Posted on May 4, 2010
“The people around me give me strength”
Kyle Dockery, 15, had a strange tingling sensation one afternoon in November 2009 at his high school wrestling practice. He told his coach he wasn’t feeling well, complaining of tingling limbs and an aching head. Suddenly, Kyle collapsed.
Doctors in Lansing suspected a spinal stroke. Twelve days after his injury Kyle’s mother, Shervonda Dockery, decided to have Kyle transferred to Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital, 45 minutes west of their home in Lansing. “I am very thankful for that decision,” she says.
At his first examination on December 2 at Mary Free Bed, Kyle could only twitch the muscles in both arms and right leg. Doctors believed he had hyper extended his spine.
By the end of January, therapists had Kyle walking and his arm strength was greatly improved. Kyle even had enough strength to plot how to repay a fellow patient who had toilet papered his room. “The people around me give me strength,” he says. Six weeks from his release date, Kyle’s goal was to be back to normal and play football. “I’ll be back out there soon.”
