Valerie C.

On May 18th, 2019 on the way home from a volleyball tournament, 13 year old daughter Valerie and her Mom were in a horrible car accident. While her Mom walked away from the accident with minimal injuries, Valerie cannot walk; She is told she may never walk again. They are expecting and praying for miracles but in the meantime, we must carry on with life. This life is new, scary, and has so very many unanswered questions and complications. 

She was rushed to St. Mary’s Hospital with critical injuries and severe internal bleeding. An emergency splenectomy was completed as her spleen had ruptured and exploratory surgery was needed to assess extent of internal damage and bleeding. She had trauma to her heart, lacerations to her kidneys, fractured ribs, and had multiple pelvic fractures with surgery to place an external fixator to hold her pelvis in place. She fractured her back and sustained a spinal cord injury. Valerie is currently paralyzed from the waist down.

She was in the hospital at St. Mary’s Hospital for 47 days with the majority of those in the ICU. During this time, she contracted pneumonia, her lungs collapsed, and she had a total of 3 surgeries to place chest tubes. Infections disease doctors were called in as she spiked fevers for approximately 2 weeks from an unknown source. Her last surgery was to place a kidney drain which did end the fevers. She was then transferred to Joe DiMaggio in Hollywood to start inpatient rehabilitation. She spent almost 2 months in inpatient treatment in order to get stronger and begin learning basis, like how to get out of bed, get dressed, take a shower, and learn to transfer in and out of her wheelchair.

The family had to move out of their home as it was not accessible and Valerie was not able to fit into the bathrooms with her wheelchair.

💚September is Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Month.💚

Her fight is my fight and although what we battle is different, very different, I squat beside her.

Valerie suffered a SCI (SCI = Spinal Cord Injury) when she fractured her back (and pelvis) in a car accident resulting in paralysis from her high waist down at the young age if 13 yrs old. She is considered an incomplete Quadriplegic.

While most people just see that Valerie can't walk, I'm going to share a little what you don't see! The way she handles what you don't see is what makes her a warrior, a bad ass really!

Valerie has some, but not all core muscles. Those are the muscles that give you so much of your body control. If she were to lean over to touch the floor while sitting, she cannot bring herself back up without using her arms.

Below her injury level, she cannot feel hot or cold. Burning yourself by the heat of water that is too hot during a shower, heating pads/blankets, etc is a constant risk to be careful of.

She does not sweat anymore. Anywhere! This can cause serious complications (even fatal) because she has the potential from overheating from the inside out. So she has to use a squirt bottle to spritz herself when in the hot sun, exercising, anywhere an "able bodied" person would normally sweat. Spritzing water on simulates sweating so heat is released from your body.

Valerie suffers from nerve pain. There are times when a sock or sheet on her legs/feet can feel like a burning fire. Not fair that you can have such pain in areas that you can't move or feel sensation.

She cannot cough as productively as you and I. She can't laugh the same way anymore, her lung function is diminished.

Valerie is at constant risk for pressure sores and has had a big one for the past 11 weeks. She needs to do pressure reliefs all the time so she can get blood flowing and circulation back to those areas that aren't moving. Pressure sores can quickly go bad and potentially get to the bone and get infected causing a person to go Septic. Christopher Reeves actually died from a pressure sore going septic.

UTIs which are also common for those with SCIs, can go septic before realizing it. For Valerie she is already resistant to a number of UTI antibiotics as she had back to back infections for several months with multiple antibiotics administered.

I don't mention all these things for anyone to feel sorry for her or for those like her. I mention these things to bring awareness to Spinal Cord Injuries and to educate. Perhaps even to understand more why SCI foundations are so important!

Valerie, despite these things that you don't see when you look at her, is a ROCK STAR! She has learned to do things differently, she has learned (still learning) how to live with her injury. She is learning to be independent. It's a slow and hard process but she perseveres. She does things to keep herself as strong as possible. She rarely ever complains and stays positive. I'm amazed by her and how she has handled everything at her young age.

Our friends, community, and school have certainly contributed to her overall well-being and we are eternally grateful!

On April 15th Valerie was taken via ambulance to the ER for a UTI that had worsened into a bad kidney infection and subsequently became septic shock. This is life threatening and our young warrior is very sick.

On April 16th improvement was shown and Valerie was upgraded to “stable but guarded” with her vomiting and severe headaches being controlled. Per mom "Looks and feels better than yesterday. The vomiting and severe headaches are controlled. Blood pressure and oxygen levels are still problematic. Still spiking fevers with antibiotics and fever reducers so playing around with that. She now has pneumonia and a new pressure wound from laying in bed. Her IV line infiltrated today, causing extensive swelling in her arm and had to be removed. She has been through so much and had a lot of painful injuries, surgeries and procedures following her injury almost 2 years ago. She is tough, and brave and has a very high pain tolerance. But needles are her nemesis and today, she was stuck no less than 10 times in an attempt to put in another IV. Nobody has been successful and this causes her so much pain and anxiety. Tomorrow she will most likely have a picc line placed under sedation. Positively, she has had some windows of feeling decent and smiling today so that is a good sign! Additionally she wants to eat which is good but is still NPO and cannot eat at this time. “

Update July 27, 2021:

Hey Lori! I just wanted to say hi.
And thank you!! Thank you for helping to make this happen for Valerie. Summit is not only an experienced trainer but he has the biggest heart and desire to help people. He is pushing Valerie mentally and physically, helping her to find purpose, and joy even in the hard times.
We had fun at Disney but it wasn't easy for her. It brought up memories and was hard for her to go there in a wheelchair (physically and emotionally) but he and Winston helper her work through it. Having Winston is going to make such a difference in her life, in so many ways. Thank you for all you do for my family and so many others!

