One of life’s greatest lessons is how quickly it can change in a split second.
For Jack Diviney, he is learning to rebuild a life after nearly losing it following a gunshot wound to his head.
“I don’t know a whole lot about the incident, but I know that someone he trusted shot him and caused a serious brain injury,” Natalie Melvin, Jack’s mother, said. “I was told that he wouldn’t make it through the day. Then he had several surgeries, all of them they told me there was good chance he might not make it through and if he did, he probably would never be able to see or walk.”
Recovering from the serious trauma, the 20-year-old from Olathe, Kansas, transitioned from
CoxHealth Medical Center South in Springfield, Missouri to Madonna Rehabilitation Hospitals’ specialized brain injury program. Very weak, Jack needed help not only physically, but also mentally and emotionally.
“Jack went through a very traumatic event and being able to cope with that, as well as relearning everything is a very overwhelming process,” Karen Eilers, PT, DPT, CBIS, a Madonna physical therapist, said. “Initially, it was very challenging for him to attend to certain things and focus on each therapy session, but you could just tell there was that determination inside of him that just kept pushing him.”
Recognizing the amount of pain Jack was in, his care team started slow.
“I couldn’t stand up,” Jack said. “I couldn’t hold my balance. Definitely couldn’t walk and I couldn’t eat solid food yet.”
His specialized rehabilitation program combining physical, occupational and speech therapy focused on his self-cares, mobility and his vision. Not only did Jack lose strength and function in his left arm and leg, he had lost much of his sight in his right eye.
“He had peripheral awareness and depth perception issues because he lost his sight and function of the right eye,” Jessica Virgil, MOT, OTR/L, CBIS, a Madonna occupational therapist said. “So we addressed left eye oculomotor skills and he just became more confident in his abilities.”
His vision started to improve, which translated to his mobility. Eilers started him on the body weight support treadmill to provide some facilitation and repetition before moving to a cane.
“That was fantastic because it lets us facilitate and help with the weaker side and not have to hold him up,” Eilers said. “It was definitely hard in the beginning and we would do little spurts at a time as much as he could tolerate. But at the end, he was able to walk consistently for five minutes without me having to help. It just let us challenge him a little bit more every time. We progressed from walking with a significant amount of help from two people down to one person and just using a cane. By the end, he was able to take steps himself and keep his own balance, I was just there holding on for safety.”
As Jack made strides physically, his care team saw emotional progress as well and his spunky personality emerged.
“As Jack got stronger and could do more things for himself, you could see that confidence grow and he gained that power back,” Eilers said. “He thrived. He was joking around and making everybody laugh.”