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Part I: Hunting for a miracle, grasping at a chance
2008-05-03
It was only a chair, but it had become his purgatory. Muzi.com News 10068362-0 (muzi.com)Each day that John Pou spent in the wheelchair, his spirit seemed to die a little more. It was a perpetual reminder of the calamity that had brought him and Marci, even the kids, to this place. Muzi.com News 10068362-1 (muzi.com) The chair stood for all that was lost: A promising career as a policeman, a vigorous life spent in karate classes and fishing the lakes of his beloved North Carolina, future plans conjured when things were perfect -- plans that seemed irrelevant and impossible now. Muzi.com News 10068362-2 (muzi.com) Their home, too, the dream house John had worked on with his own hands, felt like a taunting monument to his inadequacies: The pool where he could no longer swim or play chicken with Chase and Kacie, the garden he could no longer tend, the front door he couldn't enter without a makeshift ramp for his wheelchair. Muzi.com News 10068362-3 (muzi.com) That chair, affixed to him like an unwanted limb. Muzi.com News 10068362-4 (muzi.com) It had been eight months since John shattered his C-5 vertebra diving over a wave during a family vacation. Eight months spent in either a hospital bed or that detestable chair. Muzi.com News 10068362-5 (muzi.com) Eight months, also, for Marci to hunt for the miracle that just might bring him and their family back from despair. Muzi.com News 10068362-6 (muzi.com) And now, staring at her laptop, she prayed she had found it. Muzi.com News 10068362-7 (muzi.com) On the video, a quadriplegic was doing leg pushes on a Total Gym, riding a stationary bike -- walking, even, with support crutches in each hand. His wheelchair was parked behind him. Muzi.com News 10068362-8 (muzi.com) Marci clicked on another link, and saw a paralyzed man working his legs with weights and lifting himself, using a ballet barre for assistance, from a sitting position to standing. Muzi.com News 10068362-9 (muzi.com) John couldn't even reach for a glass of tea without losing his balance and flopping forward in his chair. Muzi.com News 10068362-10 (muzi.com) "How are they doing that?" Marci thought. Muzi.com News 10068362-11 (muzi.com) She studied the clips again. Then again. Muzi.com News 10068362-12 (muzi.com) It was an April night in 2006, and John was in bed with a urinary tract infection and a fever of 104.8 degrees -- their latest taste of misery. But sitting at her kitchen table, looking at videos of the clients at this "recovery" center in California, Marci felt a trace of optimism return. Muzi.com News 10068362-13 (muzi.com) "This is it," she decided. "This is what we're supposed to do." Muzi.com News 10068362-14 (muzi.com) She read about the five-phase program that promised added muscle mass, fewer health problems, greater independence and restored function -- all through intensive exercise. There was no talk of learning to cope. No bleak predictions about skills that would be lost and never regained. Muzi.com News 10068362-15 (muzi.com) This place wasn't about learning to live in the chair, but trying to get out of it. For good. Muzi.com News 10068362-16 (muzi.com) Even its name inspired hope: Project Walk. Muzi.com News 10068362-17 (muzi.com) "He could be one of those guys," Marci thought that night -- and again the next day, as she rolled her husband up to the computer and played the videos for him. Muzi.com News 10068362-18 (muzi.com) For the first time since the accident, Marci had something to hold onto. All she could think was, "He's going to walk." Muzi.com News 10068362-19 (muzi.com) If only she could get John to grab hold of the dream, too. Muzi.com News 10068362-20 (muzi.com) ___ Muzi.com News 10068362-21 (muzi.com) When tragedy and life intersect, do you accept the hand you're dealt and adapt -- or do you refuse to resign yourself to what may be inevitable, despite what the doctors say and what your own demons whisper when the doubt returns? Muzi.com News 10068362-22 (muzi.com) In searching for answers beyond day-to-day clinical advice, John and Marci looked deep into themselves, then talked through what they found there. They opened themselves, and their family story, to an Associated Press reporter, speaking freely over 18 months of interviews and sharing intimacies -- from personal journals and dinner-table debates to extensive medical records. Muzi.com News 10068362-23 (muzi.com) This tumult was new for Marci and John, despite their in-the-line-of-fire jobs. He served in the Army during Desert Storm and was a 10-year veteran of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department; she had worked 20 years at Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte, N.C., including eight years in the ER. Muzi.com News 10068362-24 (muzi.com) But she was an information technology specialist, and he had never had to fire his weapon as a policeman. Tragedy seemed remote. Muzi.com News 10068362-25 (muzi.com) John Pou (pronounced as in church pew) was a North Carolina boy through and through, a daredevil who spent his younger days hurtling over creeks on his motocross bike. On his first date with Marci, he pulled up in his old muscle car -- a '78 Pontiac Trans Am. A friend warned that Marci might think him a redneck, but the girl who just happened to adore cars (and football) fell in love instead. Muzi.com News 10068362-26 (muzi.com) In John, Marci saw something else entirely: a quiet strength that would become the backbone of their 13-year marriage. Muzi.com News 10068362-27 (muzi.com) "My angel," she liked to call him. "My knight in shining armor." Muzi.com News 10068362-28 (muzi.com) With her long blond hair and sweet smile, Marci looked more the girl-next-door than a tough-as-nails tomboy. Inside, she was a bit of both. A woman of strong faith and passion, she always wore a brave face through the worst storms, including her own battles with lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. Muzi.com News 10068362-29 (muzi.com) "Don't tell me I can't," she would say. Muzi.com News 10068362-30 (muzi.com) Together, John and Marci lived their lives by the Golden Rule, taught their kids to do the same. They were the kind of folks who wouldn't just lend a hand in times of trouble, but a bed, a hot meal, a hug and prayers. Muzi.com News 10068362-31 (muzi.com) Then came Aug. 22, 2005, and Chase sprinting across the sand to Marci at Topsail Beach, their annual family vacation spot on the North Carolina coast. Muzi.com News 10068362-32 (muzi.com) "Mommy! Mommy!" her 7-year-old said, "I think Daddy's dying." Muzi.com News 10068362-33 (muzi.com) Marci had taken their 5-year-old daughter Kacie back to the motel to change her bathing suit. Chase built sandcastles on the beach while John went for a swim. Muzi.com News 10068362-34 (muzi.com) Marci looked at her little boy. He shouldn't cry wolf, she said. But Chase was insistent. Muzi.com News 10068362-35 (muzi.com) "No, Mamma!" he said, firmly grabbing her arm. Muzi.com News 10068362-36 (muzi.com) Marci looked down the beach and saw John on his back on the sand. She ran. Muzi.com News 10068362-37 (muzi.com) "Help me," her husband mouthed, unable to speak. Muzi.com News 10068362-38 (muzi.com) John never lost consciousness. Not in that awful moment when he dived over a wave and felt his head hit the sand as though it were a stack of bricks. Not in the moments after, when his entire body went limp in the water and he feared he would drown while his son played on the beach behind him. Not when he finally floated to shore and saw his boy smiling overhead as if Daddy were kidding -- smiling until John managed to mouth, "I need help." Muzi.com News 10068362-39 (muzi.com)
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