From Bootcamp to Bike Ride

At the end of April, 33-year-old Alex Manning and a few close friends biked 184 miles on the C&O Canal Towpath, which runs from Georgetown, in Washington, D.C., to Cumberland, Maryland.

But for Alex, this wasn’t just any ride. He rode to mark what he calls his “10-year TBI-versary” — with the friends who helped save his life the day he was injured. Ten years ago, Alex and his friends were downhill skateboarding on a rural mountain road near Huntsville, Alabama, when Alex crashed, sustaining a traumatic brain injury. Fortunately, Alex was wearing a helmet — he says that otherwise, he wouldn’t be here today — but his injuries were still life-threatening.

Cell service was spotty, so one of Alex’s friends had to run down the mountain and knock on doors to borrow a phone and call 911. A helicopter transferred Alex to Huntsville Hospital, where he spent two weeks, one of them in the ICU, before transferring to Shepherd Center.

Alex doesn’t remember much of those first days at Shepherd, but he does know that he used a wheelchair for the first week of his rehabilitation. In therapy, he worked on walking, strengthening his right hand’s grip, and speech.

He struggled with memory issues and says that every day, his therapists would ask him questions like “Do you know where you are?” and “Do you know why you are here?”  He recounts one particularly difficult day when they asked him if he knew where he lived. He was living in Huntsville before coming to Shepherd, but his answer was Auburn, where he went to college.

“My mom was in the room, and she just started crying. And I didn't know why she was crying,” he remembers. “And I was like, ‘What's going on? That’s where I live, right?’ So that was kind of rough.”

Alex’s mom stayed in Shepherd’s family housing throughout his rehabilitation, which he says made a big difference.

“It's kind of a scary situation — I couldn't remember anything from before my injury,” he explains. “Not knowing where you are and not knowing why you're there or anything like that, it's nice to see family every day. And I have friends in Atlanta, too, so they would come visit me.”

During his second week at Shepherd, Alex began to walk again, and his memory started improving.

When he told his therapists he hoped to attend graduate school, they incorporated research on choosing a graduate program into his therapy sessions.

“I think doing that as a therapy task helped me actually do it in real life and go to grad school,” Alex says.

After discharge, he lived with his parents for a couple of months and remembers that the transition from Shepherd to life at home was difficult.

“[At Shepherd] I remember feeling like, ‘Oh, yeah, I'm doing pretty good. I’m walking and all that stuff.’ And then once I went into the real world, I was like, ‘Oh, no, I'm not doing good,’” he recalls. “There's so much going on, there's lots to keep track of, everything's stimulating.”

But Alex continued to improve and soon returned to living independently.

“I think that part of any kind of self-improvement or learning is you have to get uncomfortable,” he reflects.

He returned to his job as a quality control chemist at a pharmaceutical company and applied to graduate school.

In 2017, two years after his injury, Alex was accepted to a grad school program but deferred his entrance for a year to hike the Appalachian Trail. It was during that hike that he discovered the towpath he rode this month.

After hiking the AT, he attended graduate school and earned a master’s degree in chemistry. Then, he returned to work in the pharmaceutical industry.

Alex says he still has difficulties with his memory and with double vision caused by nerve damage from his accident, but he has found ways to compensate.

“I'm an analytical chemist. When you work in a laboratory, for good manufacturing practice for medicines, you have to document everything you do right when you do it. It’s called contemporaneous documentation,” he explains. “So, I thought, ‘Maybe I can do this for my personal life instead of just my laboratory work.’

“When I left Shepherd Center, I carried a pocket notebook with me everywhere. And at the start of the day, I would write down what I wanted to do for that day and … I would document what I had done.”

His memory has improved somewhat, so he doesn’t rely as heavily on the notebook as he once did, but he still uses it on days he’s especially tired or having what he calls a “bad brain day.”

Each year, Alex observes the anniversary of his injury with some kind of adventure, sometimes sporting the “I Survived Shepherd Center Bootcamp” T-shirt he earned upon graduation from Shepherd. This year, his friends traveled to Washington, D.C., from Alabama, North Carolina, and Oregon to mark the day with him, cycling and camping along the C&O Canal. His original Shepherd graduation T-shirt is a little worse for wear, so Alex requested a new one to wear during the trip, a request that Shepherd staff were happy to fulfill.

“When I got hurt and taken to Huntsville Hospital — the phone call they [my parents] got was, ‘Your son is in the ICU, and we don't know if he's going to make it through the night.’ But then they got there, and I made it through the night,” he explains. “So every year, on April 26, I try to do some sort of physical activity just to appreciate the fact that I can do these things that once upon a time, I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to do, because I do remember thinking that I may have to live with my parents for life, and I may never drive again or anything like that. And so, I like to take pictures wearing that shirt. ‘Look at me. I'm on top of the mountain, and I'm not in a hospital bed anymore.’”

Alex and his friends started their ride on a Thursday afternoon. 184 miles, and what sounds like about that many bug bites later, they made it to the trail's end on a Saturday evening. During the ride, Alex says he thought about what it meant to him and why he chose it to celebrate these 10 years of his life post-injury.

“I think I still really get a kick out of the fact that my body works pretty good despite expectations, so doing a greater-than-normal physical activity just makes me happy,” Alex explains. “But also, I think my TBI influences the choice of this activity. This ride, despite being long and physically challenging, is pretty simple. The path is wide and clear, navigation is easy (there are only two directions to go), and there are no cars to worry about. Compared to anything else in life/recovery, riding the towpath is easy. It’s a great way to feel good about myself! So, sharing this experience of riding bikes 184 miles with my friends who saved my life and heard my evolving prognoses felt like three days of winning the lottery. Against all odds, we were zooming up the Potomac on bicycles!”

Written by Ruth Underwood