Starting all over again: How a paralyzed woman chose to rise up and live her life

[manouli]

Starting all over again: How a paralyzed woman chose to rise up and live her life

By Jennifer Moody
Albany Democrat-Herald

Christi Freitag works on strengthening her upper body at a physical therapy session at Albany General Hospital.


Christi Freitag’s wrist tenses against the rope loop in her therapist’s hands. Her freckled arm strains.

She hunches forward, stretching the back of her T-shirt and the words printed there: “The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.”

“It’s not working, it’s not working!” the 19-year-old Albany woman calls as her arm slips from the rope, her shoulders thump back onto the cushioned table. Physical therapist Peter Spaulding offers the rope again.

“Pull pull pull pull, come on, come on, pull!” Spaulding calls as Christi struggles to heave her unresponsive torso upright. Her legs twitch reflexively. “Can you get one arm behind you?”

She angles her free arm onto the cushioned table behind her as a prop. Spaulding sits back, smiling.

“That worked OK,” he tells her. “We’re getting better.”

Christi beams, braces glinting, blue eyes bright under blond-streaked bangs. Spaulding chuckles.

“This is Christi,” he tells the photographer chronicling the therapy session at Samaritan Albany General Hospital. “She falls, and she smiles.”

Some days, it’s very hard to smile.

Some days, it’s very hard to be who she is, instead of who she used to be.


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