‘I can’t believe that it couldn’t happen’

By Pauline Arrillaga

updated 1:02 p.m. ET May 5, 2008

Third of three parts

The trip home was, in every way, bittersweet.

The kids were thrilled, back with friends and the house they had missed so much. They could swim in the privacy of their home in the woods of North Carolina, instead of an apartment pool in California.

John and Marci Pou had hoped, of course, to be returning under different circumstances. But as they had approached their one-year anniversary at Project Walk, they knew something had to give.

Money was too tight, and the children’s emotions seesawed between adjustment out west and their unfinished lives back east, where belongings and even a beloved cat remained.

The couple had pledged to give the exercise therapy program in Carlsbad, Calif., a year — 12 months to see if Project Walk could do anything to undo the effects of the diving accident that shattered the fifth cervical bone of John’s spinal column and left him a quadriplegic.

In December 2006, after his first six months, the Project Walk staff recommended they continue. But John and Marci spent much of the next six months re-examining their motivations for displacing Chase and Kacie and abandoning their lives in Iron Station, N.C., to give this therapy a shot.

They’d known all along that it was a dream. But Marci, especially, believed it a dream worth pursuing.

She had prayed every day for her miracle, that she’d wake one morning and see John standing by the bedside. But when the miracle didn’t come, she began to understand, “I don’t think God works that way. He guides us along a path.”

What, then, was their path?

There had been progress.

A Wish to Walk: Told in a 3-part series Part 1: One man's quest to walk again Advances offer hope for spinal injury patients Part 2: Facing roadblocks when learning to walk Part 3: 'I can 't believe that it couldn't happen'

Like the morning in January when John transferred himself from their bed into his wheelchair, scooting his rear across a board until he was in place. Used to be, Marci had to move him.

Changing idea of success
John had regained enough power to push himself around in a manual chair, dumping the power chair a doctor once predicted would be his fate. His balance had improved to where he could sit upright in an exercise bike without falling, even if a trainer still had to push his legs to get them to pedal.

These were the sort of small miracles that were common at Project Walk. For one man, it was building the strength to dance with his girlfriend. For another, it was being able to drive himself to and from his workouts.

For some, there were major milestones: The day that Donny Clark suddenly picked up his feet without help and shuffled across the workout room with a walker. The day Matt Theide managed 107 steps, a personal best.

The ultimate goal never dies, but the idea of success does change.

Still, were the smaller blessings enough to keep Marci and John, and the kids, going?

When they’d started the therapy, Marci had the sense that she wanted it even more than John did. But something had shifted, she said, revealing her feelings to an Associated Press reporter as she and her husband had done over 18 months of interviews.

At Project Walk, John’s policeman toughness resurfaced. He was a man with a goal again, delivering a full-on workout. As he chitchatted with the trainers, his old smile returned. Watching how other clients progressed fueled his competitiveness.

John’s legs weren’t healed, but his heart was on the mend.

In the end, the decisions weren’t so difficult. But telling the kids would be.

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