Tyson Meek of Pontotoc and his family had reason to join in the National Rehabilitation Awareness Celebration, Sept. 16-22. This year’s national theme, “Rehab: Rebuilding Dreams,” was quite fitting.

Back in February, Meek, 23, started having trouble with his legs. He kept falling and at night his legs would cramp. The first thought was a pulled hamstring, but when the pain and falls persisted, Dr. Stephen Montgomery of Pontotoc Medical Clinic ordered an MRI to check for a ruptured disc in Meek’s back. Instead, the MRI revealed a tumor of some type on his spinal cord.

Dr. Louis Rosa, a neurosurgeon, performed a lengthy surgery at North Mississippi Medical Center (NMMC) in May to remove what turned out to be a vascular tumor or hemangioma (a mass of tightly packed blood vessels). The surgery was successful and Meek was recovering well at home when his mother got the terrifying call.

“I had gone back to work the week after his surgery, and Tyson called me at work and said I needed to come home, something was wrong,” recalled his mother, Lisa DeLoach. “I work at Ashley Furniture, which is only about seven minutes from my house. When I pulled in the driveway, I could hear Tyson screaming in pain. When I got inside, Tyson couldn’t move his legs and he was in terrible abdominal pain.”

Rosa met the ambulance at the NMMC Emergency Department.

“We weren’t sure he would recover,” DeLoach said, “but Dr. Rosa did exploratory surgery to find what was wrong. Apparently, a small blood vessel had burst and caused a blood clot, which injured his spinal cord.”

After Meek’s second surgery, recovery came much more slowly.

“I heard the doctor telling my mother that I might never walk again,” he recalled. “I remember thinking, I don’t care what he says, I will walk again.”

Meek spent time in NMMC’s Critical Care Unit, then on the 4 South neurology unit and finally in the Rehabilitation Institute.

“When Tyson came to us, he couldn’t even sit up on the side of the bed by himself,” said Susan Bouchillon, a physical therapist with NMMC’s Rehabilitation Institute. “But he was very goal-driven and challenged himself. If we wanted him to sit, he wanted to stand. He was always one step ahead of us.”

Occupational therapist Lisa Brown recalled Meeks was discouraged at first.

“But we were showing him things he could do, which gave him the courage and motivation to do more,” she added.

Physical therapist assistant DeAnna Greene said Meek had a great will to do the things he was told he might never be able to do again.

“He has a lot of friends and family who encouraged him too,” she said.

Brown remembers Meek’s first outing before being discharged from the hospital in late June.

“We let him pick, and he chose Red Lobster,” Brown said. “As part of his therapy, he had to maneuver himself in the wheelchair from the car to the restaurant and around. By the time he left the hospital, he was walking with a cane and using a wheelchair only for long distances.”

Meek recalled that everybody who came to see him in the Critical Care Unit was so somber, people had tears in their eyes.

“But I just looked at this as a setback, never as defeat,” he said.

These days, Meek is pursuing a degree in English at the University of Mississippi’s Tupelo branch and working as a security guard for Ashley Furniture in Ecru. He also drives himself to Tupelo three times a week for outpatient physical therapy at NMMC’s Longtown Medical Park.

Now that life is somewhat back to normal, his mother counts her blessings.
“It was a terrible thing that happened, but it was a good thing too because we met some fantastic people,” she said.

PHOTO CUTLINE: Tyson Meek of Pontotoc (center) gets plenty of encouragement from (front, from left) Alison Farley, physical therapist; and Stephanie Davis, licensed physical therapist assistant, of North Mississippi Medical Center Outpatient Rehabilitation Center and (back, from left) Lisa Brown, occupational therapist; Susan Bouchillon, physical therapist; and DeAnna Greene, licensed physical therapist assistant, of the NMMC Rehabilitation Institute.



December 2007