Update September, 2022:

On May 18, 2019, on the way home from a volleyball tournament, Valerie and I got into a horrific car accident.
She is alive by the grace of God, and her seatbelt.

I walked away from it with minimal bruising.... Valerie can't walk.

She fractured her back, pelvis and ribs. She had massive internal bleeding, which led to dangerously low blood pressure. She required blood and platelet transfusion. She had lacerations to her kidneys and trauma to her heart. Her spleen had severe damage and was removed. Her lungs collapsed and she was put on a ventilator.
She sustained a spinal cord injury T7-8 leading to paralysis.

She had 2 major surgeries, pins placed her pelvis. And after 7 days in the ICU, she had a spinal fusion and had rods and pins put in her back/spine from. T4-T12.

September is Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Month

This month I want to share our story....

I want to bring awareness, education, funding, and accessibility for Valerie, for our friends we’ve met along the way, and for so many others.

I want you to know that there is hope, and joy intertwined with devastation and loss. I want you to know that love really can conquer. I want you to know that there are people out there who want to help, to ease the burdens, and to be a part of your village. We are so very grateful for ours!

Update September 2024:

Four years ago we got to meet this trio and they helped to change our lives.

Lori Griffith is the founder of Chasing A Dream, whose mission is to provide individualized, life-changing, assistance to families with children battling cancer, cystic fibrosis, and other life-threatening illnesses.
John and Norma serve on the board and are amazing, kind, and generous people.
We were meeting with them as Valerie had become one of their newest warriors.

My understanding was that we were going to meet and brainstorm ways to fund raise for a seat to help Valerie get in and out of my car.

Much to our surprise, that day, they told us that enough money had already been donated and raised and we were being gifted a transfer seat.

We were absolutely shocked and felt so incredibly blessed. I don’t think anyone (unless you live this life) realizes what an important gift this was to us. So I’m going to do my best to share why….

I totaled my car in our car accident and was without transportation while Valerie was in the hospital. After several months it was time to start discharge planning, we had to figure out how to get Valerie home and how she would get to and from places. Donnie drives a truck and getting in and out of his vehicle was going to be next to impossible. I worked with the the PT and OT to discuss Valerie’s needs and how she would physically have to get In and out of a car.

I had left my job to care for her and we were already in major medical debt by then. We couldn’t afford a handicap accessible/modified van (think upwards of 70-80k) and truthfully, I wanted Valerie to learn to get in and out of a vehicle as I knew it would be a skill that she would need.

Donnie and I found a used dealership not too far from the hospital in Hollywood and had several hours to find a vehicle, in one day. It was overwhelming measuring the doors and the trunks to see if a wheelchair would fit and quickly realized that the majority of vehicles wouldn’t work because her chair frame doesn’t fold up.
We found a Nissan Armada which is a pretty big sized SUV, with the capacity to fit a wheelchair. So that’s what we financed after having JUST paid off my car.

Before Valerie could be discharged to go home, we had to be able to prove that she could do many tasks.
Some of these included getting dressed, getting in and out of bed, and getting in and out of the car.

So, therapy consisted of going down to the parking lot and practicing, getting in and out of the car, over and over.

Together, she and I, with the help of her PT had to figure out how to transfer from her wheelchair, onto the floorboard of my suv, and then from the floorboard up to the seat. We had to use a transfer board (see below) which is used to slide across gaps and up and down surfaces. She would have to use all her arm strength to pull herself up while I simultaneously lifted up her legs to get onto the seat. It wasn’t pretty and took a lot of work for us both, but we learned to do it. It was time consuming and required a lot of physical effort from both of us.

So we did that routine, wheelchair to floorboard,
floorboard to seat and then in reverse every day, multiple times per day.  We did this at school, doctors appointments and therapy; In the pouring rain, in the heat, with people watching, and with people NOT patiently waiting for us to get out of their way.

It became difficult especially when she strained her wrist and I pulled my back. But we didn’t have an option, so we continued this dance day after day, and in out, up and down.

Lori asked us what we needed, what would help make life a little easier and raised almost 10k for this transfer seat! This is a blessing. This makes life a little bit easier, a little more accessible, and we are so incredibly grateful.

Lori is passionate about helping children and their families and having worked in the healthcare industry for many years she is well aware of the many needs that often go unmet for families like mine.
Things that so many take for granted…like getting in and out of a car.