When Kyle Hays tells of his time overcoming paralysis, what stands out is the way he talks about his therapists. He refers to them like old friends — he caught up with one physical therapist at a recent sporting event, and he and another recreational therapist trade messages on Facebook.
The 20-year-old sports management major was living out a dream last summer, two weeks into his first season as a Stetson University Hatter, in DeLand, on the NCAA Division I basketball team.
He was working out daily and practicing with the team before the official start of the season when he had a back ache. Kyle assumed it was typical muscle soreness, but slept little for four days while the pain increased.
On the fifth day, Kyle woke up and couldn’t feel his feet and the pain was debilitating. The next couple of weeks were a blur. Kyle went straight to the university athletic trainer and was referred to a specialist in Daytona Beach. Eventually, he was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a disorder in which the immune system attacks the nervous system.
Kyle spent nearly a week in an Intensive Care Unit and then was discharged to Peninsula Rehab Center (PRC) at Florida Hospital Oceanside for inpatient care. When he arrived, he was bedridden and barely moving on his own.
“After two weeks of lying in bed, I hit a turning point,” Kyle said. “I told the therapists that I wanted to get up and move.”
His first day of therapy, it took five therapists to pick up Kyle and take him to the gym where he inched his way along parallel bars. It was their positive attitudes, he said, that motivated him and ultimately resulted in his rapid progression back to health.
Kyle described his PRC therapists as providing mental and emotional support as much as physical. When he was offered the services of a mental health counselor he declined, explaining that he was already sharing his thoughts and feelings with the PRC team members he saw daily.
Kyle is back at Stetson and fully recovered. With two games left in the regular season and post-season hopes, he hopes to play in his first game.
Kyle said it was a combination of his skilled therapists, his family's support and “lots of peoples prayers” that gave him the strength to quickly recover from what could have been a devastating syndrome.
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