Setting and Reaching Goals

When Raymond Leonard began experiencing upper respiratory symptoms in August 2021, he thought he had COVID-19. He tested negative and chalked it up to the flu. However, over the next three days, his symptoms worsened, and by the time he arrived at Emory University Hospital’s emergency room, he couldn’t move. Doctors diagnosed him with Guillain-Barré Syndrome, which causes the immune system to attack the nerves and sometimes results in paralysis.

Because he had struggled with breathing during that period, doctors placed him in a medically induced coma and put him on a ventilator to give his lungs some relief. During that time, Raymond also had a stroke.

“I woke up at Shepherd Center a month later, still on the ventilator, and I was only able to move my head from side to side,” Raymond remembers.

He spent the next three months in the Comprehensive Rehabilitation Unit (CRU), receiving many forms of therapy, including physical, speech, and occupational therapy, among others. He learned to walk again and to perform activities like feeding and dressing himself.

His progress was slow but steady. He started using a power wheelchair, and by the time he returned home just before Thanksgiving, he was using a manual wheelchair. He continued in outpatient therapy, practicing walking on the Lokomat®. He eventually moved to a walker and set a goal of walking up the stairs with only the aid of a cane.

“I was motivated by setting incremental goals,” Raymond says. “That really helped because I could see progress.”

Raymond, who has spent his career in education, set another goal for himself: to return to Factory Shoals Middle School in Douglasville, Georgia, where he serves as principal.

Again, he had to take it slowly. Raymond and his doctors decided he should begin by returning to work for two hours a day, twice a week. In April, he increased that to eight hours a week through the end of the school year. He continued therapy throughout that summer, and in August 2022, he walked into the school unassisted and returned to work full-time.

When looking at the milestones he’s achieved, Raymond credits his family for their unwavering support — as well as the “family” at Shepherd Center.       

“When you are in a mobility crisis, they give you a lifeline, and they give you hope,” Raymond says. “They were motivational and inspirational. It’s like a family. Three years later, I still have connections there.”

Written by Sara Baxter