Man shares story of helping wife through near-complete paralysis

Aiken Standard 5/29/2022

BY MATTHEW CHRISTIAN

mchristian@aikenstandard.com

When Cowfer was a 15 year old high school student in Renova, Pa., his mother died
of uterine cancer.

"Even in 1951 (sic), she shouldn't have died," Cowfer said Monday morning in his home
south of Aiken. And when his high school sweetheart and wife of 58 (sic) years, Doris,
suffered a spinal cord injury that left her paralyzed from the shoulders down, Cowfer
resolved that he was going to do whatever he could to help her.

"I was not going to lose her to anything that I could do or the doctors could do something about," Cowfer said.

Cowfer tells of his story of helping Doris in the 2020 book: "Overcoming a Spinal Cord Injury," a reprinting of the 2018 book, "Never Say Never." Doris was injured on Jan. 4, 2006 in Orange Park, a southern suburb of Jacksonville, Fla.

Cowfer said that he and Doris drove to their son's house in Florida so that he and their son could attend the Jan. 3, 2006 Orange Bowl game between the Penn State Nittany Lions and the Florida State Seminoles. Cowfer and his son watched the Nittany Lions win 26-23 on a field goal in the third overtime. Doris stayed behind in Orange Park to spend time with their grandchild. The morning after the game she woke up early.

"I got up and put on my newest Christmas outfit, the one that I loved: slacks and a red sweater, my favorite color," Doris dictated in the first chapter of the book. "When I went downstairs, no one was up yet so I decided to get the Sunday paper."

On her way to get the paper, Doris said she noticed that a planting of pansies that had a few dead blossoms. She wasn't sure if her son knew to "deadhead" the pansies - remove spent blooms - so she decided to take out a few dead blooms. Doris didn't want to get her new slacks dirty so she bent over to remove the bulbs.

"All of the sudden the ground came closer and closer but I was not dizzy," Doris continued. "The next thing I knew ... I couldn't understand why I couldn't lift my left arm. I could see it but not lift it."

Doris suspected she had a stroke but when she stuck her tongue out, it didn't go toward either side.

"She was bent over," Cowfer said. "Just from a bent over position, her spine was that brittle. She fell on her chin and when she [bounced], she suffered compression fractures over seven vertebrae." Those compression fractures caused paralysis from the shoulders down, the result of a degenerative spine condition.

Cowfer and his son were on the road headed north when they got the call. "We were probably about an hour or two hours out of Miami headed back to Orange Park and I got a phone call that grandma [Doris] was laying in the front yard and the police and the EMS were there," Cowfer said.

Doris spent her first six days in an intensive care unit in a Florida hospital. After receiving 23 hours of intensive steroids for those six days, Doris could move her arms but she couldn't tell she was doing it. Doris was moved to Shand's Hospital in Gainesville, Fla. at 4 a.m. and went through surgery that evening to remove the fragments of bone from her spinal cord. She dictates the next chapter that chronicles her move from Shands to a rehabilitation facility in Jacksonville and her return to Aiken for rehab in Augusta and a brief stay at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta.

The rest of the book is written by Cowfer. It details how he cared for his wife.

"I was by her side for three months," Cowfer said. "We brought a van to get her back to Aiken. The Penn State Club built a ramp to get her in the house.

He said the whole Aiken community responded including people at their church, Saint Thaddeus Episcopal. Cowfer said he took 450 get well soon cards home to Aiken. He spent the first year at home rolling her over in bed every couple of hours and emptying her bladder five or six times per day.

"The bladder never came back," Cowfer said. "After that first year, we got into some respiratory issues and some urinary tract issues, so the doctors suggested a Foley (sic) catheter and the Foley (sic) catheter brought on a whole set of issues and problems. From that point on, a good year was five or six times in the hospital."

Cowfer said Doris said her legs felt like logs. She had to look down to make sure they didn't crisscross when she used a walker. Doris also never really got the feeling back in the tips of her fingers. She also suffered from lipedema in her right arm after doctors added a way to administer medication to her brachial vein.

He said a key was physical therapy. Cowfer said Doris did everything she could to work to get better. The first title of the book, "Never Say Never," is what family members are told when they are helping a relative get through the pain of physical therapy.

Seven years after her injury, Doris died on Oct. 30, 2013.

Cowfer said Doris was diagnosed with leukemia and doctors were able to get her blood in a place where they could administer palliative chemotherapy. The first pill Doris took brought her white blood cell count down from 50,000 to 8,000 but it also allowed a lingering infection in her bladder to escape.

"The book really is Doris's idea to warn people with brittle cervical spine conditions about the risks of falling," Cowfer said. He added the book also gives people an idea of how difficult and important physical therapy is for patients with spinal cord injuries. He added that his son told him that the book is really an example of Cowfer's unconditional love for Doris. Cowfer has since remarried and still lives in Aiken.

"The book really is Doris's idea to warn people with brittle cervical spine conditions about the risks of falling."

Clarence "Dave" Cowfer