McKenzie Schweigert describes September 3, 2024, as a huge shock and one of the most confusing days of her life. The previously healthy 21-year-old from Sioux City, Iowa, went to the hospital because she was suddenly unable to feel her legs. She was flown to CHI Bergan Mercy in Omaha, where she was diagnosed with neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder, a rare autoimmune disease that causes the body to attack the central nervous system. For McKenzie, it caused paralysis from the waist down.
“You don’t think anything like this is ever going to happen to you,” she said. “It was very hard for me to process at first.”
McKenzie came to Madonna Rehabilitation Hospitals for its specialized spinal cord injury program and expertise in neurological conditions. She set a goal to be independent, whether that was from a wheelchair level or from standing.
“Initially when you meet a patient after a big trauma or change in mobility like McKenzie had, people are shy, nervous and kind of down on themselves,” Kassi Pichler, PT, DPT, McKenzie’s physical therapist, said. “I walked into McKenzie’s room and she was smiling and she was like, ‘Ok, what are we going to do?’ I told her that I was going to give her my best and I knew she was going to give me her best and we were going to figure out where that was going to lead us.”
That can-do attitude led them to a wide array of Madonna’s specialized rehabilitation technology. Pichler started McKenzie on the Lokomat robotic gait training treadmill. This gave McKenzie full bodyweight support and extra motorized assistance with repetitive stepping motions.
“It took a little bit for her body to adapt to being upright, but when I took the leg orthoses off, both of her legs actually started to step on their own,” Pichler said. “Then, I knew she had the coordination. She has the neurological ability to make a reciprocal stepping pattern. We just needed the strength.”
Through hours of intense daily physical and occupational therapy, McKenzie’s legs got stronger. Pichler transitioned her to a platform walker, which still provided some upper-body support and allowed her to advance her legs. McKenzie surprised herself with how well she could navigate with the new device.
“She was not only able to take a step, but with every step, she got better,” Pichler said. “She didn’t get fatigued. She actually got stronger, which was a really cool thing to see. She just needed to feel that she could do that again and have the confidence in that.”
As soon as she knew McKenzie could handle steps, Pichler upped the challenge again. She had McKenzie use Madonna’s newest equipment, the Andago bodyweight support device.
“It allows you the freedom of movement for our natural translation up and down when we walk as well as the ability to lose your balance and recover it,” Pichler said. “That was very much getting McKenzie outside her comfort zone so her body could learn to adapt to that and actually learn the control she needed.”
In addition to her traditional physical and occupational therapies, McKenzie utilized Madonna’s warm-water therapy pool to further refine her gait and strengthen her legs.
“I think pool therapy helped me tremendously,” McKenzie said. “I was able to actually stand up on my own. The water is obviously going to relieve some of that weight, but it still felt good to have no equipment, just all my own standing, doing workouts. I felt like every time I had pool therapy, the next day I could do something new or I had more stamina to do something.”
To practice everything she had worked on at Madonna, McKenzie participated in several community outings with recreation therapy. She went shopping at HomeGoods, to Vala’s pumpkin patch and to Felius cat café.
“Community re-entry was the biggest goal,” Alannah DiBerardino, CTRS, McKenzie’s recreation therapist, said. “We really focused on what she was doing prior to coming here, and really utilizing the resources we have at Madonna and in Omaha to get her to experience some of the specific Omaha places that aren’t in Sioux City.”
On community outings, McKenzie practiced navigating new situations in both a wheelchair and a walker, enhanced her standing balance and endurance, and worked on taking care of herself mentally
“All of the things that she really enjoyed as a 21-year-old, I wanted to show that it is possible to do these fun things while still rehabbing,” DiBerardino said.
With each community outing, DiBerardino says she saw McKenzie’s confidence grow.
“She always has been super positive, and having that attitude took her far,” DiBerardino said. “With that came the confidence and each day she was more and more ready to return home safely.”
Having a strong support system along the way also sped up McKenzie’s recovery. Pichler says sometimes, laughter is truly the best medicine, and the Schweigert family’s sense of humor kept things positive and light.
“Any time a big life change like this happens, it’s hard to trust or be able to be confident in what you’re doing around anybody,” Pichler said. “What we were able to do with McKenzie because her grandma and mom were here at all times, we gave them the ability to help her move in her room and help her do her daily tasks, so not only did she have the confidence in us that she could do that movement, but she was able to trust her family to do it with her.”
Rehabilitating from a serious illness and relearning to walk, McKenzie says, forced her to mature quickly and look at life from a new perspective. She credits the bonds she made with her care teams at Bergan and Madonna for helping her navigate her new diagnosis.
“I just keep thinking, my very beginning experience of being admitted to the hospital, I could not be here right now,” she said. “You never know what’s going to happen the next day and I keep thinking, don’t take life for granted. Don’t stress about the little things. That’s what keeps me very positive. I’m here today, getting stronger, so I’m very, very thankful.”