...Continued
No matter how it happened, nothing could change the fact that their eldest son would never grow up the way they imagined.
After the story appeared, the Liebos received help from a doctor
who brought Eric's volatile behavior under control with therapy and medication. They also found a "shared parenting" foster home that allows Eric to be with his family on weekends, while providing them respite during the week.
Eric is small for his age and has a hard time focusing. In a noisy
place, such as a hockey arena, he is apt to occasionally scream for
no reason.
But his behavior has improved from the days when he did nothing but scream, moan or cry and obsessively shred all paper in the house, including wallpaper.
He still needs help eating and never relearned how to use the
toilet.
Though they eventually got used to life with the changed Eric, the
Liebos say they never completely got over the grief of losing the
brilliant, talkative little boy they once knew.
"I miss his voice and the things that would come out of his mouth,"
Tina says. "He had the cutest personality. This thing with Jim has
made those feelings resurface."
Even from his wheelchair, Jim looks at Eric and mourns the
milestones he's missed.
"You think about it when you see other kids his age," he says.
"He'd be learning to drive now. He'd be starting to date. I wonder
what our relationship would be like. When he was little, he was my
best friend."
Making a difference
After Eric's stroke, Jim started, and eventually lost, a high-tech
consulting business that earmarked a percentage of its proceeds to
the National Stroke Association and brain injury organizations.
Although it was too late to help Eric, the Liebos wanted to make a
difference for other children. And meanwhile, the Liebos did their
best to make sure their other children, Zak, now 12, and Lexi, 10,
led normal lives.
Jim coached their soccer and hockey teams. He also coached coaches,played hockey and managed other teams as well, making him a belovedfigure in the world of kids' sports in Plano and Frisco.
Then came July 9
Earlier this year, Jim started having fainting spells attributed by
his doctors to high blood pressure. One night, on his way to bed,
he started to faint. He stumbled, hitting the bedroom dresser and
landing on the floor.
"I heard my neck snap," Jim says. "And I couldn't feel anything in
my body. Tina woke up, and I told her to call paramedics."
An ambulance took Jim to Centennial Medical Center in Frisco. The
rest of the family followed by car. When they got there, they
learned that Jim's injuries were so severe that a helicopter would
have to fly him to Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas.
"It was terrifying," says Tina. "But never in my wildest dreams did
I think it was going to be so catastrophic."
In the helicopter, Jim thought he was dying.
"I could see the stars, and I thought I was going to heaven," he
says.
'Life-changing accident'
At Baylor, doctors told Tina that Jim's fall was a "life-changing
accident" and it was unlikely her husband would ever walk again.
Still, they held out a sliver of hope. If her husband had surgery
to repair his spinal cord, which was partially severed, he might
have a chance at some mobility. But the operation came with risks.
"I thought, 'This can't be happening,'" Tina says. "Jim was always
my rock, and here he was in ICU, and I had to make decisions for
him without his help."
After the surgery and a week in the hospital, Jim moved to Baylor
Institute for Rehabilitation. People there knew him because Eric
had spent several weeks at the institute after his stroke. When
Tina took Eric to see his father, he threw a tantrum and didn't
want to go inside. "It was like he remembered it and thought he was going back," Jim
says.
After six weeks of therapy, Jim moved to a nursing home in Plano,
where he spent five weeks.
Through physical therapy, Jim regained some of the movement in his arms, allowing him to feed himself - even though he can only hold a fork precariously with his thumb and forefinger. One recent morning at the nursing home, Jim walked about 150 feet down a hallway and climbed three steps using rails, relying on a walker and his therapist. It was hard: With each step, he grimaced and groaned
with effort and pain.
"That was scary," he said, as he came down the last step.
The fact that Jim is able to walk at all is "a miracle," says
Margie Snell, a therapist who worked with him at the nursing home.
"His spinal cord injury is not complete, which means a portion of
it was severed, not the entire thing," she says. "So a few messages
are still getting through."
The nursing home discharged Jim at the end of September because his health insurance included no more inpatient care.
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