ARTICLE FROM HERALD DEMOCRAT ON JAN 20,2005

board members,staff & friends of the rehabilitation center heard straight from the horse-rider's mouth the inspiring story of a young woman's return to health from paralysis. 
physical therapist MOLLY HARPER introduced CANDICE ROSS, a 23 year old mother & wife, whose horse-riding accident that happened on AUG.18,2004 changed the fabric of her life. 
"as therapist's we will see hundred's of patient's each year & literally thousands throughout our career's." Harper said. " but very few of these people will be engraved in our memorie's. it may be a certain diagnosis or injury, or it may be a particular personality,or it may be someone who so greatly exceeds everyone's expectations that we simply cannot forget them. it is all of these reasons that all of us who work at the center truly admire and will always remember the young lady who is speaking to you tonight."
Ross walked, unassisted & in high heels, to the front of the room, hampered only by a slight limp. 

Fighting through the tears, Ross told how the center had helped her repair her life. she said she was an active mom & wife who enjoyed riding horses when she fell off her horse AUG 18,2004. she said she remembered falling & wakng up in terrible pain, her breath knocked out of her. she couldn't get up. she thought she was dying. she was terrified & tried to hide that terror from her little boy & parents who arrived at the same time the paramedics did.
 I remember praying & coming to . i couldn't move my leg's. local paramedics rushed her to texoma medical center where she was airlifted to Dallas methodist hospital, where she learned she fractured her spine. she underwent surgery to remove fragments of bone & rebuild portions of her spine with wire cage's & her rib bone. 

She & her family learned she had no bone fragment's in her spinal cord, which was good news. however, doctors didn't give her a lot of hope she'd ever walk again & none that she'd ride again. 

with her husband by her side, she was moved from  the Dallas hospital back to sherman,tx. to wilson-in-jone's hospital where she began in-patient rehabilitation. she began to work on her upper body strength and vowed she'd walk before she left the hospital. when she left, she could walk about 60 feet with a walker. it was difficult to get around and she tired easily.

"When i first went to the center, Molly asked me " what my goals were?"
Ross said. " I told them i wanted to walk again & i wanted to ride a horse again. i was using a cane and they started challenging me more and more. I thought, if they can think it up , i'll try it'......  i can't tell you how many times people have walked in and i've been hanging upside down."

The audience laughed with her at the image and again when she said that not only had she learned to walk on her own,without a walker or a cane, but that she also had ridden a horse," but shh-h-h, don't tell my doctors.