Diane Lundmark is on a journey of courage.  
  
“This whole thing has taught me so much about patience, humility and being present,” she declares.

In September, Diane, 59, from Minnetonka and her husband Kirk were visiting their son in Montana.

In the bathroom, she passed out, hitting her head on a countertop, triggering a spinal injury.

“Basically, her C5 (vertebrae) dislocated and hyper-extended over the top of C6 and so it impacted the spinal nerve,” Kirk explained.

That impact left Diane, an active bicyclist and former adaptive volunteer ski instructor at Allina Health Courage Kenny Rehabilitation Institute, paralyzed from the chest down.

Now, she is back as a patient.

“I can only imagine what it took to get them to the ski hill,” Diane says. “And now I am living that, that I know how long it takes.”

For five weeks now, five hours a day, she receives physical and occupational therapy, plus speech therapy to project her voice and work her diaphragm at the Courage Kenny Clinic in Allina Health’s Abbott Northwestern Hospital.

An electrical machine is helping to stimulate her muscles and nervous system.

“She’s doing really well,” explains Dr. James Spendley, a spinal cord injury rehabilitation specialist at Courage Kenny Institute. “There’s always speed bumps in anyone’s recovery, and that is the reason why it is where she is in the Acute Rehab Center Abbott.” 

Diane says she still has no feeling from the chest down.

But she’s moving her arms more fully and can sense muscle sensation during stretching and in her abdominal muscles.

“We’re on this train with her,” Kirk declares. “She is going to take it as far as she can, and we’re just here to support her 100%.”

Diane says she’s not sure how far her recovery will go, but she’s already making plans to be even more of an advocate for others with spinal cord injuries.

A hard journey, yes, but Diane, surrounded by her family and her care team, is showing no signs of slowing down.

“I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, because I know I’m going to continue to get stronger. Continue to maybe get a little more independent,” she says. “But I know I have a journey to go before I get there.”

You can find out more about a crowdfunding effort to help with Lundmark’s medical expenses here.