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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Guide Weather Subscribe Contact Us March 28, 2005 Learning to walk all over again By Vickie Aldous Ashland Daily Tidings Bruce Trowbridge rolls his electric wheelchair into an empty, mirror-lined room at the Ashland Family YMCA. Bruce Trowbridge was paralyzed from the chest down and with the aid of Alyce Miller, his physical therapist, he is learning to walk again. Orville Hector | Ashland Daily Tidings Accompanying him, his physical therapist, Alyce Miller, and two aides take each of his sweat pant-clad legs and slide on his New Balance running shoes. Miller pushes back the wheelchair's foot rest. They're ready to begin. "You're going to help me extend that leg," she says, raising up Trowbridge's lower leg. "There you go. Lift. Hold as high as you can. Lift." They work together to extend the other leg. Then Miller pushes a walker in front of Trowbridge in his wheelchair. He grasps the handgrips and, with a grunt, heaves himself to his feet, where he stands with legs quivering, bent over. Then he straightens. Three times he sits and practices pushing himself to his feet. Trowbridge stands again, shoves the walker forward and lifts and drags his left foot to take a step. The right foot grudgingly follows. He takes more steps, and then more. Sometimes the feet slide forward obediently, sometimes not. The traction on his running shoes - which would have provided him with sound footing on the narrow, wooded trails he once ran and biked - now grips and catches on the carpeting. An active life Three years ago, Trowbridge was mountain biking the Toothpick Trail in the hills above town when, spotting a rough spot ahead, he tried to get off his bike. He became tangled on the dismount and fell into a ravine. Trowbridge tried to move, but nothing happened. He felt a terrible burning in his neck. Friends who had been running with him while he biked called by cell phone for help. He prefers not to think about the nine months he spent in the hospital and in nursing homes afterward. Because Trowbridge suffered what are known as "incomplete fractures" of four vertebrae in his neck, doctors were unable to deliver a prognosis. People with such fractures experience widely varying levels of recovery, he was told. "You have a lot of time to lie and think," Trowbridge recalled. With only limited movement in his arms, he contemplated suicide. The lifelong educator had taught students at Ashland High School, Southern Oregon University and other Rogue Valley schools. He used his teaching skills on the Isle of Guam and in Europe and Mexico. He had worked for Habitat for Humanity, and just four months before his accident, had run the Portland marathon. Given that he had already lived such a full life, what would be the point in going on if he couldn't keep doing the things he loved, Trowbridge asked himself. But friends from his running club came to his side and strung Christmas lights on the halo that immobilized his head and neck. For their fallen companion - who they had nicknamed "Baggy" because he played the bagpipe - they sold hats and bought an electric wheelchair. Students from North Medford High School, where Trowbridge had been teaching English, came to visit "Mr. T." He decided to change his attitude. Six months after his accident, he began to feel zigzagging electrical charges in his toes and started physical therapy. Eight months ago he began the intensive sessions run by Ashland Community Hospital therapists using the facilities at the YMCA. He lives independently in Ashland on Clay Street, which is conveniently located for his wheelchair forays to Albertson's for groceries and his twice-weekly physical therapy sessions. His body burns all the time, a sign that his nerves and muscles are trying to come back to life. Step by step Now Trowbridge, 63, reaches the end of the room at the Y and stands looking at himself in the mirror. "Alice! Get me some make-up. I look old!" he says. He sits down in the wheelchair and rolls backward to his starting point. The process begins again - pulling himself up; straightening; shoving the walker forward; forcing, demanding, willing his legs and feet to move. Then he comes to a standstill. "Now look at your feet," Miller says. "Oh, gee whiz," Trowbridge exclaims as he looks in the mirror at his shoes that have wedged up against each other. He separates his feet and begins work on the new challenge for today - turning around once he hits the end of the room and walking back rather than returning in his wheelchair. "Wow! It's actually working," he grunts out as he pushes the walker through an arc and starts back, sweat beading his forehead. "Oh, this is fun. I want more of this." He reaches his starting point and sits back down. Then he's up again. Miller tells him he will now try to let go of his walker and stand. Afraid of falling, Trowbridge lifts one hand from the walker grip and waves it, but keeps the other clenched to his support. Miller says all he has to do is lift both hands and let them hover right above the grips. "I'm going to go out and do my best," he says, and making a boxing analogy, asks for a mouthpiece. Then he lifts both hands and stands alone. "I just acted like I couldn't do it before because I like all the attention," Trowbridge tells the therapists who circle around him. It's time to walk again across the room, make an arc and walk back. He surges forward with the walker like a marathon runner trying to overtake a competitor during the final sprint. "Just take your time," Miller cautions, showing him how pushing the walker too far forward is actually making it harder. "You're not on the running team, yet." "I like that word - yet," he says. Trowbridge makes his turn and takes big, lurching steps as he nears the wall, his finish line. "Get out the whip," he says through gritted teeth as he fights his way to the wall. Back in his wheelchair, Trowbridge catches his breath and finishes with warm-down exercises that help strengthen his trunk. Then the therapists take off his shoes. His feet in their white socks sit once again on the footrest. Hand on his wheelchair controller, he's ready to go. Staff writer Vickie Aldous can be reached at 482-3456 x 3018 or [email protected]. 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