady blood stress monitoring.
“We all know that if we hold folks at a traditional coronary heart fee and blood stress, they’ve higher outcomes—and particularly with these spinal twine accidents, they get higher perfusion to their spinal twine and due to this fact a greater end result,” Dr. Chadwick stated.
Precisely what that end result would appear to be for Medema, nobody might say. He had good well being in his favor, however nerves regenerate extra slowly in folks his age.
In speaking with the couple, Dr. Chadwick tried to strike a steadiness between optimism and realism.
“I used to be in a position to assist them get to that time the place they had been like, ‘My life isn’t over’ … and get by way of these first phases and days the place issues really feel utterly uncontrolled.”
Dr. Chadwick’s readability, confidence and compassion resonated.
Taking her phrases to coronary heart, Medema and Diephuis labored exhausting throughout these early hours and days to course of their ideas and feelings.
“Our plans for retirement simply took a 180-degree flip, you understand?” Medema, a self-employed administration advisor and coach, stated.
“However I knew that if I went into sufferer mode, or if I went, ‘Why, God, why? Why me?’ … then I’m going to have a depressing life.”
So he set two targets, then and there: to “follow radical acceptance” of his circumstances and to get again on the White Pine Path on an electric-assist tricycle.
“I advised Fenna instantly, and I advised my bike buddies. I stated, ‘I’ll be again on the market with you guys. It’s gonna be on an e-trike.’”
For her half, Diephuis took the recommendation of a hospital chaplain and arrange a CaringBridge page to maintain household and mates up to date on Medema’s standing.
“I blogged day by day. I’d come residence, and it was my method of unwinding earlier than I went to mattress,” she stated. “It was such remedy for me to do this.”
Rehab and restoration
Medema’s spinal surgical procedure went easily.
The subsequent day, the Corewell Well being bodily and occupational remedy workforce assessed his core and extremity power in preparation for a transfer to inpatient rehab. Pushing by way of the ache, Medema labored along with his therapists to sit down up in conjunction with the mattress and to start some preliminary workouts.
His discharge to Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital got here only a day later.
On his method out, Dr. Chadwick requested him for a favor: Come again and see us sometime.
“I see sufferers in probably the most acute section of their damage, however I hardly ever get to see after they have recovered and the way nicely they’re doing and the way a lot perform they’ve gotten again,” she stated.
“I hardly ever get to see the post-trauma stuff.”
Medema and Diephuis remembered the request.
Ten months later, they organized a return journey to Butterworth Hospital.
Bearing baggage of treats, they met up with Dr. Chadwick and several other ER, ICU and Multidisciplinary Trauma Clinic workforce members to precise their deep gratitude for the world-class care they acquired.
However this reunion might occur solely after months of sluggish, regular, excruciating work—bodily and occupational remedy that continues in some type to today.
First, Medema accomplished seven weeks of intensive rehabilitation at Mary Free Mattress, the place aides had him standing up by day two—by no means thoughts that he couldn’t really feel his toes.
Inside 4 weeks, a bodily therapist—himself a hard-core bike owner—obtained Medema using a trike contained in the constructing.
By six weeks post-crash, he might stand, pivot and stroll with a walker.
After his June 6 discharge, Diephuis, a medical therapeutic massage therapist, turned her husband’s full-time caregiver.
Medema started working with a workforce of outpatient bodily therapists to rebuild muscle mass and mobilize his shoulders, arms, fingers, legs and toes.
“Quite a lot of my physique obtained shut down from the crash,” he stated. “The trauma not solely broken my spinal twine and the nerve endings, however then my physique doesn’t know how you can transfer.”
Life now entails a cycle of working and ready—working the muscle tissues and ready for the nerves to heal and get up.
“What I can management is doing workouts to regain muscle mass and mobility,” he stated. “Nerves? Nothing I can actually do about that, apart from do the workouts and have good diet.”
To advertise therapeutic, Medema additionally receives acupressure remedies and different holistic therapies.
The progress he’s made in a 12 months’s time has been outstanding, and he’s hopeful he can regain full performance.
He now walks and not using a walker, as much as a mile at a time.
Practically each morning, he spends an hour or two within the improvised residence rehab fitness center in his basement, engaged on stretching, power coaching, steadiness and range-of-motion workouts, all with gear Diephuis rigged up for him.
4,000 miles to go
Final September, simply 5 months after the accident, Medema took to the path once more on a bright-orange custom-built electrical tricycle.
His bodily therapist from Mary Free Mattress helped design the specs; his using buddies helped elevate the funds to purchase the Bluetooth-enabled three-wheeler from TerraTrike, a neighborhood producer.
Earlier than winter, Medema had already logged 300 miles.
His lifetime aim of biking 100,000 miles stays in his sights.
“I’m at 96,000 proper now—lifetime miles. I guess I’ll be there in two years,” he stated.
He goals of ending a Lake Michigan loop trip he began with a buddy a pair years in the past, and of biking the 45 miles to Spring Lake, Michigan, to go path using along with his grandkids.
Right now, a 12 months after the crash, Medema displays on his circumstances with each grief and gratitude.
“My grief about what I’ve misplaced, bodily and all the pieces, it’s there. My feelings are nonetheless fairly uncooked,” he stated. “I’m going by way of the grief.”
But, on the similar time, he celebrates his renewed power and marvels at how far he’s come: “Means farther than anyone thought I’d.”
