By STEPHEN BEALE
 
Union Leader Correspondent

GOFFSTOWN - It began with a twitch in her knee.

Sitting in her hospital bed, Kelly Thomas was recovering from a car accident days before Christmas 1999 that had severed her lower spine. She had cried when doctors told her that her back was broken, but she did not know what to say when they told her she was paralyzed.

At first, the 15-year-old did not know what that meant. Then doctors at the Concord rehab center told her she would never be able to walk.

"I was depressed and I just didn't want to do anything," she said. "Then all of the sudden I could move my knee. I could feel my kneecap."

If she could move her knee, Thomas thought, she might be able to do more.

Kelly Thomas-Saykaly undergoes physical
therapy at Project Walk in Canton, Mass.

She told anyone who would listen that she was going to be walking again by the end of the January, despite what doctors had told her.

"I was kind of like, 'I'm going to do it anyway,'" Thomas-Saykaly said. "I'm going to show them."

It took leg braces up to her waist, a back brace, and a firm grip on two bars to her left and right for her to take her first steps. Undaunted, she accepted an invitation to a prom in Maine that April, where she was able to stand on the dance floor, hiding her leg braces under her dress.

Four years later, in 2004, she made good on her vow to walk down the aisle at her wedding, with the aid of braces, crutches and two people on either side. "It took a while, but everybody was crying," said her mother, Janice Aubin.

Since her accident she has gone kayaking, swam with dolphins, and even parasailed on a cruise in the Caribbean. But walking remains an uphill battle for Thomas-Saykaly.

Someday, she hopes she will only need crutches, or just a cane.

That goal is not out of reach, according to Dan Cummings, the business manager for Project Walk, a California-based recovery program for people with spinal cord injuries which opened a regional center in the Boston area last month.

Project Walk is more of a gym than a rehab center or hospital. Clients spend several hours a week working out on treadmills, weights, and other machines, one-on-one with trainers, known as exercise physiologists.

The process starts out simply enough: a trainer will move a leg or arm muscle, asking the client to imagine they are doing it. After numerous repetitions, perhaps millions, the signals the brain has been sending down through the injured spinal cord connect.

Even a severed spine, which Thomas-Saykaly has, is no obstacle.

"The nerve signals will jump and they will recover and they will re-grow," Cummings said.

The approach is different from that backed by many doctors and therapists. Cummings, who was paralyzed from the neck down in a swimming accident in 2000, said that like many patients, he was prescribed medication to eliminate the spastic movements he felt in his legs after those injuries.

But it is precisely those spasms that offer hope to people with spinal cord injuries that their brain is somehow still communicating with the rest of their body.

"You're trying to get signals down to your legs," Cummings said. "Why would you take something that kills these signals. It just doesn't make sense."

Thomas-Saykaly and Cummings both have been through therapy that taught them how to live within the confines of a wheelchair. At her first rehab center, nurses focused on teaching Thomas-Saykaly how to dress herself, brush her teeth and operate her wheelchair.

At Project Walk, Cummings and his colleague encourage people like Thomas-Saykaly to get out of their wheelchairs. "What we're saying is, it is a possibility. You do have an opportunity to walk after a spinal cord injury."

But that opportunity comes at a high price. Thomas-Saykaly began going to Project Walk's facility in Canton, Mass., in January. It her costs her $100 for each one-hour session.

The bill for a typical week is $400. And insurance will not pick up any of the costs, since Project Walk does not have doctors on staff.

After just a few weeks in the program, Thomas-Saykaly can already measure her progress. Pressing weights with her legs, she can handle 50 pounds now. Her trainer challenged her to 75 by the end of the month.

Thomas-Saykaly took that challenge and raised it to 100 pounds.

"Thursday is my deadline," she said with a smile.

RELATED INFORMATION

More information about the fundraiser in Pinardville.

Heather and Stacey of Two Friends Cafe, Bagel & Deli are donating all proceeds from hot and cold coffee this Saturday & Sunday to help defray Kelly's cost of rehab at 'Project Walk', so please find a moment to stop in and if you have even more time, hang around and enjoy the company in the Cafe'.

Stop in at the Cafe' for their new Hot Breakfast on the weekends....... http://www.twofriendsbagel.com/Breakfast Menu.htm

Reproduced by the Goffstown Residents Association.