October 8

Woman Loses Mobility But Never Her Smile

Posted: October 8, 2016

By BY JACKIE PUGLISI

The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — Kelly Morse has a beaming smile that welcomes everyone she meets. She is friendly, positive and upbeat. It’s an attitude she has carried for most of her life.

When an unknown illness suddenly left her almost completely paralyzed late last year, the 25 year old didn’t lose her spirit.

Everything happened in September of 2015, shortly after Morse started her last semester of optometry school at Salus University’s Pennsylvania College of Optometry in Elkins Park, Penn. She had just returned to her home in Philadelphia from a trip to the beach with her friends and was preparing for a Saturday clinic at school.

"[The next morning] I woke up with the worst headache that didn’t go away," Morse said. "I couldn’t break a fever."

Morse’s boyfriend, Dustin Canterbury, drove her to Winchester to be near her family and see a doctor.

During her doctor’s visit, she was sent to the emergency room at Winchester Medical Center. Within five days of her symptoms, her brain and spinal cord suffered severe swelling that left her paralyzed from the nose down. Her vocal cords were alsoparalyzed, and she couldn’t speak. She was placed on a ventilator and after five days at WMC was transferred to University of Virginia Hospital in Charlottesville. While there, she spent five days in the intensive care unit. She was on a ventilator for a total of 33 days and at UVA Hospital for 35.

"I don’t remember most of the month," she said.

From UVA, she moved to Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in Philadelphia. Two weeks after arriving there, she started to gain back function of her vocal cords and was able to speak after two months of silence. On March 1, she moved to The International Center for Spinal Cord Injury (ICSCI) at Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore.

To keep herself motivated, Morse created small goals for herself. She wanted to feed herself again. As her arm function returned, she was able to accomplish more, like putting in her contacts and brushing her hair. With each goal she accomplished, her confidence grew.

Doctors first thought she might have bacterial meningitis, but that was ruled out. Through process of elimination, doctors are calling her condition Acute Demyelinating Encephalomyelitis — an inflammation in the brain and spinal cord that damages the protective covering of nerve fibers. However, they still aren’t 100 percent sure that this is the right diagnosis.

Now home in Frederick County with her family, Morse has full sensation and movement abilities above her waist. Because her leg muscles are larger than those in the rest of her body, they will take the longest to recover.

The hardest part for Morse is not knowing when she will be able to walk again. Her doctor — Frederick Kozlowski at Winchester Internal Medicine — has told her she gains a millimeter of nerve growth a day.

"He said there are three things I need for a full recovery," she said. "Aggressive rehabilitation, patience and Vitamin P — a positive attitude."

Her mother, Nancy Morse, added that Kozlowski has been very supportive of Morse and is available if she simply is having a bad day and wants to talk.

Morse visits the Valley Health Wellness and Fitness Center on a regular basis to help build her strength. Alhough she is wheelchair-bound and unable to walk, she is strong enough to swim laps in the pool.

"When I started, it was like learning to swim all over again," she said.

She also does some weight lifting at the center.

Morse’s handicap hasn’t stopped her sense of adventure. In August, she visited Virginia Beach, where she had the opportunity to surf through Life Rolls On. The organization — founded by world champion quadriplegic surfer Jesse Billauer — gives paralyzed individuals the chance to experience the ocean through adaptive surfing. Participants lie on a surfboard and are assisted by an experienced surfer to ride the waves.

"It was the best thing ever," Morse said.

One of her goals is also to drive again. She would have to retake classes at the Department of Motor Vehicles and learn to drive with hand controls. However, she is unable to do that until she is approved for disability status, which she applied for back in early April.

Nancy said every week they see progress in Morse’s recovery.

"That’s an important part that helps keep our Vitamin P," she said.

Although Nancy wouldn’t have willingly chosen to become part of the spinal cord injury community, she said those she has met are the most positive group of people she knows.

"The patients have great, vibrant energy," she said.

Morse is a Millbrook High School graduate and attended Bridgewater College —where she met Canterbury and majored in biology. After putting her education on hold for about a year, she is back to taking classes through Pennsylvania College of Optometry. While the school does not typically offer online classes, they are working with her so she can finish her degree.

