Page 17 - Flathead Beacon // 3.18.15

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IN DEPTH
MARCH 18, 2015 | 17
working against each other. The situation is called tone, and it is attributed to neural damage; if her quadricep muscles in her thigh want to flex, her hamstring muscles will fight them.
Add all of these remaining issues to- gether, and an outside observer might say such a person has no business dan- gling from a rope, 20 feet off the ground, finding footholds and pushing herself up the wall.
But Emily is all about pushing boundaries. Why, last November, did she become determined to climb the wall?
“Mostly because it’s a challenge,” she said. “I’m kind of competing against my- self.”
The first time she decided to climb, she made it up perhaps a quarter of the wall, Jandy said. Along with managing Rocky Mountain Outfitter, Jandy also spends Monday evenings as the climbing wall instructor at The Summit.
“It was clear she was excited about it, and I definitely felt real positive about that first experience,” he said. “She gets a little further every time.”
Initially, Jandy let Emily tackle the wall by herself, while he stayed on the ground and belayed her line. When it be- came clear she had the strength to climb but not the balance to keep her body close to the wall, Jandy started climbing next to her, not supporting her weight or pulling her toward the top, but holding his hand near or on her back to keep her from falling away from the hand- and footholds.
By February, Emily and Jandy were making good time up the wall, and even- tually, they made it to the top.
“Everybody else at the wall, they were really aware that wow, this is cool,” Jandy said. “There was a round of ap- plause.”
Emily is also making literal strides in getting back to walking without sup- port. Though she still uses a wheelchair, she hopes to use only a walker by her birthday in April.
“I want to get out of this darn thing,” she said, tapping her wheelchair. “I re- ally want to use my walker all the time, then hopefully a cane, then hopefully nothing. By summer, I want to walk ev- erywhere.”
But walking for Emily isn’t just put- ting one foot in front of the other – her brain has to manually remember each aspect of movement as she performs it. Walking is flexing the thigh to lift the knee, extending the leg, feeling the foot hit the ground, putting pressure on the foot, then moving the body weight with the leg, all while keeping track of her feet and posture.
Last July, Emily was walking around the track, but couldn’t speak and walk at the same time. If someone asked her a question, she had to sit down and an- swer, because it was too much for her brain to track a conversation as well as everything involved with walking.
Now, she’s walking and talking at the same time, and enjoys chatting with oth- er Summit exercisers.
“I haven’t been your typical, by-the- book TBI (traumatic brain injury),” Em- ily said.
To help improve her walking and re- build the neuro pathways that once al- lowed her to walk, run, dance, and swim with ease, Emily works on a machine called a GlideTrak at home. Placed over a treadmill, the apparatus holds Emily’s body weight and suspends her over the walkway, so her legs can move without pressure.
Medical bills for her injuries, sur- geries, and recovery have exceeded
$500,000, and insurance hasn’t covered everything. Her mother, Inez, works as her primary caregiver, but the family didn’t have the cash on hand to purchase the GlideTrak outright. Instead, they lease it, but have set up a Go Fund Me account allowing for donations to help with the cost.
Proceeds from the Go Fund Me ac- count will also cover the cost of publish- ing the book Emily has written about her ordeal.
She has also gotten back into her art. Before the crash, Emily produced intri- cate drawings and bronze sculptures, usually of horses. She credits her horse therapy instructors for getting her back into art, and now builds horse sculp- tures out of wire, which she sells. She’s trying to get back to drawing, but her hands still shake.
Emily Berner walks around the track at The Summit with her dad, Tom, on March 12.
GREG LINDSTROM | FLATHEAD BEACON
“I RECOGNIZE THAT CLIMBING IS A REALLY GREAT METAPHOR FOR EVERYTHING
WE DO IN LIFE – THE HARDSHIPS, THE STRUGGLES, THE TRIUMPHS, THE PARTNERSHIPS, THE RELATIONSHIPS, THE COMMUNITY.”
JANDY COX
With each successive climb up the wall and each lap around the track, Em- ily continues to defy the odds. Next on her list: swimming, kayaking, and using a hand-propelled bicycle.
“Her whole recovery, people have been second-guessing her and she’s been proving them wrong,” Jandy said. “I recognize that climbing is a really great metaphor for everything we do in life – the hardships, the struggles, the triumphs, the partnerships, the rela- tionships, the community. Certainly working with Emily has been a real ex- pression of that. It brings me to tears a lot just thinking about what she’s doing through climbing.”
To visit Emily Berner’s Go Fund Me page, go to www.gofundme.com/Emily-
Berner.
[email protected]
Emily Berner, pictured March 12, 2015. GREG LINDSTROM | FLATHEAD BEACON