Little League man takes big steps back

The ground feels like cotton under Tom McKinney's feet.

The Yuba City resident walks gingerly, like a baby taking his first steps. He lifts one foot and then the other, wobbles, totters and does his best not to fall down.

At 58 years old, he's learning to walk all over again — only this time, it's an accomplishment he'll never forget.

Nearly nine weeks ago, he fell off a ladder, broke his neck and almost ended up a quadriplegic. A 10-hour surgery repaired the damage to his spine, but it will take months to regain his motor skills and sensory perception.

McKinney's road ahead includes twice-weekly therapy and constant skills practice, whether conscious or unconscious, to try to return to a semblance of his former life. His struggle to walk is a constant reminder of the trauma he endured and everything he hopes to regain.

Dangerous fall

It was a Wednesday in mid-May when McKinney went to cover his cherry tree with netting to keep the blue jays away. He had one more clip to tie on when his wooden ladder gave way.

He fell an estimated 17 feet but remembers only waking up on the ground, looking at his hands and realizing he could not move. He was gasping for air and in incredible pain when his 10-year-old daschund, Chelse, ran over and started licking at him.

"I yelled, 'Go get your mama!'" he said. "She ran inside and I could hear her barking and whining."

His wife, Debra, was about to lie down for a nap, but Chelse would not leave her alone. She went to let her out and spotted Tom's feet lying in the grass.

"I told her to call an ambulance — I think I'm paralyzed," he said.

At Rideout Memorial Hospital, CT and MRI scans revealed he crushed the body of his C7 vertebrae, broke a joint on the back of his spine, and sustained some partial dislocation. Part of his C7 had pushed into the spinal canal and bruised his spinal cord, and ligaments tore on the back of his spine.

"That was a very bad day for me," Debra McKinney recalls. "I could tell he was really afraid. 'Am I ever going to walk again? Am I ever going to work again? Am I ever going to play ball again?' He never said this to me. I just know him."

Tom McKinney knew what life would be like if he was confined to a wheelchair. Both his father and uncle were paralyzed all his life from muscular dystrophy, and even though they lived amazingly full lives, he knew without a doubt he had to walk again.

After three days in the intensive care unit, neurosurgeon Dr. Barry French went in through the front of McKinney's neck and removed the C7 and discs above and below it, leaving a gap between two intact vertebrae that he filled with a carbon fiber cage.

The cage is hollow, and French recycled a piece of broken bone from McKinney's C7 and some donor bone to help the spine heal and fuse. French also added titanium plates and screws into the C6 and T1.

For the second part of the surgery, McKinney was secured to a specialized spinal table and turned over, so doctors could access the back of his neck.

French removed the fractured joint fragments and added additional rods and screws to his C6 and T1. The neurosurgeon incorporated two titanium braided cables around the C6, C7 and T1 and added bone from McKinney's pelvis to the spinal area.

"He's got a lot of metal in there, but it's really mechanically solid," French said.

Therapy begins

After 10 post-operative days in the ICU, McKinney was moved to Sutter Roseville's rehabilitation hospital for physical therapy. His rehab instructor was like a drill sergeant, he said, and it was exactly what he needed.

"I could not say to him, 'I can't do this,' he said. "It was like, 'Yes, you will.'"

From 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. for two weeks, McKinney pushed his body and abilities to return. After a week and a half, he took his first three steps.

"I'm not a very emotional person, I'm pretty black-and-white," McKinney said. "But I sat down and cried. I said, 'My god, I walked.'"

He came home June 15 — nearly a month after the initial accident — and began immediately at Sutter North Physical Therapy, guided by Dr. Bryan Rodrigues.

Their twice-weekly routine includes arm lifts, leg presses and heel raises. McKinney grimaces swinging his restrained legs back and forth, or lying on his side and doing small leg lifts. He shows up to therapy in a burgundy Little League hat — he never goes out without one, he said.

The therapy center sets a fitting scene for his recovery. The manager of Little League's California District II does his exercises and weightlifting against a backdrop of pennants from the Gold Sox and River Cats, a poster from Orioles Park and a framed Giants sketch with a pair of game tickets.

As Rodrigues extends a precautionary arm behind him, McKinney walks between parallel bars, his hands held out for balance. He steps forward, in reverse and side-to-side and then brazenly tackles stairs, going up and down several times.

"I like them all because everything they do is to rehabilitate me," he said. "I look kind of stupid sometimes, because it's things we've done in the past so easily, like picking up my legs. Everything we take for granted is a struggle, but I know I will overcome it."

The most challenging task is anything requiring him to pick up his feet.

When he is balancing, his brain needs input about his position, and the information usually comes from the feet through nerves to the spine and brain. But with no sensation in nearly all of his body, the messages and resulting adjustments are a little scrambled.

Rodrigues has treated a lot of people with C7 injuries and said McKinney is on the high end of the bell curve.

"He had a pretty severe injury that could have been catastrophic," Rodrigues said. "He's functioning at a pretty high level."

He predicts McKinney will regain his strength and endurance and be able to walk unassisted at least in places where he is familiar. The faster he recovers, the better the sign of how close he may return to his former self.

Road to Recovery

When McKinney first came home, with a chin-to-chest neck brace, foot boot and walker, Chelse was scared to death and it took a few days before she would let him even pet her. Little does she know, her owner draws great inspiration from her small canine frame.

Eight years ago, she broke her back and was also paralyzed. After a six-hour surgery at the University of California, Davis, veterinary hospital, Chelse recovered and now walks normally.

"If my dog can do it, I can do it," McKinney said. "Every day is an awesome day. My willpower has always been there. I will make it."

He's not the only believer.

Jim Ford has known McKinney since childhood, and said he has a strong conviction that his friend will return to everything he wants to do.

"Doctors can only say so much and some people quit, but Tommy is not a quitter," Ford said. "He'll be back as strong as he ever was."

Ford visited McKinney in the hospital several times, sometimes during his darkest hours, and continued to tell him to fight because there is no other option.

"You have to challenge people sometimes because people will quit and when people quit, their body dies," Ford said. "I chewed him out because I love the guy and I want him to know I'm not quitting on him, Debbie's not quitting on him and he can't quit on himself."

McKinney, who works for Valley Yellow Pages, has been the manager of District II Little League for more than 26 years. His injury put him on the sidelines for a while, but by the time he returned home, he was running tournaments by phone.

His life right now consists mostly of therapy and time at home, but he spent Fourth of July with friends and attended a Gold Sox game Thursday night.

He has to restrain himself from getting too excited about his progress and overdoing it. He had one good fall already when a bee landed on him in his driveway and his mind said "Run!" and his legs refused to follow.

He also knows he'll soon have to face the cost of his accident, which he is sure will surpass $100,000. He has insurance, but a sizable deductible and no income right now.

Friends established an account at Gold Country Bank in Marysville to offset his expenses.

His wife has been his right- and left-hand helper through all of this. After 15 years together, she didn't hesitate to aid him through the most basic of recovery, feeding him, dressing him and helping with more intimate needs.

"It's just hard to see him struggle. He's always been a strong person that I lean on and he's leaning on me," Debra said. "It's not difficult, but it's different."

But his progress is growing, and so is their hope.

"It was wonderful, so exciting every time he can do something new, like brush his teeth," she said. "That was the greatest day. I would clap and say. 'Yay!' It's like your child when they take their first steps."

And what she finds herself looking most forward to are the little things.

"It's not anything big, like dancing or going to Tahoe," Debra said. "It's holding hands where he can really feel my hand. And a good hard hug would be nice. He's the best hugger."

CONTACT reporter Ashley Gebb at 749-4783.