Like many of the physical challenges that follow an injury or illness, vision problems can seriously threaten a person’s independence. Take it from Linda Craft of Flowood, who recently had to rely on her 91-year-old mother for rides to work.
Stroke-related vision deficits had robbed Craft of her autonomy. But she’s back in the driver’s seat, thanks to a new form of occupational therapy at Methodist Outpatient Neurological Rehabilitation in Flowood.
When someone is seriously hurt on a football field, the first clue is a consuming silence. The bands stop playing, cheerleaders quit chanting and a strange stillness spreads through the stands like a reverse version of “the wave.”
On the field, a solemn circle forms around the motionless body of a fallen player. And as the minutes tick by, it seems everyone is thinking the unspeakable: Is he paralyzed?
When Wesley Ward awakened from a nine–day coma, the 16-year-old thought he had been in a car wreck. But the head-on collision that bounced his brain like a bobbled pass actually happened on a football field.
During an April 30 practice at Central Hinds Academy in Raymond, the sophomore linebacker crashed helmets with a teammate who was 60 pounds heavier. In that moment, he joined the estimated 63,000 high school athletes who sustain brain injuries each year.
JACKSON, Miss.—Wheelchair softball will join Methodist Rehabilitation Center’s growing list of adaptive sports, thanks to a $76,121 grant from the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation.
The gift will pay for the purchase of equipment, and the sport will be debuted at a summer instructional clinic in Jackson. The grant also will fund expansion of wheelchair fencing and handcycling, two popular programs that currently serve only the Jackson area. Clinics and events will bring the two existing sports to the Gulf Coast, Northeast Mississippi, the Delta and central Mississippi.
Read this story in The Jackson Free Press.
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A host of events this weekend and next will swirl around the same topics that thrill Nicole Marquez, even as they raise money to help offset her extensive medical bills, expected to far exceed the insurance cap.
FLOWOOD – Harriet Lamkin used to be needle-phobic.
“When I would go in for bloodwork, I was petrified,” said the Braxton resident.
But today she sits blithely by as Dr. Kenneth Fox skewers her upper back with 17, inch and a half long needles.
Such is the soothing power of acupuncture.
“It makes you feel so good,” she said. “I think if more people did acupuncture, they wouldn’t have to take so many pain medications.”
JACKSON, Miss.—The Wilson Research Foundation recently donated $461,000 to fund patient-focused research at Methodist Rehabilitation Center in Jackson.
Judge Ginny Wilson Mounger, chairman of the foundation board, said the grant supports studies to benefit persons who experience a disabling illness or injury, a mission that is especially important in Mississippi. “Our incidence of stroke, for instance, is unparalleled,” she said. “We’re the first in something that we wish we were not.”
Scottie Douglas went to the hospital for his umpteenth surgery and wound up homeless.
Yet the man who has lived his whole life without the use of his legs is still counting his blessings.
He believes the July 10 hospital visit saved him from an early morning fire that destroyed the Oak Grove home he shared with his brother, mother and stepfather.