Transverse Myelitis Recovery: One Milestone At a Time
Emma Fritsche says Shepherd Center 'Changed Her Life'
When Emma Fritsche was visiting family in New Jersey last summer, she told her mother to leave her wheelchair in the car. Instead, she used her walker. Months later, back home in Bluffton, South Carolina, she left her walker in the car and opted to use her cane.
These milestones illustrate the strength and determination Emma showed during her recovery from transverse myelitis, an inflammatory disease of the spinal cord that can lead to paralysis and other neurological symptoms.
The day after Thanksgiving, 2023, Emma lost feeling in her left arm. Within 20 minutes, she was paralyzed from the neck down. Her parents rushed her to a hospital in Hilton Head, South Carolina. The next day, she transferred to MUSC Health University Medical Center in Charleston. She was in respiratory failure and was immediately intubated.
After she stabilized, doctors at MUSC encouraged the family to take Emma to Shepherd Center for rehabilitation. She was admitted to Shepherd Center’s ICU on Dec. 29, 2023, still using a ventilator to help her breathe and with paralysis on her left side.
Yet when Emma and her family entered Shepherd Center, they were filled with hope.
“From the moment we came through the doors, our lives changed,” says Emma’s mother, Tracy. “I can’t say enough good things about Emma’s care team. It was like a family.”
Emma’s first goal was to get off the ventilator. Her team worked with her to wean her from ventilator support. She participated in physical, occupational, and speech therapy. Function and feeling began to return slowly. When she had trouble motivating herself, she says the staff stepped in to support her.
“They would give me pep talks,” she remembers. “Everyone was rooting for me.”
When she left Shepherd Center on April 9, 2024, she could care for herself independently. Her mobility was improving, too, and she transitioned from a power chair to a manual chair.
More than a year later, Emma, 22, needs a cane only when she’s walking for long periods. She’s back at home and is considering going to college. And she’s grateful for Shepherd Center. “I like to say that MUSC saved my life, and Shepherd changed my life,” Emma says. “I learned how to be stronger and to advocate for myself. They made what I was experiencing into something positive.”
Written by Sara Baxter
With five decades of experience, 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 ranked by U.S. News as one of the nation’s top hospitals for rehabilitation, Shepherd Center is also recognized as both Spinal Cord Injury and Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems. Shepherd Center treats thousands of patients annually with unmatched expertise and unwavering compassion to help them begin again.