Communities rally for athlete felled by stroke
 Others' generosity 'bowled me over,' says student’s mom
 , NJJN Staff Writer | 02.21.08
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It was an ordinary Monday in September, just after Rosh Hashana. Gabriel Chesman, 21, a graduate of Summit High School, had just begun his senior year at Drexel University. He was in his Philadelphia apartment when he felt some pain in his back.

 
 

Gabriel Chesman and mother, Jamie, at Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in West Orange, where he undergoes grueling therapy following his spinal cord stroke last September. Photo by Johanna Ginsberg
   

When his arm started to tingle, the seasoned athlete knew something was wrong. He asked a friend to take him to a hospital. It was not a moment too soon – by the time they arrived, he had lost all feeling in his body, and he couldn’t breathe.

“It all happened really fast. It was scary, especially the breathing,” he said. “I was scared that I was going to stop breathing.” Doctors told him that had he stayed two extra minutes in his apartment, he would have died.

Gabe Chesman had suffered a spinal cord stroke. When he woke up in the intensive care unit at University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, he was paralyzed from the neck down. He couldn’t talk, eat, or breathe without a ventilator.

It took seven weeks for him just to regain enough function to be eligible to move to the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in West Orange. There he spoke to a reporter last week about an ordeal that has included grueling physical therapy, daunting financial challenges, and, on the plus side, an outpouring of support from local houses of worship, including Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in Short Hills, where the Chesmans are lifelong members.

On a recent afternoon, Chesman, in a wheelchair, motored himself out of his room with his mother to greet a visitor. Rail thin, he has an easy smile and an eagerness to talk, but he speaks slowly, with effort, and very quietly.

When he first arrived at Kessler in November, he was lying down with little movement. He has since learned to sit up and to speak. He still has a tracheostomy tube and has little movement in his right arm, but just enough in the left to be able to move the joystick that controls the chair.

Every so often during the conversation, his mother, Jamie Chesman, lifts a cup of water to his mouth so he can sip from the straw.

“How could a person who reached the pinnacle of that 21-year-old, fantastic, I-made-it, I’ve-got-the-world-by-a-string, I-love-school, I-have-tons-of-friends, I-can-drink-now, it’s-all-good [place] – and within a month of his birthday have this catastrophic thing that changes everything?” said his mother.

Before the stroke, Gabe was a soccer enthusiast and all-around athlete who played tennis and racquetball and hung out at the gym. Music is his passion. He played guitar, was in a band, and hoped eventually to work in the music industry.

A communications major, he was often quoted in the Drexel student newspaper, whether on a political topic or on celebrating Hanukka. As part of the Drexel cooperative program, he had been working for a Philadelphia law firm since March.

Now, Gabe’s overwhelming physical needs mean college is on the back burner, although he has an open invitation from Drexel to return. There are looming financial obstacles for the family, from renovating Jamie’s home to accommodate Gabe when he comes home, to buying a wheelchair-accessible van, to paying for the care Gabe will need.

His mother gets to her sales job at McWilliams Forge several hours before her colleagues so she can get to Kessler by 3 p.m. every day. (Gabe’s parents divorced about 10 years ago, and his father lives in Florida; his sister, 25, lives in Basking Ridge. Gabe grew up in Summit; his mother has since moved to Springfield.)

There are also short-term worries, like where Gabe will stay beginning in a few days when Jamie’s insurance no longer covers his stay at Kessler but before her home is ready to accommodate him.

Generosity and spirit

 
 

Before his injury, Gabe Chesman was an avid guitar-player. Photo courtesy Jamie Chesman
   

Still, they are grateful for the outpouring of help coming from their various communities. “Our friends, and the churches in Summit, have just absolutely bowled me over, not only by their generosity but also by their spirit of ‘whatever it takes,’” said Jamie. Strangers are building a ramp into the house and helping with renovations of the bathroom.

The Chesmans have also received emotional and financial support from B’nai Jeshurun.

“We were bewildered with what to do first,” Jamie recalled. “How can we get funding? How can we get grants, nursing care, home care, accessories that he needs – everything?”

B’nai Jeshurun’s Rabbi Matthew Gewirtz, she said, among others, helped with these concerns. “He found everything. He has access to people who have what we don’t have – a vehicle, a lawyer, a builder, an architect. And all of the people have come to help us. It’s been amazing.”

Members of the congregation are organizing a fund that will eventually pay for a new wheelchair-accessible van for the Chesmans.

“At the end of the day, what’s phenomenal is that strangers have decided to just love my kid. It’s emotionally overwhelming to me,” said Jamie.

As for Gabe, he draws confidence from the small measures of progress. He recalled his joy at finally arriving at Kessler, where he would begin the therapy that would give him some amount of independence.

“I cried when I got here. When I saw the room, it was an immediate release, like I had graduated,” he said.

He remembers his first morning at Kessler, when he got dressed and sat in a wheelchair, the first time he had done either since Sept. 17.

“We did a lot of stretching. It was so exciting. I saw people doing stuff I knew I could do, and I was eager to start.”

After 45 minutes of conversation, Gabe is exhausted.

“I’m really tired. I need a break now,” he said, rolling his body backward in his chair to change positions. He’s happy to pose for photos, however, before saying goodbye, and offers a smile that hints at a personality that will perhaps fully reemerge in the days ahead.

His mother remains optimistic. “He’s going to get a degree and get a job. He just has to figure out where he will be most productive, and that’s not such an easy thing to do.”

 
 

Before his injury, Gabe Chesman was an avid athlete. Photo courtesy Jamie Chesman
   

Dr. Steven Kirshblum, director of Spinal Cord Injury Services at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in West Orange, provided the following information about spinal cord stroke, particularly about incomplete spinal cord stroke, the kind that Gabe Chesman suffered.

Q: What is an incomplete spinal cord stroke?
A: An incomplete spinal cord injury refers to an injury where there is some residual function remaining below the injury that includes the lowest segments of the spinal cord, specifically by the rectal area. There are a number of types of incomplete injuries, all of which carry a different prognosis for neurological recovery.

Q: What causes it?
A: There are multiple causes, including disorders that affect blood vessels, blood clots thrown to the spinal cord, trauma, diabetes, and complications from surgery.

Q: How common are spinal cord strokes?
A: The incidence in the United States is relatively low, especially as compared to strokes of the brain and traumatic injuries of the spinal cord.

Q: What is the prognosis?
A: Unfortunately most people with spinal cord infarcts do not have a great deal of motor recovery below the level of the spinal cord area affected. Comprehensive rehabilitation to assist the person to reach their functional potential is recommended.

The Chesmans have started a foundation through the National Transplant Assistance Fund for Gabe. Contributions can be made online (Enter Chesman in the field “find a patient website”; click contribute now); or send a check to NTAF Mid-Atlantic Spinal Cord Injury Fund and add “In Honor of Gabe Chesman” in the memo section. Send to NTAF; 150 N. Radnor Chester Road, Suite F-120; Radnor, PA 19087.
 

Local stories posted courtesy of the New Jersey Jewish News