Mission Moment: At Shepherd, Being Close 'Home' Is Part of the Therapy

Bill and Janice Stiles put their own stamp on their little home-away-from-home in Shepherd Center’s Woodruff Family Residence Center. A big plastic bin with a folded blanket on top served as an ottoman. A bedspread featuring yellow smiley faces brightened up the bedroom. And Bill’s laptop and papers turned the kitchen table into a desk. 

Every day, while Janice went to therapy in the hospital just across the parking deck, Bill worked remotely at his job in marketing, walked along Atlanta’s Beltline, played an occasional game of golf, and shopped for groceries to cook dinner. He confesses that he never cracked the cover of the cookbook provided as part of a fully furnished kitchen. Instead, Janice instructed him as he tried to cook.

Bill and Janice, who live in Chattanooga, Tennessee, were beneficiaries of Shepherd Center’s housing, provided at no cost to patients and families who live more than 60 miles from the hospital. Until the summer of 2024, stays were limited to 30 days. But the opening of the Arthur M. Blank Family Residences more than doubled the number of units, making it possible for Shepherd to provide housing for the duration of a patient’s time at Shepherd. 

Relatives of Shepherd inpatients occupy some apartments. Day Program patients and their relatives stay in others. Some units have two bedrooms, providing space for multiple family members, including children. 

For Bill and Janice, the journey to Shepherd began in their own yard when Janice asked Bill to cut a tree limb that was hanging over her hydrangeas. Wanting to protect the shrubs, Janice tried to catch the limb, fell over a retaining wall, and landed face-down, unable to move. 

After being treated in an intensive care unit (ICU) in Chattanooga, she transferred to Shepherd as an inpatient in the Comprehensive Rehabilitation Unit (CRU), where she stayed from May 9 until July 3, 2024. When she arrived at Shepherd, she says, she could move only her toes and her right arm. “My legs couldn’t do much of anything.” While she was an inpatient, Bill slept in her hospital room. They returned to Chattanooga for two weeks in July and then she came back to Shepherd for more therapy in Shepherd Center’s Spinal Cord Injury Day Program, which provides intensive outpatient therapy. This time, they moved into family housing. 

Janice’s time in the Day Program built on what she had accomplished on CRU. By the time they left for good, Janice’s upper body was still a bit stiff, but she could write, feed herself, and brush her teeth. She was walking so well that a woman she and Bill met for the first time asked which of them was the patient.
Shepherd therapists have “done an absolute miracle with my legs,” Janice says. She doesn’t think her progress would have been possible anywhere but Shepherd, and her time in the Day Program wouldn’t have been possible without the accessible family housing.

After 53 years of marriage, Bill and Janice would not think of being apart during her therapy, but the cost of a hotel room close to Shepherd would have been prohibitive, Bill says. He calls the apartment “a tremendous gift.” 

“I loved the convenience,” Janice says. “What else I loved about it is the simplicity. We had what we needed, but not more than we needed. It was perfect for us.”

Written by Gayle White

This story is an excerpt from “Mission Moments: 50 Years of Rebuilding Lives One Moment at a Time,” a book celebrating Shepherd’s 50th anniversary in 2025. You can explore the full eBook or purchase a hardcover copy here.