Donald Irby was told he would never walk again. Not satisfied
with that answer, he was determined to prove his doctors wrong. His first day at
SSM Rehabilitation Hospital’s Hazelwood Day Institute was the beginning of new hope.
Donald still doesn’t know quite how it all started, but in March 2003 he began noticing
weakness in his legs and was falling frequently for no apparent reason. One night,
he fell while at home and didn’t have the strength to get back up. He had to call
a friend, who then helped him to bed. The next morning, when Donald found he couldn’t
even get out of bed, he called 911.
Doctors later determined he suffered a stroke, left with left-side hemiparesis.
“The doctor said I would never walk again,” recalled Donald.
That was hard news to accept for someone who had spent years on his feet and
the road. Donald had retired just 10 years earlier from a 37-year career as a mail
carrier. Nights, he had worked part-time as a delivery driver.
The stroke left Donald with pain, the inability to walk, and incontinence. Irrespective
of what the doctors told him, Donald gave himself three goals: to walk again, use
the bathroom by himself, and drive again.
After discharge from the hospital in an electric wheelchair, Donald underwent home
therapy before it was suggested he use the services of SSM Rehabilitation Hospital’s Day Institute
program at Hazelwood. “I should have been there all along,” said Donald, of the
Day Institute. “That’s when I started my big improvement.”
That big improvement began on just day one at the Day Institute. His physical therapist,
Marty Malt, PT, at the Hazelwood Day Institute, worked with Donald to have him stand
in the parallel bars with his wheelchair behind.
“I walked a few feet,” Donald said. “Marty had me walking the first day I was there.
I was so elated, I just cried.” It was only a few steps, but it was a start.
Working toward his goal to walk wasn’t without struggle. “Donald overcame a lot
of pain,” admitted Marty. Severe knee and shoulder pain limited his ability to stand
and hold himself up. But as Donald explained, “It’s something you just have to suck
up.”
“I started walking a few feet at a time,” said Donald. “Later, Marty had me walking
all around the gym.” He began inside the parallel bars until finally transitioning
to 150 feet with a wheeled walker. “He was ecstatic,” said Marty.
Donald was discharged from the Day Institute in May, cutting back to a three-day
regimen of outpatient visits at the Hazelwood outpatient clinic. Today, he continues
to use a wheelchair at home, but now also walks with his wheeled walker, a feat
never expected months earlier.
“I was able to accomplish all three of my goals,” Donald now states; the last one,
just recently. “I drove for the first time in over a year last week.”
Donald is proof of the old adage, where there’s a will, there’s a way.
August 2004
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