"I’m slowly easing back into it," she said. "I’m taking two classes right now. I’m impressed with how accommodating they’ve been."

"I wanted to be an optometrist since third grade," Morse said. "When I got my first pair of glasses, I left the office and I could see the leaves on the trees. I said, if I can do that for people every day, then I want to be an optometrist."

Nancy and Morse are overwhelmed by the amount of support shown by friends, family and strangers. Nancy and Morse’s father, Scott, and brother, James, stayed in a hotel room while Morse was at UVA Hospital.

"We never saw a hotel bill," Nancy said. "I’m not sure where the payment came from. People did unbelievable things for us. It was an unbelievable outpouring of love."

Food was delivered to the Morse’s home by family and friends. Someone also paid the family’s electric bill for one month. Morse received more than 600 cards, letters and electronic cards from professors, classmates, family and people who had never met her before but knew her story. She also received many visits while in the hospital and in rehabilitation.

Morse still talks to the patients and doctors she has met through her journey. She keeps a blog detailing her progress at www.kellymorsesjourney1.blogspot.com. It is also a coping mechanism. People she has never met have reached out to her through the blog to share stories similar to her own.

Canterbury was also very supportive. Morse went on a ventilator on the couple’s three-year anniversary. He slept in the ICU when Morse was at UVA Hospital.

Now, her boyfriend takes her out as much as he can to events like concerts and the fair to help keep her life as normal as possible.

"Kelly has always been pretty positive," Nancy said. "[When this started], she couldn’t talk, but she didn’t lose her smile."

To continue her rehabilitation efforts at home, Morse needs equipment not covered by her insurance company. An electrical stimulation bike uses electrodes that are placed on different muscle groups for stimulation. The bike can be used to fire muscles in the right order to simulate walking. The machine will help Morse to strengthen her legs and prepare them for walking. It usually costs around $24,000.

A standing frame, with a cost of $6,000, is meant to prevent bone loss. Morse will be able to use it to stand in and re-train her muscles to be in an upright position. It also helps with weight bearing.

To help pay for the equipment, Canterbury and his family are planning a fun run for Morse. A 5K fundraiser named Kel’s Fun Run will be held from 9 to 11 a.m. on Oct. 15 at the Clarke County Parks and Recreation trail. Registration is $30 per person and includes a T-shirt. To register, visit www.runsignup.com/Race/VA/Berryville/KelsFunRun. Prizes for the 5K include $75 for first place, a $50 gift card for second and a $25 gift card for third place.

A Christmas Bizarre is also slated for 9 to 3 p.m. on Nov. 12 at White House Event Center at 550 Fairmont Ave. One hundred percent of the proceeds from both events will go toward Morse’s equipment.

— Contact Jackie Puglisi at jpuglisi@winchesterstar.com

Follow on Twitter @LifeWinStar

And here are the pictures that were included in the article:

I thought I had support before, but after the article in the Winchester Star this morning, I'm even more amazed. People have messaged me, commented on my blog, and stopped my family and me in public. They're sharing similar stories, offering support, and giving advices or possible resources that I can look into to get the help I need. I laughed about being worried about the photos that might appear in the article and even had a Facebook post that day saying that I better put something on other than my workout clothes that I practically live in these days. Well, I'm glad I changed because there were three photos in the paper and they were great!

Jackie Puglisi wrote a great article and I'm still so honored she reached out to me in order to do it. Even I have a hard time keeping the order of everything happened straight or the number of days different things happened, but it was a perfect recount of the events of the past year. I'm praying that because of this story, more people will be aware of different things that go along with paralysis and when reading my blog, the public will take more notice in things that wheelchair users encounter and the fact that just because something is "ADA compliant" doesn't mean it's necessarily accessible. ADA also encompasses the blind and deaf, so it doesn't always meet wheelchair standards.

I say all the time how I've studied science and been around the medical field my whole life. I studied it in school, worked in various offices, and even saw my own patients, but I never recall hearing the term "spinal cord injury." I knew what paralysis was, obviously knew people in wheelchairs, but I was still so clueless and didn't even know. I know God is using my story for something. I know there's a purpose and while I may not know the extent of it, I feel like at least part of it is to spread awareness.