Matthew Kurz is on the road to recovery

Matthew Kurz, 20, expertly wheels up in line with the seat of his new exercise machine.

He tries to get his mother’s attention, extending his hand and making a frustrated face until she gets the hint.

With some help and a steadying hand from his mother, Brenda, he gets up out of his wheelchair.

By himself, he turns around and sits down on the seat.

His mother helps strap his feet into the foot beds, and he grabs the handles and gets to work.

Two and a half years after his accident, Kurz continues to improve.

He was injured in a car accident on Jan. 25, 2006, on his way to school in Cole Camp. He suffered a traumatic brain injury when his car hit the back of a stopped school bus.

Each forward step — literally, as Kurz relearns to walk — gives his family hope.

And there are small milestones every day.

“When you have a severe brain injury, it’s like being a little baby again, learning to sit and walk and talk,” his mother said.

He recently started drawing and eating with his right hand, which was affected by the accident. He speaks in sentences and gives directions. He can walk three-quarters of the way around the gym at Our Savior Lutheran Church, as he leans on his mother. Tests revealed he can read and comprehend.

Two years ago, the family feared he would never read. A year ago, it took three people, a strap wrapped around his foot and a walker to get him to walk 300 feet.

“Today, he got off of the (exercise) machine and transferred to his chair, all by himself. All I did was verbal prompting,” Mrs. Kurz said during a session with a personal trainer Tuesday morning.

Tuesday afternoon he’s not very pleased with his exercise. His face shows the effort and concentration it takes to push and pull his arms and legs back and forth, and his resolve.

When asked if he likes working his new exercise machine, he replied, “Not a whole lot,” but said he likes it better than the machines at the gym.

He has improved so much — long after the time brain injury patients typically hit a plateau, about 18 months — that he no longer qualifies for state-paid nursing help.

He still takes two medicines per day, for shaking and muscle spasms, down from the 12 medications he was on after the accident.
“We’ve never plateaued,” his mother said.

The bruises on his brain stem and spinal cord have healed, which has improved his balance.

Regular exercise and physical therapy have helped on his road to recovery. The family recently got an exercise machine for him at home, and his mother said she has seen great improvement since he began to use it.

The family is willing to try supplements, homeopathic remedies and alternative therapies. He attended a camp for people with brain injuries this summer.

The family sings along with him — music was one of the first ways he reached out — and he will soon start to take art lessons again.
Kurz was accepted at Kansas City Art Institute before his accident.

He lights up when he sees his new quilt, made for him by a  friend of his uncle, folded up.

“I want to see it,” he said.

Its bright colors, pieced together, engage what his mother calls “his artistic brain.”

He scans it; he looks at every block.

“Wow, that’s a lot of color,” he said.

When he first saw the quilt, the reaction was the same, said his grandmother, Carol Kurz: he was amazed by it.

Kurz still has a long way to go. The ultimate goal, his mother said, is for him to live independently.

She said doctors did not want to give them a definite prognosis at the beginning, because each brain injury patient recovers differently. The right front temporal area of Kurz’s brain was injured.

“They would always look at you and you could read between the lines,” she said. The family was initially told to consider nursing home care.

With “strong faith, love, and lots of stimuli on this journey,” Kurz has progressed further than many with his type of injury, she said.
“Just because you’re broken with a brain injury, doesn’t mean life doesn’t go on,” she said.