Atlanta, GA,
03
May
2021
|
07:59 AM
America/New_York

"Just Go For It"

After sustaining a traumatic brain injury from a motorcycle crash, U.S. Army veteran Michael Meltzer pursues a master's degree and a new outlook on life.

In 2008, Marcy Meltzer lost her husband to heart disease. In 2010, she lost her oldest son, Nathan, to lymphoma, at age 27. Nearly a decade later, in the early morning hours of July 15, 2019, Marcy got a call that her youngest son, Michael — then 27, too — had been in a severe motorcycle crash.

“I got to the hospital, and there’s a Code Blue for Michael,” Marcy recounts. “It’s one of five he had that first day. He bled out twice. The doctor’s saying, ‘If we get through these six hours, we’ll see about the next six.’”

At one point, she walked over to the windows in the waiting room and started banging on the glass, shouting to the heavens: “Don’t you dare take another son from me!”

Michael would spend more than 10 weeks in the Intensive Care Unit at Delray Medical Center, where doctors saved his life. The longer-term concern was the traumatic brain injury he’d sustained. When Michael arrived at Shepherd Center, he was in a state of unresponsive wakefulness. He was also a skeletal 110 pounds — 70 pounds lighter than he was pre-injury.

“Everyone at Shepherd Center was remarkable,” Marcy says. “They got weight back on him, they dressed him every day and started therapy right away. And they listened to our input. That meant so much.”

Michael improved during his stay and began emerging to full consciousness shortly after Marcy took him home. A friend gave Michael the classic Simon memory game to help sharpen his mental development and his manual dexterity.

“Once he mastered that and asked for my iPad, I knew he was on his way back,” Marcy says with a laugh.

As close as the two have come over the past year and a half, they each joke that they’re OK with not being roommates forever. That day may soon be approaching.

Ten surgeries removed from his injury, Michael is close to full independence. He’s also pursuing a master’s degree in geomatics engineering — something the U.S. Army veteran knows well from his service in Iraq, where he mapped coordinates for the famed 82nd Airborne Division. His next goal is a career in geospatial mapping at the Environmental Protection Agency.

“I feel like I’m the same person I was before, but needing help from others has changed me,” Michael says. “No more pride, no more inhibitions. Just go for it.”

 

Written by Phillip Jordan

About Shepherd Center

Shepherd Center provides world-class clinical care, research, and family support for people experiencing the most complex conditions, including spinal cord and brain injuries, multi-trauma, traumatic amputations, stroke, multiple sclerosis, and pain. An elite center recognized as both Spinal Cord Injury and Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems, Shepherd Center is ranked by U.S. News as one of the nation’s top hospitals for rehabilitation. Shepherd Center treats thousands of patients annually with unmatched expertise and unwavering compassion to help them begin again.