For Connie Taschner of Saginaw, life as she knew it changed completely on March 27, 2014, when she sustained a traumatic brain injury in a car accident. Her doctors in Ann Arbor didn’t expect her to survive, let alone recover to the point of walking, talking, and leading a full life with her husband, Ron.
“I’ve come a long way,” Connie says, crediting the Long-Term Care and Medical Rehabilitation experts at HealthSource Saginaw for their vital role in her recovery. “When I got here, I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t straighten my arms or legs.”
Before Connie arrived at HealthSource and for the first several months after her accident, she endured a series of complications not uncommon with the severity of her injuries. She was not responding to therapy and her muscles were contracting severely.
For nine months, Connie’s team of HealthSource Saginaw doctors, nurses, nursing assistants, and therapists worked with her, producing outstanding results. “Almost immediately upon arriving at HealthSource, Connie began responding to the team of people working with her,” Ron recalls. “She was soon able to lift her legs and by mid January was back in therapy.”
Connie explains that therapy was painful because of the severity of the muscle contractions throughout her body. “I didn’t want to do therapy and I really put up a fuss,” she admits. “I think I even swore at some of my therapists. Still, they persisted because they knew it was in my best interest. They wouldn’t take NO for an answer. They worked really hard with me. I’m so glad they kept at it because therapy was the best thing for me.”
Connie, who continues her care as an outpatient, can walk without assistance and, together with her therapists, has a goal to put her wheelchair away completely this year. She says, “I have a peach of a husband. I couldn’t have come home without him. And, I have nothing but the highest regard for HealthSource and the team of people here.”