“There are moments every day.” These, catching the sunrise in the preparation of a hunt in the hills outside of Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, taking in the breeze on a day dedicated to fishing. Or, for Doug Bish, these extended to putting in the hours as a maintenance mechanic at Armstrong Flooring—getting ready to retire from a long and fulfilling career. Even more important was the time spent with his granddaughters, building up his rural property, and being the kind of generous neighbor any of us would be lucky to have. Through his 69 years, Doug has fostered this absolute consistency and jolt of positivity—making the most of his day-to-day, establishing roots, and being strongly oriented towards his family and community. It’s who he is, something that can never be taken away.
In February 2024, Doug was riding his work trike under a speed door at his place of employment. The door, not sensing that he was underneath and then reversing back upwards, crashed down on him, with the hard hat worn saving his life. In the months of therapy that followed, there never once was a dip in the morale of Doug Bish.
Moving Towards Independence
“I’m not a city guy,” he admits with a chuckle. Doug was hospitalized at Jefferson Moss-Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in Philadelphia, PA after his injury. This prolonged stay in the big city was taxing for Doug. So when flying to Omaha for continued rehabilitation at QLI was proposed, he admits he balked. “Part of it was the distance from home, knowing I’d be away from my family and friends,” and it was also a matter of reacquainting himself with the bustle of travel and transport but through the new lens of injury.
It was simple—he wanted to return home and a return to his family, his way of life, and those Pennsylvania countryside mornings. But rehabilitation cannot be a spring. Doug knew that if he didn’t put
himself out there and saw what was possible in recovery, he’d regret it. What greeted him was an environment that felt more fitting to his style, a team that greeted him with kindness and vision, and a program that elicited excitement for his future.
“One moment your strength and feeling are there and the next it’s gone.” Strength is compulsory to everything we physically do—in our mobility, our activities of daily living, our hobbies, or our involvement in our communities.
Doug’s physical therapy materialized through walking laps around the Lied Life Center, allowing for the repetitions to take hold and spark recovery. Other moments of progress came through in a myriad of ways—but all coalescing in how they allowed Doug to literally and figuratively move towards independence. “There was a button on my toothbrush that for months I couldn’t push, until one day I could.” And further on, “I could start getting out of bed on my own,” he says. Injury recovery milestones manifest through a million tiny moments and actions that build up to larger successes. But injury recovery also happens through community and relationship building. Had Doug decided not to come to QLI, he may not have had a concentrated environment where he could interact with peers moving through their own journeys, which go leaps and bounds towards motivating them.
“I don’t try to think for long on the low points that come up, because every new day brings a plus. 
There’s constantly something interesting to try out, whether that’s walking several steps further than I did the other day, or lifting a heavier weight.” He was always outside, moving from one session to the next, and the openness of clinicians amazed Doug. “I would have never thought that one day we’d go out kayaking,” but he did, and might soon follow that up with jet skiing. The persistence in the rhythms of Doug’s daily sessions naturally lent themselves to progress, progress, progress, which thrived in malleable environments, like the East Campus pool.
“A Delicate Thing”
Doug and Life Path Specialists Jack Mahaffey and Isaiah Keck established a consistent session of utilizing the pool on QLI’s East Campus. His exercises were plan to engage a myriad of muscle groups. With a rail alongside the edge of the pool, Doug could safely do laps in the pool. Making a couple of swings out and wide before heading back up the steps, ascending them both forwards and backward. Early on a session in September 2024, Doug, who by that point had been at QLI for a few months, started with a light stand-by assist from Isaiah. Jack, observing by the side of the pool, marveled and reflected on how far Doug had come. “Every time we’re up here in the pool,” says Jack, “it’s like we have a measuring stick that we can use to track the progress. When we leave here we’re a firm step ahead than when we came in.” These are the moments too when they reflect on how Doug’s friends and family might view such progress now. When they started in May 2024, Doug had to be lifted by a mechanical device into the pool. Now, he walks in. He walks out.
It’s an all-intensive setup for a morning in September, that also focuses on finding balance, moving through the motions of weight shifting, stretches, and balancing. Later, they transition to working with weights and a boogie board, centralizing work on the core muscles. Then, power jumps. With two
weights in hand, Doug moves into a squat in the water before jumping, springing up and out. Occupational therapist Melissa Faller walks in, amazed at the progress lit in front of her eyes. For the final jaunt out of the pool, Doug stands confidently, hands out and grasping the rails for balance, but pushing himself up and over the steps and into his wheelchair. Throughout the session, he has been his affable and self-deprecating self, but when he finally gets into his powered wheelchair, he bursts into tears, as if the weight of all the little and big moments along the way finally came to a head, hitting him like a lightning bolt.
It isn’t just his progress that Doug will take away, but through it a newfound and affirmed appreciation for life. “It’s a delicate thing,” he simply reflects. When Doug walks out of QLI and heads back home to Pennsylvania, he won’t just be returning to a community and way of living that he missed dearly. He’ll carry the knowledge and experience of someone who weathered adversity with a smile on his face and built bonds with peers and individuals that will transcend the months spent at QLI.
Categories: Client Story, Neuroplasticity, Spinal Cord Injury