Ann's story
Ann Kallman, 64, and her husband Rick are recent retirees from the trade show industry. Ann built show booths logging 200,000 miles a year getting from one event to another. While she enjoyed her work and met her husband on the job, Ann said she and Rick were ready to slow down.
“I used to build booths internationally and my husband would ship freight to the trade shows, so we are a trade show love story.”
Their love story continued as they settled into retirement in Randolph, New Jersey where one of their daughter’s lives along with extended family and friends. They also enjoyed regular visits with a second daughter in Texas.
But their visits slowed when Ann began to experience pain and weakness in her legs. On a particularly bad night, she was rushed to Morristown Medical Hospital where imaging showed that a blood clot on her spine was blocking blood flow to her spinal cord. Doctors performed emergency surgery to remove it. Once stabilized, she recovered at Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation - Chester. She admitted on a stretcher and eight days later walked out using a walker.
Ann did well for a year, then noticed numbness in her left leg. An MRI revealed a cyst on her spine which her doctor surgically removed. Within a few weeks, she was walking with a walker and started physical therapy. But shortly after that, “I woke up one morning and I had no ability to move my legs at all—just like that,” Ann said.
A follow-up MRI showed nothing new. Her surgeon said scar tissue was likely blocking the nerve signals in her back and an experimental surgery might reconnect those signals. Ann agreed to the surgery and afterward returned to Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation.
This time Ann said she felt overwhelmed with worry; paralysis prevented her from shifting in bed, sitting upright and most other things she needed to do on a daily basis from dressing to grooming and basic mobility. “To be honest, my first week here, I had a very hard time,” she said. “I just spent one day where I cried all day.”
Ann’s physician-led care team understood her fears and developed a treatment plan to both calm those fears and regain her independence, which would be supported by a wheelchair. The other element that Ann said helped tremendously was an early meeting with Kessler’s psychology team, it shifted her mindset.
“I told [the psychologist], ‘I feel out of control, like I have no control of anything anymore.’ And he said, ‘That’s not true. You can control your time, and you can control your effort,’” Ann said. “That just hit me so powerfully.”
That simple idea became Ann’s turning point and she chose to stay optimistic. “No one had said to me, ‘You’re paralyzed for life.’ So in my mind, I’m staying positive, I’m staying optimistic. I’m putting in every ounce of effort and energy I have to see where this takes me,” she said. She could wiggle her toes and rotate her right foot, so she was hopeful she’d regain more sensation and function in time.
Ann held on to the hope but stayed in the moment—determined to get everything that she could out of her therapy.
“When I started, I couldn’t even sit up in bed on my own,” she said. “I needed two people to help me with transfers and I didn’t think I’d ever be able to dress myself again.”
Her physical therapists broke each skill into small, manageable steps. Ann began by sitting. She practiced transitioning from lying to sitting, ring sitting (with legs bent in front for stability) and sitting supported and unsupported which began to engage and recondition her core. She advanced to edge of bed exercises that focused on balance—sitting upright and reaching across her body, both without listing to one side, improving balance.
As she became stronger, Ann added in more challenging exercises. She advanced to building upper-body strength with free weights and therapy bands, was introduced to a transfer board and practiced wheelchair skills.
Transfers were a major milestone for Ann. Using a transfer board, a smooth board used to bridge the gap between two surfaces, she practiced moving her body from the bed to the wheelchair and from the wheelchair to a therapy mat.
At first she thought she’d never get the hang of it, she admitted. “But my therapists kept saying, ‘It doesn’t have to be perfect. Every inch you move on your own is progress.’”
Ann’s occupational therapy sessions took her into relearning how to handle her basic daily tasks in a modified manner: getting dressed, bathing and managing personal care. They often focused on upper body strengthening while she lay on her back and side. Since people with paraplegia (lower body paralysis) use their upper bodies for mobility, the shoulders are susceptible to strain, so Ann was taught how to safely increase her strength and range of motion while preserving her shoulder integrity.
Ann wasn’t the only one strength training. Her husband, who was by her side daily, also began to lift weights. “He started lifting weights and getting fitter so he could help me more easily,” explained Ann.
Rick also participated in Kessler’s Care Partner Program, where he learned how to safely support Ann during transfers and daily activities. “The first time he came for training, he did terribly,” Ann said with a laugh. “But he kept at it and improved tremendously.”
Throughout her stay at Kessler, Ann learned to care for herself independently. “[My occupational therapist] gave me a pair of pants and said, ‘Take your shoes off, put these pants on, take the pants off and put your shoes back on. Don’t get frustrated because people can’t do this on the first try,’” she said. Ann was delighted to prove her wrong. “It was a 90-minute session—and I did it. The sense of accomplishment was wonderful! I took the pants and was swinging them around for everybody to see.”
Occupational therapy advanced other practical skills Ann would need at home such as learning self-catheterization. “I never imagined I could do something like that myself,” she said, “but my therapists showed me step by step, and then suddenly—I was doing it. That gave me confidence that I could handle other things too.”
By discharge, Ann could dress and groom herself and was managing her own bowel and bladder program. Ann had made remarkable progress from being unable to sit without support to adeptly handling her own daily needs.
Ann described her therapists as “the greatest people in the world.” She added, “They are so knowledgeable, so kind, so caring. Their advice and expertise have been invaluable in getting me closer to my goal of independence.”
As her confidence grew, Ann participated in Kessler’s community reintegration activities with her physical therapist. She practiced wheelchair mobility on ramps and obstacle courses in the hospital and was ready to put her new skills to the test at an outing to a local restaurant.
“It was eye-opening,” she said. “When you’re in the hospital, everything is accessible, but when you go out, suddenly you see all the barriers. A doorway that’s too narrow, a ramp that’s too steep.”
Through it all, Ann credited Rick, their daughters and extended family for being her steady source of strength. Not only did one of her daughters travel from Texas, but her sister and brother-in-law came from Georgia to support her.
Ann’s sister Meg played several important roles through her recovery. “As a social worker in the emergency room at Morristown Medical Center, she has been an advocate, companion and warrior for me as navigate through my new reality—I wouldn’t be where I am today without her.”
In five weeks, Ann was ready to discharge home. She could sit upright independently, dress herself, manage personal care tasks and complete transfers with only supervision. But she wasn’t done.
Since discharge, she’s been going to outpatient therapy at Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation - West Orange. “I’ve experienced great progress there,” she said. The sensation has returned to her legs and she is now able to move all her muscles. She is working with a therapists there to regain strength and function.
Ann is happy to report that she is now able to stand and support herself inside the parallel bars and has even taken her first steps using a weight supportive harness.
“This is by far the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do,” said Ann. Choosing to stay positive was a game changer for her. “Positivity has changed everything, even the hard things.”